"Jaipur, The City of Victory, is chaotic and congested, though it still has a habit of tickling travellers pink."Nice pun Lonely Planet (maybe a tad cliched). But I just don't get why Jaipur is called the 'Pink City'. Will someone explain this to me? It's really more of an orange! Colour aside, The city has a rich royal past and is full of hilltop forts and palaces.David's favourite: Jantar Mantar, an observatory, which resembles a collection ...

Ravindranath Tagore described it as 'a teardrop on the cheek of eternity', Rudyard Kipling as 'the embodiment of all things pure', while its creator, Emperor Shah Jahan, said it made 'the sun and the moon shed tears from their eyes'.Maybe I'm a cynic, but when something becomes as iconic as the Taj Mahal, I just don't buy it. I instinctively lower my expectations; choosing to assume that the masses are getting over excited about th...

The last thing I expected to be doing in Allahabad was singing for my supper. Staying with Ivan and his wife, Purnima, at their fabulous homestay, offered us a window into a rarely seen side of Indian culture. As well as cooking for us and taking us for pista kulfi (a pistachio-flavoured sweet similar to ice cream), they regaled us with stories of their lives.Every community has a centre, a heart. This historic home, pushing 90 years old, is undoubtably that. The...

Nothing's forgotten... ... nothing is ever forgotten.*Including, it would seem, the true art of archery. Forget your carbon-fibre bows, your counter weights and your sights; the true art of archery is firing an accurate stream of arrows at a man-sized target, in rapid succession. This is the way they still do it in Shillong.We've just had the pleasure of watching a unique local 'sport' that doubles as a system of local lottery: Sita Khnam involves...

When asked to share his thoughts about seeing Rhinos, David offers: "they're big". A slight disservice, I'd say....They're friggin huge! And stack one-on-top-of-another they form the most colossal road block I've ever seen!! It was amazing actually: we're being driven down this dirt track and I'm trying to puzzle out the enormous silhouette in front of us, as our guide gets really excited. Apparently, catching Rhinos mating is really rare....