Now if there was one country out of this whole crazy adventure I was quite excited about touching down in then it was India. A country whose culture we see, hear and taste constantly here in New Zealand. And a nation that not matter how much you try and mentally prepare yourself for, you can't! It's a crazy, crazy place, and I mean that in the best possible way. Arriving after a few different connecting flights in New Dehli, by now our merry band of three was rather wearly, and not having the appropriate documentation that customs required for our gear (we DID have the documentation) was kinda stressful. But as we quickly learnt in India, $100 US dollars slipped into the hand of an official can get you through almost any situation (which is kinda freaky when you think about it, but hey we were more than cool with this lack of morals on this occasion). Had a brief sleep in Dehli and it was up again to catch a flight to Varanasi, one of the most incredible cities I've had the pleasure of visiting in my life. Right on the banks of the Ganges river, Varanasi is the holiest city for the Hindus, and one of the most spectacular sights you'll witness in your life is early mornings here by the river. Every day hundreds of millions of Hindus get up for their daily bath, which is on one hand such an incredibly spiritual experience just to witness, but on the other hand pretty disturbing to watch people young and old washing their clothes, brushing their teeth and generally cleaning all parts of themselves in what is such an incredibly polluted river. After soaking up the sights and sounds of this daily ritual, we were off to meet one of the most legendary practitioners of music here in Varanasi. Vikash Maharaj, who alongside his son Prabash Maharaj represent the 14th and 15th generation of musicians in his family line. We were meeting him so that he could lend some of his incredible Sarod playing and his son some of his Tabla playing to what would go on to be an Indian reinterpretation of Bic Runga's 'Sway'. The idea for India was a little different from other episodes in that rather than a straight cover, we were collecting instrumentation in each city we visited that would by the end of it be a very fruity, full-flavoured version of this kiwi classic. The location was one of Varanasi's many temples (this one was the holiest of temples for the Kabirpanthi faith), and the father and son combo laid down some very very enchanting foundations for our track. If you ever make it to Varanasi, my recommendation is to try and make it for the Ganga Ati, which is a woship of the holy river that takes place at night, incredible stuff and certainly is the full sensory experience. But just one piece of advice - bring some mozzie repellent! The next day and it was off to Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu. Chennai is home to the 2nd biggest film industry in India (the biggest being of course Bollywood), and it was at the studios of the most infamous music producer in India - A R Rahman (the guy has sold well over 100 million CD's!!!) that we would find our next collaborator. A man named Kumar, who is one of India's top percussionist's. Being responsible for some of the rhythm's on MIA's critically acclaimed album 'Kala'. Needless to say the studio we visited was pretty flash, and Kumar was more than happy to drum out some of his award winning beat-tastic flair on our kiwi cover. Unfortunatly for us our Indian adventure was so so limited, and thus most destinations we only had two days if that in, so I can't even tell you that much about Chennai. Aside from frequenting a very flash studio, we pretty much spent the rest of the time either a: stuck in traffic or b: exhausted back at the hotel after a very very long day of shooting. One thing I can tell you though, is that Kingfisher Airlines is a very cool airline - well impressed. Another cross-country flight later and we arrived in Mumbai which is home to the Bollywood film industry, and basically all the glitz and glamour of this incredibly vibrant nation. The task for Mumbai was too track down a vocalist to perform vocals for our track and a producer to put all of the parts together. On top of that, just to spice things up, the plan was to have the whole thing finished off with a bollywood dance routine at a scenic location, sounds pretty fruity I'm sure, but hey - they do call this city the city of dreams so why not aim high? It's a city of complete contrasts is Mumbai, you'll see homeless beggars next to multi million dollar apartment complexes, an army of cheap motorbikes battling it out for road supremacy alongside fancy European imports, and it is quite possibly one of the most intense cities in India. Our first stop was meeting with kiwi Sindhura Gadde. Back in NZ she started a career in modelling ad tv presenting, then a few years back thought she'd try her luck in India and next thing you know she becomes Miss World India. She's not only incredibly beautiful, but an incredibly incredibly amazing, talented, and above all else friendly girl. Any kind of positive adjective you could through in there applys to Sindy. Sindy's now making the move into Bollywood films, and her big screen debut aired just a month before we arrived. She's our link to Shibani Kashyap, who is one of the most famous playback singers in Bollywood. A playback singer is the artist who does the singing of the songs in Bollywood films, which s then lip-synced by the stars on screen, and not only that but it seems that in Bollywood the majority of artists don't even use their own voice in dialogue! It's a crazy, crazy industry is Bollywood. We met Shibani at one of Mumbai's various all hours studios, who translated Bic Runga's vocals into Hindi and laid down the vocals. Then we took al the parts that we'd picked up on the journey and handed them to her producer Aggi Fernandez who worked some magic on it and turned out a great rendition of one of Bic's biggest hit's of all. The next day and it was off to Mumbai beach where we had a choreographer taking his dancers through a dance routine that we would shoot for the final performance. I gotta say it was certainly one of the most surreal experiences of my life being down on a beach in India and seeing a 12 piece Bollywood dance troupe perform a routine to an Indian version of one of NZ's best loved classics. It was along day at the beach, and after spending the last week roughing it a little bit, we spent the night at a club called Enigma in the JW Marriot, some kind of Bollywood elite bash, which was really really not our cuppa. But hey, was worth the experience….