DAY 19 - JAISALMER

We spent the morning packing our things and enjoying our last morning of relaxation before catching the 19 hour train to Delhi. We got two bunks at the side of the carriage which suited us perfectly and listened to music, chatted and read as the afternoon dragged on. On the whole, however, the journey was relatively painless and we found ourselves somewhat accustomed to the trains, managing to pass the time leisurely and get some sleep when night fell upon us. As we pulled into one particular station at about 11 in the evening, a young beggar approached our window asking for food, hungrily eyeing the meals that we were eating at the time. The train remained at the station for a while and, upon finishing our dinner, we decided to give the leftovers to the boy, sating his hunger whilst at the same time getting rid of unwanted food containers. His face lit up as I leant out of the carriage to pass him the food, his smile filled with an innocent glee that I couldn't help but feel would vanish when the dim reality of his situation would set in as he approached adulthood. It's a predicament that countless children across India will have to deal with for the rest of their lives - a very tragic fact - completely contradicting the modern, prosperous, progressive India that the billboards and television present. It's another juxtaposition which simultaneously highlights the deep cracks in the country, but also, in a sense, seems to add to its romance.

DAY 20 - DELHI/CHANDIGARH

I awoke on the rattling train after a pretty good night's sleep and got my things together in time for our arrival at Delhi at around 11am. Once there, we trawled the familiar streets, ignoring touts and rickshaw drivers, and made our way to the bustling Connaught Place in search of some food and a speaker for our iPods (something we desperately wanted to acquire before we reached the Himalayas). We eventually found one in an official retail chain and decided that it was worth paying the extra money in order to get a speaker that would last us our entire trip. We then had lunch in a novelty British-style restaurant called Piccadelhi, enjoying the statues of Churchill, Sherlock Holmes and John Lennon amongst others dotted around the interior, overlooked by a huge full-scale routemaster bus which appeared to be crashing through one of the restaurant's walls. It also had four different open kitchens spread around the site - 'Southall' for Indian food, 'Soho' for Chinese, 'Little Venice' for Italian and 'Victoria' for desserts. Once full, we made our way to New Delhi station and embarked on the second leg of our journey - a four hour train ride to the modern city of Chandigarh, constructed after Indian independance. We arrived in the evening and, after viewing the towns cheapest hostel (a pretty dire affair), made our way through the town's unusual geometric 'sectors' to the much more acceptable Satyadeep Hostel. After grabbing a meal in a nearby food hall, we crashed out in our room and got some much-needed rest.

DAY 21 - CHANDIGARH

We were to have one full day in Chadigarh before moving on to the Himalayan town of Shimla and we decided to spend a large section of it visiting the city's infamous Rock Gardens, claimed to be India's second most popular attraction after the Taj Mahal. We caught a cycle rickshaw there which slugged along at a brisk walking pace and, after taking a detour past the pleasant Rose Gardens following a brief misunderstanding, arrived at the site at about 11. The gardens were fantastic (and a bargain with an entrance fee of about 15p), a mix of abstract sculpture (created from recycled materials) and interlinking water features, devolped over 40 years after Nek Chand, an ex-transport official, began creating the gardens in a forbidden area of land in around 1957 whilst the city was being redesigned as a 'modern utopia' by the Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. Le Corbusier's interesting architecture is present throughout the city in various public buildings, though I think the word 'utopia' is a bit strong, despite the area being much cleaner and generally more pleasant and green than the other Indian cities that I have seen. It does stand, however, as an example of the modern India that has been slowly emerging since the country's independance, fulfilling the purpose that it was founded upon. We got some food and played cards in the Rock Garden's central hang-out spot as the day wore on before eventually getting a rickshaw back to our hostel just before the site closed at 5.30. We bought a nice bottle of very cheap rum and spent the evening planning our route through the Himalayas over a few rum and cokes before getting an evening snack at a restaurant.