The Africa of our imaginations

As we drove through Zambia and Malawi, the picture of Africa we held in our heads came to life across the countryside. Small thatched mud or brick houses replaced the simple Western styled houses of Namibia and Botswana. Basic old fashioned looking towns became dirt streeted villages with a few shops and even capital cities felt like large towns with no high rises in view.

Adverts often lack the hype we've grown used to in the West. An internet provider promoted itself as "probably, the fastest internet connection in Africa" while Jaba Tea simply claimed "It's good, it's strong."

The comparative underdevelopment as we head east tends to stem from corruption and poverty. In Malawi many people live on $1 a day, which in local prices barely buys the plain necessities of life. Contrary to what we might expect, most people seem happy here. I haven't felt bad for being a rich tourist, rather I've been pleased to be able to give my business to locals. The handfuls of people who normally wave at our truck as we travel have become scores of smiling faces and children running to welcome us, which makes traveling in these areas very pleasant.

Day 94 to 97: Being refined in Livingstone - golf and high tea with "locals"

Our first four days in Zambia were spent enjoying creature comforts. Michael and I ditched our tents for a waterfront room on the Zambesi and a group of us headed out to the Livingstone Golf Club for the morning. We teamed up with Cho and Moon, who proved to be excellent first-time golfers. As a treat we hired caddies for a very reasonable price and enjoyed their expert advice and bag carrying service. After seven holes it was getting very hot and cold drinks at the clubhouse was becoming rather enticing, so we called it a day.

Comforts continued with a small group of us taking high tea at the Royal Livingstone, a very posh colonial-style hotel. Decadent amounts of delicious food were polished off, with a refreshing swim in the pristine pool and cocktails on the riverfront deck to conclude. Cheeky monkeys swooped onto our table to steal snacks and wrestle with Tanith for her cocktail. Tanith having successfully saved her cocktail, we farewelled the high life and were pleasantly surprised to encounter giraffe and zebra crossing the hotel driveway as we left.

While in Livingstone we of course visited Victoria Falls, Livingstone's star attraction. We were blown away by the power and immensity of the falls. Lax health and safety regulations let us get as close as we liked to the waters edge at the top of the falls and we watched one crazy adventurer paddle his body board scarily near the lip of the falls. The ways you could die by going over the falls were varied and gruesome, so none of us were tempted to take a dip for ourselves. The spray from the falls was pretty much torrential rain, so we emerged saturated from the viewing walk, with the exception of Cho and Moon who had their own incredibly waterproof ponchos (you could hire ponchos or wear a jacket, but the water still poured in any gap).

The adventure seekers in our group chose to bungy jump from a bridge over the Zambesi river near the falls. We enjoyed spurring them on, but I thought the jumps looked so terrifying I decided I'd be quite content to never bungy jump!

Livingstone was the departure point for most of our group, so we celebrated Bree and Cho's birthdays at a local Indian restaurant and enjoyed a laid back pizza night before saying our goodbyes. Four group members were leaving to continue their own travels, eight were joining another group heading to Johannesburg, leaving Michael, Bree, Satoshi and I continuing up to Nairobi. We had expected at least a few people, if not lots, to join the tour at Livingstone, but the only addition was a trainee called Arnold, giving us nearly as many crew as tour members. As we pulled out of Livingstone to start a new leg of the tour, the truck felt empty and a little lonely with so few of us on board. Still, we figured the next 21 days would give us time to adjust and come to appreciate the benefits of being a smaller group.

Day 92 to 93: Hungry hungry hippos

After a much anticipated punch night, featuring the cooler bin filled with a potent "fruit" punch (mostly alcohol) and punch-fuelled crazy antics, a 6am departure saw our truck populated with many subdued sleeping forms. Botswana's flat landscape was expected to be great for sleeping through, though several interruptions to see giraffes and elephants walking and drinking along the roadside were accepted.

Our destination was Chobe National Park, where the elephant population of 64,000 gave very good odds for seeing at least an elephant or two. An early morning game drive was an awesome experience. We saw hippos lumbering along the road, as well as lazing in the water. It was fascinating to see such a huge creature trot along at some speed.

A rare treat was seeing two prides of lions with cubs at very close range. The cubs were very cute and we enjoyed seeing their rough and tumble play. One pride had killed a kudu (a type of antelope) and we watched as herons edged closer and closer to the kill, until the lion leapt up and chased them off.

The park was rich in other wildlife, with impala, monkeys, elephants and warthogs crossing our path. We revisited the animals on a sunset cruise where we saw baby elephants swimming and chasing monkeys and male elephants locking horns in a fight.

Day 90 to 91: Mokoro journey to the delta

Narrow canoes carried us along reed-lined waters to the world's largest delta: the Okovango Delta. After being poled along for a couple of hours on a peaceful and increasingly hot journey, we made camp in a tree-studded clearing, with Haggis enthusiastically digging us a toilet nearby.

In the hot afternoon we headed to a safe swimming spot, guided by our polers, local Botswanians who grew up in the delta area. A fun hour was spent watching people try to pole the mokoros, with often hilarious results. The soft silty sand of the delta quickly became fuel for a mud war, with the boys specialising in drying balls of sand until they formed solid ammunition. Michael landed a couple of unintentionally destructive blows, with Tanith copping it on the face and Satoshi receiving a strong shot to a tender area. We finished our delta evening with s'mores by the campfire, drinking games and the tunes of Toto's "Africa."

The following morning we weren't lucky enough to spot game on an early walk, though we met interesting insects, tiny frogs and saw plenty of evidence that animals had been active before we got there. Our mokoros brought us out of the delta and 10 of us took a scenic flight to view the delta from a different perspective. From the air we could really appreciate the size of the delta and we enjoyed seeing lots of elephants, giraffes, hippos and buffalo.

Day 88 to 89: Walking with bushmen in the Kalahari Desert

A 480km drive and a border crossing brought us to Ghanzi, Botswana, where we stayed in a peaceful campsite surrounded by the Kalahari Desert. Most of us opted to upgrade from our tents to tiny straw huts for a more local experience.

The campsite supports a number of bushmen people who are expert hunters and live off the land. In Namibia bushmen used to be regarded as animals and it was legal to shoot them. Their way of life may not exist in 50 years, so it was a privilege to have a small group of bushmen lead us on a desert walk. Dressed in animal skins and carrying sticks and arrows, they demonstrated amazing knowledge of desert survival. As we walked they would start digging in the desert grasses and uproot medicinal or edible plants. We watched them build a fire from scratch and saw how they carry water in ostrich eggs to keep it fresh in the heat.

Our evening drew to a close with Michael, Leteloi, Satoshi and I relaxing around the campfire enjoying the quiet of a desert night.

Day 80 to 87: Green grass in the red hot Namibian desert

Plants and mountains covered in greenery aren't typical images of Namibia. Much of the country is desert where very little grows, but our visit coincided with the highest rainfall in many years. Rivers and pools had formed where the land had been parched. Even when we visited Sosussvlei (meaning Dead Lake) the lake had reformed.

The rainfall brought its challenges - over the week we encountered two other overlanding trucks who got stuck in the mud, but we were fortunate and managed to get through.

The week's adventures include:

Rising at 4:30am to climb Dune 45

With sand dunes stretching into the distance we watched the sun rise and climbed down to discover a proper fry up breakfast waiting for us, thanks to Emma and Letaloi.

Looking out for wildlife as we travel from place to place

Michael and I have spotted oryx, springbok, zebra, warthogs, jackals and even a couple of giraffe who had been imported to Namibia.

An evening's mad dash to cross a bridge before the river flooded

With party music blaring and a fantastic storm crashing around us, we raced against the rain and arrived in time to safely cross, saving ourselves an additional 600km drive the next day. Once we were out of the storm zone we found a clearing near the road and set out mattresses to camp under the stars and see a beautiful sunrise the next morning.

Quad biking on the dunes of Swakopmund

A fun couple of hours was spent speeding around the dunes, though disappointingly, there wasn't the option to do more adventurous moves as we had expected.

Watching tens of thousands of seals and their cute pups waddle and splash about

Unfortunately the seals stank - strong "wet dog" smell with a little something extra to really turn the stomach. While the hardier among us "adjusted" to the stench, Michael and I fought the gag reflex and were not ashamed to walk about with tissues stuffed in our nostrils!

Lions and giraffes in Etosha National Park

Letaloi's sharp eyes spotted a brownish object under a tree - which Michael's zoom showed in detail to be a strong male lion and his mate. We watched the male get up and walk a little, and although they weren't as close as we would have liked, we were fortunate to see them, as we spoke with a local who had never seen a lion in Etosha. We also really enjoyed seeing a number of giraffe up close, including some youngsters.

Seeing dramatic mountains and rocky plateaus formed from magma in Spitzkoppe

Wandering in Windhoek

Upon arrival in Namibia's capital city, our truck was greeted by an assortment of intriguing characters - newspaper sellers, blind people with paper sheets telling their story, keyring sellers, and a young man who claimed his brother had just been hit by a car and he needed money to get to hospital. Feeling "welcomed" we strolled around central Windhoek, finding it very similar to Hamilton, our hometown in New Zealand. A similar collection of modern and dated buildings, with nice enough streets to wander and no real standout "sights."

Eating delicious game at Joe's Beerhouse, Windhoek

After much recommendation, Joe's Beerhouse delivered the goods - my zebra fillet was succulent and peppery while Michael enjoyed flavoursome oryx.

Life as an overlander

For those of you who are wondering about day to day life on our camping trip, here's a quick overview.

Campsites are generally very pleasant spots and often have pools which is very welcome in the mid to high 30's heat. We usually leave camp around 7am to avoid driving in the heat of the day, so that means tents packed in the dark and breakfast around 6am. This is rather different from our usual style, so we're still struggling to transform ourselves into lively morning people! Mornings can be very busy to meet the departure schedule and sometimes it feels like we need to leave the moment we've finished breakfast, which isn't something we particularly enjoy. Later in the day we often have blocks of time to chill out and swim, so the morning rush does balance out with downtime later.

Most of our group like drinking and partying until late, so we're a little different in our enjoyment of a few drinks before heading to bed early to cope with the early starts. It would be nice to socialise more with the group, but our "old" bodies need their beauty sleep! The atmosphere in our group is great - everyone is happy to pitch in to make camp life enjoyable and there's a real acceptance of everyone as they are.

Most days we pack up and move on, with an average drive being four hours and a few long driving days of eight hours or so. Roads are generally on the bumpy side and in Botswana they are unfenced, so we make frequent stops while horses, donkeys and cows slowly saunter off the road. Shashe (our truck) is comfortable, with padded seats, some tables, glass windows, lockers, a freezer, charging stations and an iPod jack. In early mornings or as the day gets hotter it's easy to catch up on missed sleep as the truck rocks along.

We work as a team to take care of all the practicalities of camping, with rosters for cooking, truck packing and cleaning. Emma and Letaloi are wonderful - often we'll return from a bushwalk or other activity to find they have kindly cooked dinner for us. We also learn a lot by asking them about things we see along the way. Letaloi is from the Masai Mara in Kenya and we've enjoyed chatting with him and learning about his life.

Day 77 to 79: Rooibus and braais

A hot afternoon's drive from the Cape area brought us to a peaceful campsite with beautiful views of the Cederberg mountain range and rooibus fields. We relaxed with a wine tasting which included a flavoursome rooibus-infused vermouth and tucked into a delicious braai (BBQ) cooked by the camp owners.

The next morning we set off on a ~550km drive to the Namibian border, where we cleared customs in the scorching heat. Crossing the Orange River brought us into Namibia. Heavy rainfall had swollen the river so much that our planned campsite was several metres underwater, so our "change of plan" campsite was a few minutes away on higher ground. Some waterfront bungalows were flooded, but our tenting area was fine and Leteloi had kindly pitched our tents for us. The afternoon was spent relaxing by the huge pool, which was an interesting shade of green (probably due to all the rain) and had some friendly bugs in the murky depths. Still, it made a welcome relief from the mid 30's heat which was wilting us all. Another tasty braai (cooked by us now that we had our truck and proper equipment) and birthday cake were a fitting end to my 28th birthday.

Our next destination was the Fish River Canyon, the world's second largest canyon (after the Grand Canyon). The absence of health and safety regulations let us get as close as we liked to the edge. We dined canyonside and enjoyed seeing a large black and orange scorpion beside the truck.

Day 77: District Six and the townships

In Cape Town our truck tour group visited District Six, where the apartheid system saw black and coloured people cleared from their homes and forced into designated areas, called townships. All the buildings in District Six had been razed except the religious institutions which were spared in a tactical move by the apartheid government. A mall area of new flats were slowly being built for those who wanted to return to their old neighbourhood, but most people were reluctant to leave the communities that had formed in the townships. Looking around us it was understandable, as District Six was still largely empty, despite its proximity to the city.

We were given guided tours of two townships in the Cape area, where we were greeted with friendliness and visited a local beer making business. We sampled sourdough beer in the traditional manner - fresh beer was poured into a steel bucket which we passed around the group. Definitely an acquired taste!

The townships mostly had very small houses built wall to wall, with some hostel buildings and the occasional shipping container acting as a shop. Living conditions had much improved from the apartheid era and we saw the extent of these changes when we visited a hostel. Standing in the lounge/dining area of a six bedroom hostel "house" we learned that the houses had been designed to accommodate 18 men, with three beds per room and a single toilet and shower. At one point the men's families had joined, making for about 96 people per house. Considering that the 14 of us felt cramped and a little invasive as we squashed into the lounge, conditions must have been horrendous for the families who had to live here. In response, some families built shelters beside the township boundaries, where many people still live with no running water or electricity. Directly beside these shacks the apartheid government built spacious brick houses in view of the main highway, to give foreign visitors a good impression of the townships.

When we visited the shacks a group of children welcomed us with amazing trust and enthusiasm. A small hand slipped into mine and Michael and I walked with a beaming child between us. Children were being piggy backed and flipped into the air by our other group members. Apparently young children struggle to recognise white people as individuals, so it's likely they thought we were their friends returning from an earlier visit. This probably explains their exuberance, but it was still a special experience.

Day 76 to 77: All aboard!

From Cape Town we joined a 41 day truck tour, led by Emma and Leteloi, who will take us on a seven country journey of 13,800km, finishing up in Nairobi, Kenya. Our tour group seemed a good bunch, with the 14 of us hailing mostly from the UK, and one girl from Australia, a guy from Japan, and three South Koreans. Only four of us were heading all the way to Nairobi, with most leaving the tour at Livingstone, Zambia, where we'd pick up new members. Michael and I were looking forward to seeing the different landscapes and learning about African cultures, but after a month of enjoying comfortable mid-range hotels in India, we felt a bit soft and weren't overly enthused at the prospect of living out of a tent for the next 6 weeks. We were pleased to hear there were opportunities to upgrade to rooms at various points on the trip and decided we'd take the easier route where we could!

Africa often requires a change of plan and our journey began with such a change. South African authorities had recently decided to no longer allow foreign-registered vehicles with passengers to cross to Namibia, so instead of climbing aboard Shashe, the truck that would be our home for the next 41 days, we had a temporary truck until Namibia, where Leteloi and Shashe were waiting for us.

Day 72 to 76: The tablecloth on the mountain

We arrived in Cape Town in time to see the rushing cloud known as "the tablecloth" covering the top of Table Mountain. I initially thought a big storm was on its way into the city, but soon saw that although the cloud looked like it was about to spill over and flood the city, some weather phenomenon kept it from spreading.

Highlights of our time in Cape Town include:

Visiting beautiful wine regions
We took a day tour around Stellenbosch, Franschhoek and Paarl, with the stunning Cederberg mountain range in the backdrop. Pleasantly we were the only people on the tour, along with a friend of the tour leader, so we enjoyed a more personal tour than usual. The first winery of the day had a delicious fortified port-style wine for only £4.75, so we decided it would be a good evening tipple for our upcoming truck tour. At the last (and most expensive) winery of the tour we found the first Pinotage that we really liked, along with other delicious wines, but we kept our wallets closed.

Exploring the Cape area
A half-day tour took us around the beautiful beaches along the coast, to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope, the southwestern-most point of Africa.

Wandering in the city and seeing colonial-era architecture
We found Cape Town to be a very pleasant city and we enjoyed strolling around the city and the waterfront and savouring delicious food at cafes and restaurants.

Day 69 to 71: Do Buy in Dubai

Spending money and showing off how much money you have seems to be the main activity in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, these crazy cities surrounded by desert where fancy shopping malls house ice-skating rinks and indoor ski fields. We stopped by for a weekend to visit our friend Teresa who is an old workmate of Michael's from his Genesis days in Hamilton. Teresa has lived in Abu Dhabi for 3 years and we enjoyed being shown around and lunching at tasty restaurants and enjoying coffee at the opulent Emirates palace.

Day 65 to 68: Goodbye India

Mumbai was our final destination and like much of India, it surprised us. We roughly expected it to be a steamier, bigger, dirtier and more polluted version of Delhi. Central Mumbai was in fact very clean, with wide streets and a lovely waterfront along Marine Drive. Around the Fort area the buildings from British-rule days made the city feel similar to London or European cities. At times we did come across choking rotting fish smells which reoriented us, but most of the time there was no rubbish or unpleasant smells. We were in town for Republic Day, celebrating independance from British rule and we enjoyed seeing dozens of holiday cricket games in play at the Maidan Oval park. We joined tons of locals and Indian tourists to see temple cave carvings at Elephanta Island and spent our last evening in India strolling along Chowpatty Beach, where families enjoyed the holiday with toss-the-hoop games and snacks from street vendors.

Leaving India after 4 weeks is strange and a little sad. Random things we'll miss include:

Constant attention

Everyone wanted to welcome us to India and although the fact that we stood out made us uncomfortable initially, we came to realise that 99% of people stared at us because they were curious and interested, and if you are curious and interested in something why wouldn't you stare? We've visited monuments where other Indian tourist seem more interested in us than the sight they've come to see, so we've granted requests and posed in many holiday pictures. We've been filmed walking along the beach and the most memorable question would have to be "why is your skin pink and white?" asked of myself and Laurain, the Dutch girl on our Kathmandu to Delhi tour.

Dated Celine Dion sounds

After hearing the Titanic themesong play in a number of restaurants/cafes and even have someone walk along singing it behind us, we may not exactly pine for "My Heart Will Go On" but it was an amusing blast from the past that seemed to follow us around

Chai wallahs and masala chai

By far our favourite drink was masala tea and it was available absolutely everywhere..many a train journey was made more enjoyable by a cup (or few!) of cardamom-spiced chai

Friendly people

We met some wonderful people who helped make our time in India outstanding. Our driver Vidu in Kerala and Bhupendra, our tour leader for Kathmandu to Delhi humbled us by the gentle way they served us and made our enjoyment their priority. So many people just wanted to greet us and find out how we were enjoying our time in their country. In our last week in India I realised how often I smiled with my whole face in response to those who smiled at me and how welcomed I felt.

From Mumbai we fly to Dubai, where we'll spend the weekend in and around Abu Dhabi visiting our friend Teresa.

Day 56 to 64: Cruising Kerala in the Ambassador

Tropical temperatures and sunshine welcomed us to south India. Our first stop was Bangalore, the IT capital of India. It's not exactly a tourist mecca, but we'd planned to visit a childhood friend of mine who was unfortunately called away at late notice. We'd treated ourselves to a fancy hotel for the weekend so we decided to take things easy, plan our travels for the next week and enjoy the free wifi. Michael's stomach was not enjoying Indian food at that point, so it was good to get in a bit of rest.

We flew from Bangalore to Kochi, where we hired a driver and car for four days (our vehicle turned out to be the stereotypical Indian car, the Ambassador, which made for a stylish ride). Our driver Vidu was a lovely Indian man who really enjoyed driving people around and seeing them enjoy their time in Kerala, so it was a real pleasure to have him introduce us to the region.

We visited Munnar, where vividly green tea plantations spread across the hillsides. A walk high in the national park introduced us to plenty of friendly mountain goats which can only be found in Kerala. Our hillside accommodation near Munnar served up one of the most delicious Indian feasts we experienced on our trip.

Thekkady was our next destination, where we took a jeep safari into Periyar National Park and spotted monkeys and huge squirrels. We hiked for a few hours, but despite our guide's best efforts, the elephants remained in hiding.

A pleasant four hour drive brought us to Alleppey, where we farewelled our driver Vidu and boarded a houseboat for a relaxed overnight trip along the backwaters - miles of peaceful palm-lined waterways, with houses and villages dotted alongside. We stayed an additional day in the town area of Aleppey and enjoyed an autorickshaw trip to a beautiful palm covered beach about 15km away. We went for a big walk around Alleppey, where many locals greeted us with obvious curiosity and pleasure. It seemed that few white tourists spent time in Alleppey town once they had finished their houseboat trip.

We finished our time in Kerala with a very laid-back stay in the small fishing town of Fort Kochi, where we wandered sleepy streets on Sunday morning, pursued by autorickshaw drivers trying sell trips to spice markets - the main selling point being that "business is very slow on Sundays."

Our week in Kerala was very rewarding and we were glad we'd changed plans to include it - we had originally planned to visit Goa, but it sounded like we'd enjoy Kerala more than Goa's beach and foreign tourist scene. Kerala was certainly well visited, but the majority of the tourists were Indian. With the world's first democratically elected communist government and a 100% literacy rate, Kerala seemed to have greater equality than most other places we'd visited in India and we didn't see anybody living on the streets, which was very different from the poverty in the North.

Day 42 to 55: (Not) as calm as a hindu cow

Two weeks into our Indian experience and certain things have become our new normal. Vibrant activity, sharing roads with cars, rickshaws, tuk tuks, cows, goats, dogs, and the occasional pig, spatters of red betel juice on the ground from paan-chewers...and of course, people, people everywhere.

I expected India to be intense with the sheer number of people, the dirt, and the in-your-face poverty...as well as being a fascinating country with awesome spicy food. Overall we haven't found it as much of a culture shock as we expected. It is a buzzing place, which often appears chaotic to our western eyes. Almost everywhere we go people are curious about us as we are clearly foreigners, so we are becoming accustomed to not being able to blend into the background. Cities tend to have lots of rubbish about the place and pollution haze from the hordes of vehicles and it is hard and challenging to see lots of people begging and struggling to eke a living, when we comparatively have so much. I think I find street children the hardest to see, as they always run up to you and pull at your clothing. The best way to get through them is to completely ignore them, which feels heartless but is better than trying to shake them off like bugs.

Taking the metro on the weekend in Delhi was rather like joining a rugby scrum, particularly for men, as women have a dedicated carriage reserved for them which is much less crowded than the rest of the train. Train travel has been excellent in the upper class air conditioned (heated in winter) carriages and it was easy to sleep on the seats that converted to beds for overnight journeys, but the lower class carriages are not heated, and it did get very cold in the past few weeks. Winter fog made for some very long delays - the longest delay we encountered was when our afternoon train from Orchha to Agra was already 8 hours late before it got to us - so our tour group abandoned the train plan and took a 6 hour drive instead.

Exploring northern India has been a very interesting time and highlights for us include:

Treating our tastebuds

with delicious curries, breads, varieties of dhal, lassi and incredibly sweet sweets. We have been really enjoying hot samosas on train journeys and English tea has been replaced by cardamom-spiced masala chai.

Witnessing life and death rituals along the Ganges river

Floating along the Ganges was at times a sobering experience. The river was alive with the activity of boats, Hindus washing in the waters and the flames of funeral pyres where Hindus mourned and tourists clustered above to watch. It looked invasive, like spectating at a funeral. Our boat kept some distance from the burning ghats (banks) out of respect for the families. Although most dead bodies are cremated, certain exceptions (including pregnant women, lepers, those who die from snakebites and holy men) mean bodies are put directly into the Ganges without being burnt. We passed a shrouded body bobbing along, with head and shoulders above the water, which was a rather disturbing experience for us.

Peaceful Orchha and stunning Khajuraho temples

We enjoyed visiting the small town of Orchha, which had an impressive palace and many temples lining the river. An Indian cooking class was a great way to taste new dishes we can try to recreate when we return home. We also visited an awesome temple complex at Khajuraho - known as the kama sutra temple, the beautiful buildings are decorated with thousands of "instructive" figures.

A fog-shrouded Taj Mahal

We visited the city of Agra on one of the colder winter days and saw a mysterious looking Taj Mahal. Our other tour members were disappointed by the fog but we didn’t really mind, and as we were leaving the sun came out in time to light up the marble for a more contrasted view of the Taj.

Seeing Bollywood in action and on the big screen in Jaipur

The Amber Fort in Jaipur was a beautifully preserved palace complex where we enjoyed wandering and there happened to be a South Indian film being shot, so we joined the onlookers. Later that evening we saw the latest Bollywood film at the Raj Mandir Art Deco cinema – we expected to be a bit bored after an hour of watching the Hindi film without subtitles, but it was pretty easy to follow and we enjoyed the music, the dancing, and the cheesiness. Other highlights of Jaipur were a beautiful royal summer palace set in the middle of a lake and the Jantar Muntar observatory with astrological instruments built in stone, which are still accurate today despite being built over 300 years ago.

A serene lake city and a local festival

After our tour finished we headed south west from Delhi to the peaceful lake city of Udaipur. Islands in the midst of the lake have beautiful white palaces and the city is much cleaner than Delhi. An enterprising rickshaw driver took us from the train station to our hotel and offered to be our guide for the day, so we enjoyed being driven around viewpoints, gardens and spice markets. From Udaipur we took an aggresively driven bus to the city of Ahmedabad in the Gujarat region and arrived in time to enjoy seeing many children and families out celebrating the Makar Sankranti festival by flying kites. We also visited Gandhi's ashram and saw where he and his wife lived and from where they led their non-violence movement.

That wraps up our time in the north, we're now off to Bangalore to begin 2 weeks in south India.