I'll try to be a little less caustic and cynical today, but can't promise!

We've now been in Rajasthan, "The Land of Kings" for two weeks, and it's been, on the whole, a pleasant if often fraught experience. The bits inbetween all the haggling, begging, fighting through crowds and past cows, being chased by various craftsmen and rickshaw drivers have been quite fun. It's been hot and generally sunny most of this time, and we've only had the odd downpour as the rainy season fizzles out.

I think I left you in Jaipur, which is the capital of Rajasthan, a city of over two million people. After Delhi and Agra - both hugely touristy and highly populated, this actually seemed small and relaxed in comparison. Jaipur's major drawcard is its fort, as is the case in most Rajasthani cities. This one is called Amber, and unsurprisingly it is of a rather orangey hue. We had hired a rickshaw driver for the day to take us round the town and show us the sights - actually quite a good plan in Indian cities, as you get a reasonable deal, don't have to worry about maps or getting lost, and are shown all of the major sights in one day; perhaps a bit of a lazy way of doing things but what the hell. We had seen a few sights like the stunning senotaphs on the edge of town (carved of marble and with some beautiful, intricate detail), Jantar Mantar (a royal residence with bizarre sculptures which were built by Jai Singh, a Moghul king, 300 years ago and is actually one of the world's first observatories), and the palace built within the old walled pink city. Apparently, the locals had painted their houses pink with a kind of red sandstone/water mix in 1870 something when Prince Albert came to visit (later Edward ii) and the tradition has been upheld ever since. How lovely.

It was at Amber Fort that I spotted my second elephant in India - they take tourists up and down the hill for a few hundred rupees. Next to the elephants I spotted a sign - "elephant complaints here please", which I found rather amusing. You would have to be a very pedantic person to complain about an elephant, I would have thought. We walked up past the elephant complaint bureau and up the hill past the palace - swarming with vendors and hawkers of various kinds - and made our way to Jaigarh, an even bigger fortress which stands above it, about a kilometre further on. This took quite a bit of climbing, but the views were tremendous, and inside there were very few tourists. It took some time to clamber round the rather unkempt and ragged grounds, but there was loads to see. The stern fort was topped off by whimsical-hatted lookout towers from which we got a bird's eye view out over the whole valley - which was punctuated by other, smaller, fortresses, butresses, lookout towers and discarded cannons. It gave the impression of a far from peaceful history. We topped off the day with another fantastic feed and a swim in the hotel, followed by a rickshaw to OM tower, the highest building in Jaipur - famous because it has a revolving bar at the top, from which you get to see the whole city while you sip your banana lassi.

The next day we decided to head to Pushkar, another backpacker destination, but this one was apparently smaller-scale, more relaxed, a bit of a goatee-bearded hippie hangout where you could experiment with spirituality, do yoga, find out about hinduism and find your tantric centre. Great!

Hang on...