Hi everyone!

From Agra we took a 'short' 5 hour train ride to India's capital Delhi. On arrival we had great fun in the rickshaw trying to find our hotel. The driver assured us that he knew where our hotel was but of course that was just to get us into the rickshaw! After numerous wrong turns, and witnessing a teenager learning to drive but hitting a wall right in front of us, we eventually made it to the hotel! It was a crazy start to our time in Delhi!

We spent three days there and by the end we both really liked Delhi. The city is divided into the narrow streets and rundown buildings of the old city and the more modern wide streets and big buildings of the new city. Right at the heart of the new city was an area called Connacht Place strangely enough! This was filled with fancy air-conditioned shops which we took full advantage of, spending an afternoon avoiding the heat outside. Later that evening once it had cooled down a bit we took our lives into our hands by deciding to cross a major road, because it led to a lovely green park (an oasis in Delhi's concrete jungle!). Because of India's paranoia about terrorism, especially with elections on at the moment, we had to pass through metal detectors and have our bags checked before getting into the park.

We spent the rest of our time sight-seeing, including a visit to the largest mosque in India (holds 25,000 people) and a really cool museum about Gandhi located at the site of his assassination. Linda was not impressed at the mosque however, when a gruff man handed her what looked like a flowery bright orange tent and informed her that she could only go into the mosque if she wore it. This was despite that fact that Linda had already dressed appropriately, covering all skin including a scarf to cover her head. Every white woman going in had to wear the same thing and let's just say they weren't exactly flattering.

Pushkar was our next destination and our first stop in the state of Rajasthan. Pushkar is well known among Hindus as a religious pilgrimage sight. Thousands of pilgrims flock here every year to bathe in the sacred waters of Pushkar Lake and it is also famous as being the lake where Gandhi's ashes were sprinkled. The lake was a little less grand when we visited however because Rajasthan is extremely dry at the moment and the water level was so low that we could see people walking right across the lake. It was a small town with a relaxed atmosphere and a really cool place to spend a couple of days.

Two more long train journeys brought us to a town called Jodhpur first, followed by the desert town of Jaisalmer. Jodphur didn't have much to it apart from a nice fort. The Lonely Planet raved about this fort and its excellent audio guided tour. The book forgot to mention however that a deposit of our passports or 4000 rupees was required to get the audio gadgets. We don't tend to carry that with us on a normal day so we trudged into the fort guideless and tried to make out what was going on in there. 3 minutes later we realised that this was pointless and we went back to the desk to plead our case about how honest we were and how we deserved to be given the headphones! Eventually, after getting the manager out to bargain with us further, they accepted our phones as a deposit. As if we were going to run away with an audio headset from a random fort in India!!

Being in Jaisalmer was a bit like being slow roasted in an oven.....baking hot!! It averaged between 45 and 50 degrees each day so the afternoons were spent in shade or in air conditioned rooms! The main lure of Jaisalmer is the opportunity to go into the desert on the back of a camel. We met our camel driver Baba, our camels Maria and Papaya and headed off into the wilderness with them. Three hours later and with worryingly (we still had 5 hours more riding to go) sore legs and bums we stopped at a random bush where we cooked up a bit of curry and bread for lunch and relaxed in the shade during the hottest part of the day. Reluctantly I mounted Papaya again after lunch and we set off for pastures new. By about 6 pm golden sand dunes came into view and the excruciating pain in my rear end almost seemed worthwhile! The camel driver got to work on dinner while we played in the sand taking lots of photos and enjoying a lovely sunset. Baba then cracked open a few cold beers (delivered from a local village) over dinner and we set up our beds for a night of star gazing. It was pretty cloudy, and we encountered a wee bit of a sand storm so the stars weren't exactly sparkling. The sand blowing everywhere didn't make it easy to sleep either so we wrapped our turbans around our faces and eventually nodded off. It was an amazing experience to sleep in such an isolated and beautiful setting, made even more unique by the fact that we could see the lights of the Pakistan border in the distance (about 50 km away). Linda was a bit paranoid that we would wake up surrounded by the taliban the next morning! Fortunately nothing as dramatic as that happened and we got back to our hotel safely the next afternoon. Our bums are still recovering!!

We are currently in Jaipur, The Pink City. We came here from Jaisalmer and it is our last stop in Rajasthan before flying to the south of India. The Pink City is so called because many of its buildings are built from pink sandstone and also in the 1800s when the King of England visited, the city dressed all in pink to welcome him. The most famous sight here is the Hawa Mahal, a 5-storey building built by the Maharaja in the 1700s to house all of his wives and mistresses. The women were not really allowed to leave the Mahal unless absolutely necessary, to prevent men other than the king seeing them. Even the windows were designed with small openings to allow the women to look out but to make it very hard for anyone to see in!

Tonight we are going to what is supposed to be the most famous cinema in Asia, the Raj Mandir. We're not sure exactly why it's famous yet but apparently it's really beautiful inside so it'll be interesting to see! The film we are going to is a big Bollywood blockbuster and will be in Hindi so it should be fun.

Tomorrow we are flying to Goa on the south west coast for a well deserved rest on the beach. You might think we are sick of beaches at this stage but after a hectic month in Nepal and India we definitely need some serious chill out time!! It's also only 35 degrees down there so we're looking forward to cooling down a bit (never thought we would ever class 35 degrees as cool!).

Oh there's a replay of Chelsea Arsenal on the tv just now, better go!

Hope all is good and ye're enjoying the lovely weather. We hope it lasts for the whole summer!!

Love

Ger and Linda