hello again... We are both loving India so much! Especially the food and shopping! arrived at our hotel in Jodhpur yesterday after that horrific busride! It's far more basic than the Havelis we have stayed at, but the lack of barking stray dogs outside is a big bonus! Jodhpur is really crazy and there are loads of shops to haggle in (we spent most of yesterday haggling for baby clothes for Jess's niece!) Haggling is actually quite fun when you get into it, and ...

The desert festival last night was really good, we missed the camel race but the dancers, musicians, flame carriers and generally bendy people we saw made up for it. We also met some gujarati university students, they were around the same age as us (twenty of them in total) so they chatted about life in India and asked a million questions... many based on Cricket or Gordon Brown!?! The 10th was spent as a free day and so Sarah and I hit the shops, Sarah spent e...

Yesterday we had an interesting local bus journey to Jaisalmer. We had to get up for a 5.30 am start which nearly killed me and was very very cold! Once we arrived we packed an overnight bag, popped out to some of the 10,000 shops here, and then headed off in jeeps to the desert. On arrival we were each given a camel and camel boy and headed off into the sunset :) Two and a half hours of camel trekking later and we arrived at a very pretty sand dune in the middl...

Another day, another local bus ride...but this one was only 3 hours. Yesterday we reached Bikaner, a much larger town than Mandawa. We were given a tour of the Fort in Bikaner, which is where the Raj of Bikaner used to live. The building was really impressive and had so many ornately decorated rooms, 3 tonne doors and solid silver chairs! Yesterday evening we drove in Jeeps (very very scary experience: the driver spent most of the time on the wrong side of the ...

hi again... hmmm where did we leave off...delhi? delhi was really crazy and cool but we were relieved to be getting away to somewhere quieter. on wednesday we had a SEVEN HOUR BUS JOURNEY on the local bus (no air con, cramped seating, staring,etc). the bus was extremely bumpy and the toilets at the rest stops were GROSS, but the scenery was gorgeous and very green in some places. the local people on the bus were really welcoming and chatted to us, and the kids w...