I peered out from under an icy blanket at the dawn light creeping over the sandy horizon. A dog was sleeping on my feet to keep warm, and the camel drivers were just lighting a fire, ready to cook us up some more very basic food. I knew that once I had forced myself out into the freezing temperatures and put on my cold boots that one night under the starry skies of the Great Thar Desert would be enough. We were a mixed group of about 12, coming from Brazil, Norw...

This is a beautiful city set on Lake Pichola with several islands, two of them being particularly impressive. I keep bumping into Dave on my travels, a civil engineer from the Midlands, so we did a few of the activities here together - the stroll around the enormous city palace, an excellent evening of Rajashtani folk dancing and music, a visit to the vintage car museum where the last maharaja's old cars are stored, and a boat trip to Jagmandir Island which prett...

I had toyed with the idea of coming to Pushkar straight from Nepal so that I would make it in time for the famous Camel Fair in November. But I wrote that off as it was too far away at the time. And now I've ended up here by accident. When I got to Agra Fort railway station in the early evening I found that my train to Bundi had been cancelled. There were strikes going on all over Rajasthan, so rail services were disrupted. These were the onion strikes by the f...

I couldn't come to India and not take this photograph, could I? And yes it is just as impressive in the flesh (or should I say marble). Not much more I can say really. I am on a flying visit only to Agra, sandwiching it between two sleeper trains, so tomorrow I will wake up in Rajasthan. There are other attractions here, such as Agra Fort, which I visited this afternoon. It's a huge fort, but suffered a lot of damage at the hands of the British when they turned ...

I would vet the photo album for this one before allowing the kids to see it, although you'd be amazed how many families with kids of all ages were being shown the temples by guides who described everything in graphic detail. In case you haven't guessed yet, this is the town where the Kama Sutra was born, in the sandstone temple carvings left by the worshippers of the god Chandra about 1000 years ago. It's a nice little town, and the old town is particularly inte...