Cruising into 2012

What better way to spend the first (uncharacteristically damp, grey and humid) day of the New Year than by indulging in some movie nonsense on the pretext of revisiting locations from the old one? Thus it was that I spent more than two hours twitching and wriggling nervously in my seat as I watched Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol work through its ridiculous story, told with every tool of movie trickery in the box. Steve Jobs (RIP) would have been thrilled to see the casual and ubiquitous use of iPads and iPhones to track and identify villains as well as a host of other useful spy-themed apps. The most thrilling part though appealed to a much more basic and age-old human instinct: fear of heights.

Which of course took Tom to Dubai, home of the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, at 828m and 160 storeys, to do a Spidey up the outside with a dodgy gripper glove and then a Canyon Swing back down again and in through the window. As you do. The views down that extraordinary shiny silver building were dizzyingly spectacular, the surrounding buildings, the vast fountain complex and the ground itself so incredibly far away. I wish I had had the time to go up to the Observation Deck, but you have to book or pay some huge sum, and I was, as usual, on a tight schedule; but I did get to see it from the bottom, which was amazing enough - although very hard to fit into a viewfinder.

The movie started in Budapest, which I was interested to see as I'll be going there in May; then from Dubai went to Mumbai - where I haven't been, does Delhi count? - and finished up in Seattle, on the waterfront where we had a nose around, were most impressed by the Aquarium, and took a ferry from across to Bainbridge Island, which looked lovely but again we had no time to look around (aren't you glad you're not a travel writer, hogtied by the tyranny of the itinerary?). There was even a glimpse of San Francisco, where a chunk got taken off the top of the Transamerica Pyramid by an at-the-last-second aborted nuclear missile. So, pretty much been there - but done all that? Thankfully, not.

Back to front

This is Raj Ghat, the memorial to Mahatma Gandhi in New Delhi where an eternal flame burns above the simple black marble platform and an endless stream of school parties, pilgrims and tourists - as well as the odd world leader - come to pay homage, walk around the tomb three times, and visit the two nearby Gandhi museums. One of them is in the house where he was living when he was assassinated, and where his last footsteps have been replicated in concrete leading up some steps to the little gazebo where he was killed.

He is, of course, rightly and understandably venerated in India and all around the world, and his campaign of civil disobedience and passive resistance was one of the things for which he's remembered and seen as an inspiration. But he wasn't the first to think of this way of reacting to oppression by a stronger force. Fifty years earlier, at Parihaka in Taranaki two Maori chiefs, Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kakahi, led their people in exactly that when Government surveyors came onto their land: they politely removed the pegs and fences and ploughed up the settlers' crops planted in Parihaka soil.

It all came to a head on 5 November 1881 when 1500 armed troops rode into the village where children welcomed them with songs and dances and offered them freshly-baked loaves, while the adults sat silently on the ground. The chiefs and hundreds of their followers were arrested and improsoned without trial, the village was pillaged, the women raped, the houses destroyed, and the land seized without compensation. Parihaka never recovered and the settlement dwindled to almost nothing, from a population of 2500 down to four.

Now it's being resurrected, and groups of tourists, like us last week, are being welcomed and fed just as the soldiers were (except with a very tasty 4-course meal), told the story and shown the grave of Te Whiti, which is almost as simple as Gandhi's. It's a good thing that Maata and her people are doing there, but shameful that it's the only way that New Zealanders can learn the detail of such an important event in our history and about two such influential men, who are commemorated nowhere else.

Gandhi has a statue in Wellington, though.

Before the event

Another of my Downton Abbey stories is out today in the Christmas issue of Next magazine; and in the travel section is a story by another writer about Copenhagen, with the photos showing all of the things I saw, except in a rather better light. The weather was the main disappointment of our visit there - that, and the timing, just a week too early for the Christmas markets, sob - and it would have been lovely to have had some blue sky and sunshine to bring out all the colours. It was lucky, at least, that our first afternoon had a decent gleam of sunlight; and the last morning was getting better again.

Photographing the Little Mermaid against even a watery sun wasn't as easy as I would have liked, though. She's been decapitated twice, poor thing, and has a noticeable scar around her neck. She's got about a bit though: she was in Shanghai last year for the Expo, and I was there too, just before it began, when the city reeked of wet concrete and there were traffic barriers, cranes and big machinery all over the place as they rushed to get ready. It was the same in Delhi when I visited just before the Commonwealth Games - and no doubt it's how London is going to be next year when we go there a few months before the Olympics. It's getting to be a theme.

Back to Copenhagen: despite the whingeing, above, there is still something to be said for misty, moody days, and the view from the hotel across the harbour was positively Turner-esque when the sun rose:

Cosmo diary, with dates

It's been a very cosmopolitan sort of day, literally: Dubai is that sort of place. Only 20% of the population is made up of local Emiratis, and everyone else comes from the rest of the world. My guide Tareq said (but then he would, wouldn't he?) that they all get on famously, and no-one resents the fact that the Government looks after the locals so well, giving them houses, wedding money and children money, free health care and schooling and so on - and, since no-one has to pay taxes here, perhaps they really do.

So this morning's tour took in mosques both Arab and Turkish, and this afternoon I was left to wander in that western place of pilgrimage and worship, the shopping mall. Specifically, the Dubai Mall, with 1200 shops, in which no big retail name was absent - Bloomingdales, Galeries Lafayette and, from England, Debenhams ha ha but also Marks and Spencer - and where the people-watching was epic. Every permutation of the burqa was there, and traditional clothing for the men, as well as the full gamut of western dress. There was a huge ice rink where little boys in what looked like white nightgowns pushed plastic penguins across the ice; an equally huge aquarium with sharks, rays and Kelly-Tarlton tunnels; a three-storey waterfall with diving men frozen in mid-plunge; and outside a vast artificial lake where a fountain show took place at 1pm against the backdrop of the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa at 828 metres or 160+ storeys (which no, I didn't go up because you have to book). It was actually so tall that I didn't see it straight away, through not looking high enough.

There were also markets today, fish and fruit and veg (including, shockingly, kiwifruit from Iran), lots of dates - there are 300-odd varieties, all different in taste and appearance, and I also tried the fresh ones, yellow and crunchy. I saw men crouched over big copper vats stirring syrup with a wooden paddle to make a honey and date sweetmeat for the holiday of Eid tomorrow - the same one I was in India for a couple of years ago, that involved very many decorated goats there. Here there were also sheep and cows on the backs of utes being transported through the city centre, looking docile, not knowing that for them, it wasn't going to end well. I feared the doleful-looking fish in the tank beside which I ate my Chinese dinner tonight have a similar fate ahead of them, alas.

Premade? Still working on this version.

Well, fancy that. Thanks, Google Alert! It's kind of exciting, to know there's a Sim with my name - and what are the odds that she's a traveller? She's also described as tan (nup), thin (hah!), Pisces (Scorp), brown-haired (who knows?), single and normal - but her eyes are grey and she aspires to Knowledge, so that's near enough. As for living in a 'secret sub-neighbourhood called Exotic Destinations' - well, how about Bay of Fires, Tryphena, Ningaloo, Koblenz and Paris? And that's just the first half of this year. (Sorry: but this blog is called TravelSKITE.)

I'm not so sure about the 'visiting foreign hotels' bit though: that sounds suspiciously like what's depressingly titled 'site inspections' in the trade - something that travel agents get saddled with when they're whisked overseas for what other people assume is an exciting, exotic free holiday. While we travel writers see ourselves as in an entirely different category from agents, I've been caught up in some of these myself on group famils, and also heard true horror stories of having to be shown round 20 hotels in a single day. It's madness: you can't distinguish them from each other after about the first four, so it's a total waste of time. But mainly, how tedious and dispiriting, to be shown some fabulous hotel room all marble, 1000+ count linen, balcony overlooking turquoise bay dotted with islands, and dazzling bathroom, and have to focus on the fact that the bath-tub is too high for elderly clients to climb into.

What they should do is give the agents video memory sticks of what's available, and then let them just enjoy the hotel they're staying in, which they will then remember both vividly and - hopefully - fondly. Like Indigo Pearl on Phuket, with its classy industrial-chic theme; or the Hong Kong Peninsula's 6-room suite with TV over the bath; or the Raj Palace in Jaipur's croquet lawn and super-attentive staff; or the roses and hand-made chocolates in the Plaza Grande in Quito; or the intricate pattern of bougainvillea petals on the bed at Legends in Mauritius; or the fireplace in the bathroom and the Inca walls at Hacienda San Augustin de Callo at Cotopaxi in Ecuador; or the over-water villa at Lagoon Resort on Aitutaki; or the rustic four-poster in the tent at Kangaluna in South Australia; or the 16th century longhouse in Anglesey that smelled of lilies and hay. See? I remember them all perfectly - and I'd recommend any one of them, totally (almost).

Back to work

Yesterday was pretty much the official start of work again here after the holidays, even though the weather continues hot and muggy, school's out for another 3 weeks yet and lots of people are still away. But I'm not and it was time to hit the keyboard.

Working from home is a hard discipline: there are so many worthy distractions all around, jobs that need doing, that don't individually take so much time that it's unreasonable to consider leaving the computer to do them, but taken together eat up an entire morning. Or afternoon. Or both, even. Sigh.

And then there's the focus required to stick with something that doesn't have a deadline. Tch. So it was a triumph today to finish a story about Jaipur, even if I started out by writing about Washington. I'm not quite sure how that happened. But anyway, it was good to look back at the photos and remember the mad chaos of India, the colour, the press of people, the animals - everywhere, animals: cows, chickens, goats, dogs, monkeys, camels, horses, elephants - and the faded incredible opulence of the buildings. So much gold and silver, delicate hand-painted murals, fabrics embroidered in gold thread and decorated with thousands of tiny seed-pearls, each one drilled by hand. It's a tired cliche, of course, but the contrasts there are phenomenal.

A friend of mine has just gone to India for her umpteenth trip, salwar kameez at the ready, eager for the photo opportunities as in no other country. I've been twice now, both times to the same cities. There's so much contrast just within one city - how much different would it be to go to another area altogether?*

*To go to another area. Sorry you're gone, Leslie Nielsen.

Midas would go green

All about gold today. Ballarat is where early prospectors found it just lying around for the picking up: huge nuggets scarcely buried. And they still are. We saw the actual Goldasaurus (better original name: Bob's Joy) which was found just 60cm deep with a metal detector in 2003 - all 4.4kg of it. Mind, that was nothing compared to Welcome Stranger, a massive knobbly rock that weighed around 70kg - again, pretty much tripped over back in 1858 at the Red Hill Mine.

There's replica of that mine too at Sovereign Hill, an excellent outdoor museum which reproduces a mining town of that period: shops, manufacturing, accommodation, mines and a foundry, all populated by very authentic-looking staff in period uniform busy doing things like firing a musket, singing, making lollies, tins, iron stuff and, most excitingly, a gold ingot. We watched it being poured into the mould and tipped out again remarkably quickly, a beautiful object, that some of the audience were allowed to hold. "Run, lady, run!" someone called out, when we were told that this one small brick was worth $140,000.

It's been a good day out, and it's not over yet: tonight we eat in a hotel at Sovereign Hill before watching a son et lumiere show about a miners' rebellion. I do hope it's going to be better than the last one I saw, a lame affair of coloured lights and overblown commentary at the Red Fort in Delhi: though my impression was probably jaundiced by having minutes previously fallen down a flight of stone steps and whacking my head. I've still got the lump.

People power

My regular walking circuit includes, just before the dreaded 132 steps, a flat concrete bridge across a small creek that drains mainly stormwater from the hill behind. It's an uninspiring affair, usually clogged with pine needles and leaves and other vegetable detritus which is overlaid each high tide by junk from the inner harbour which includes a dispiriting amount of plastic. The creek opens onto our only beach, which scarcely deserves the word, since it's more mud than sand and is constantly being colonised by mangroves, which get hoiked out now and then by the Sea Scouts whose hut stands over the water.

There are, um, prettier parts to my neighbourhood. But that may change, because this morning there was, head down and hard at work, an Asian man dressed in spotless white shorts and tshirt, busily raking debris out of the bed of the creek. He'd already worked along the scant stretch of sand at the edge of the beach, and made small piles of leaves, pinecones and other untidy things. I was delighted to see such public-spiritedness, even though I imagine he's probably just moved in nearby and is wanting to improve his outlook. I told him what a good job he was doing and that myself, I probably wouldn't have worn white to do such mucky work. He smiled cheerfully but clearly didn't understand much of what I'd said, so I waved and went on my way.

Asian people and rakes: such a busy combination. And so effective! If you include brooms and besoms too, there's nothing they can't leave looking better than they found it.In China we saw them scratching away in parks, public monuments, streets and building sites where here we would break out something macho with a motor, or at the very least an electric plug. It's good to be reminded of what people can achieve with simple tools, if there are enough of them - or even one man, if he's persistent. I'll be trotting down that hill tomorrow, to see what he's accomplished.

(I must say though, I was astonished in Xiamen, a big modern port full of skyscrapers and fancy new cars, to see a trail of little old men with shoulder yokes carrying rubble out of a building that was being altered, and dumping it in a pile on the footpath. Would a chute from the window into a truck have been too high-tech? (And none of this is to mention India, where women roadworkers still carry tin bowls of gravel on their heads.))

Commonwealth countdown

Two tourists from Taiwan were shot and wounded on Sunday by random gunmen on a motorbike at the Jama Masjid mosque in New Delhi: possibly terrorists, possibly linked with threats to the security of the Commonwealth Games that begin there in a fortnight, possibly not.

The Baby and I went there when we were in New Delhi last November, all tourists do, it's a stunning place: old red stone, wide staircase up to the entrance, obligatory robe over our clothes, and then inside to a vast open area which must be an astonishing sight when it's full of men praying, though of course then we wouldn't be allowed in. The views over the city, though hazy, are tremendous too.

I do hope the Games go ahead as they should. It's disappointing to hear that even now it's not certain that the NZ team will attend because of security fears. Not that I'm a big (or even miniscule) sports fan, but I can understand how much work the athletes have put into priming themselves for the competition, and I certainly know how eager they are in India to host the event.

The traffic was even more horrendous than usual in November, thanks to road closures and construction going on at a frantic pace to get ready for the opening - and two weeks out, apparently they're still not quite ready, so I can only imagine the 24/7 feverish work taking place right now. But there was also great excitement, and pride, and anticipation, and such huge effort going into it, that it would be tragic if terrorists were to get their way and prevent the Games going ahead, or even to diminish them.

I know a lot of poor people have been evicted without compensation to build the facilities, and that looks - is - bad. There's so very much poverty in India though, it's always, will always, be part of life there. It's something that's hard to grasp the reality of, until you've seen it for yourself: the people living on the streets, on traffic islands, under bridges.

Stopped at traffic lights, we watched a little boy wearing a false Maharajah-type moustache and playing a drum while his even littler sister danced and did somersaults. It was disturbing but also kind of heartening that they were trying so hard to make a living. I'm still sorry the lights changed before I could get my purse out. But when the Games are on, times should be good for them.

Hard

Our annual inorganic rubbish collection is under way, when householders put out all sorts of things for the council to pick up that are normally forbidden: old beds, broken appliances, rusty wheelbarrows, indeterminate crap that's too big to fit in the bin. It makes the daily walk round the streets absolutely fascinating, as well as much longer, because of the pauses at each heap of reject stuff, and the internal tussles over whether something is worth appropriating or not.

Time was, such scavenging was a shameful thing, but now it's called recycling and is entirely admirable. Hordes of white vans cruise the streets, the drivers blatantly picking over the piles for things good enough to use, sell as is, or take to the scrap yard for money; so when the rubbish truck eventually comes along, the heaps are usually much reduced. Everybody wins.

Though most stuff is unquestionable rubbish, it's surprising sometimes to see how profligate some people are, chucking out clearly good stuff - but even more astonishing is the pile in the photo. A teddy bear! Even decapitated, what sort of hard-hearted, ruthless type could throw that away? And possibly even worse, but not visible above, there was a wedding photo - black and white, from the fifties, presumably the house-holder's parents. Whoever heard of such a thing?

The scavengers though reminded me of a report I read in the paper when I was in India, about an 8 year-old girl who'd been assaulted, and the police enquiry into it. What struck me was that she was described as 'a rag-picker'. In other words, one of those who spend their days at rubbish tips, combing the mountains of stinking, dirty refuse for anything that can be recycled, to sell. Eight years old. 'A rag-picker'.

I haven't got any photos of the very poor people we saw there - it seemed too predatory. But this lady is recycling with a vengeance: collecting cow dung, patting it out into discs to dry in the sun, for fuel.

One in 20 million

Some wag on TV referred to the World Expo in Shanghai and how the visitor numbers were turning out to be less than expected: "Only a million through the gates, tch!" Although the actual figure is a bit over 200,000 per day, the sentiment stands - this is one huge city, the 10th biggest in the world, and that's a lot of people. They're hoping for 70 million visitors over the 6 months that it's open (to beat the 65 million record set back in 1970 in Osaka, where they also know a thing or two about crowds) - and even if most of those are Shanghai residents, on top of a population of almost 20 million, that's still a lot of bodies in the streets.

We were there briefly last year, when the city was in a frenzy getting ready for the Expo, building the exhibition halls on both sides of the river, knocking down old districts to build new hotels and roads, upgrading other areas, digging up the streets and generally tarting the place up. We were told that China uses half of the world's production of concrete, and Shanghai must have accounted for a fair chunk of that - there was certainly a strong smell of wet cement in the air. Plus dust, the hammering of pneumatic drills, roaring trucks and diggers; and visual pollution too with scaffolding, cones and barriers - yet still, with all the large-scale machinery in operation, swarms of men with wheelbarrows and bamboo-leaf besoms.

And of course, people everywhere - as in all the other parts of China that we visited (our Silversea cruise took us only to cities - if we'd got into the country, we would have come away with quite a different impression, I'm sure). It was pretty exhausting, and though it was always interesting, and I'm glad to have been there, I wouldn't rush back again.

India was horrendously crowded too, of course, but it seemed less foreign there: in China I really felt like an alien, even - or especially - when I found myself in a familiar setting, like on the beach. This is China:
This is New Zealand:
No contest.

Here's a tip for you:

If you want to learn the true meaning of 'positive reinforcement', go and work in a primary school. The year I spent there in the office drooling over the stationery supplies was remarkable for all the appreciation that came my way every day from the teachers. They even gave me stickers!

Which makes me feel bad that, after our lunch together yesterday, I sort of hope those kind, cheerful ladies spent the night rolling round in bed clutching their stomachs and making multiple trips to the bathroom - because that's what I did, and if it wasn't the sushi at lunchtime, then I'm going to have to blame my own cooking in the evening.

Like Jerry in 'Seinfeld', I rarely vomit. It's such an event that I remember each time; and the last was in 2003 in Hobart, on my first night in Tasmania, after (but, in the mysterious ways of food poisoning, probably not because of) what had been a delicious salmon dinner at Mures down by the harbour. (Note: salmon doesn't taste so good in reverse.) Even worse, it blocked the toilet, and I felt so guilty about what the chambermaid would have to cope with that I left her a note of apology and a tip. Except, I don't do tips - New Zealanders don't know about such things - and now I look back at that miserly $5 and blush.

Being responsible for the tipping was a constant thorn in my side in India, where, apart from odd occasions like when we were given specific instructions before a rickshaw ride through the alleys of Old Delhi, there was no group guide or husband to allow me to shirk the responsibility, and every day I agonised over how much I should give, what was it worth in Indian terms, what was normal, what were those other tourists over there leaving, what percentage was that of what their meal cost, what did they eat again? It was exhausting. And so embarrassing - the smiling toilet lady who went stony-faced when I offered her the 40 rupees that my itinerary said was appropriate; the lovely gentleman guide in Jaipur who recoiled when I offered him money (too much? too little? an insult?); the relief of handing our helpful driver at the end of the tour a sealed envelope, followed by the sheer horror of being told he'd be back in the morning to take us to the airport...

Grasshopper turned Ant

So I've had all the fun - in the last 6 months I've been to Australia, Thailand, China, Ecuador, the UK and Ireland, India and some of the nicer bits of New Zealand - and now that it's summer and everyone else is at the beach, it's time for me to do the work and plough through all my notebooks of densely-written abbreviations that at the time I was convinced were so obvious, and which are now so impossibly obscure, and trawl through hundreds of photos, and churn out a mass of 1000-word stories some of which are already spoken for but most of which will be poor orphaned mites to be sent out into the harsh world to make their own living.

The current story is about the Hillary Trail, a newly-linked series of tracks through the Waitakere Ranges, where I went last week to speak to one of the Park Rangers - an outing which itself linked several of my own recent experiences.

The view above is a disappointingly poor photo of Whatipu Beach, from a track I last walked years ago with WOPs, the women's outdoor pursuits group I was a member of that taught me many useful things about the bush, most memorably never to trust the weather and always to be prepared for cold and rain. So when, shortly after this photo was taken, it started to rain huge, fat, soaking drops and the ranger got wet, I was able to put on my coat and keep dry.

Also, the next beach along from this one is Karekare - moody, black sand, isolated - where The Piano was filmed, which helped pass some of the time on the Milford Track when the Australians and I vainly racked our brains to remember the name of the actor playing the woman [sorry, Holly Hunter]. Not that the scenery down there wasn't magnificent, but it did go on a bit, and it was helpful to distract ourselves from the toil of one foot after the other for hours and hours by some mental activity, like converting miles to kilometres and trying to work out speeds and ETAs. It was to my great advantage in this to be so hampered by the innumeracy that scraped me 61% in School Certificate maths, since when it's gone downhill.

My memory and computation skills also suffered something of a set-back when I fell down a flight of 8 stone steps at the Red Fort in New Delhi and whacked my head at the bottom. It was dark, we were running late because of the horrendous traffic, the lighting was inadequate and the top step was, inconceivably, raised above the level of the path. So I plunged down the steps, scoring huge bruises on my elbow and hip on the way to hitting my head, which I knew was going to happen as I fell, and which hurt when it did. And all to buy tickets for a stupid Son et Lumiere show that was hopelessly low-tech and dull: don't ever waste your time on it next time you're in Delhi.

Since when there's been dizziness, headaches, nausea and impaired metal acuity - but at least I can blame it on India, and not age.

Carrier pigeons

The dozen or more spotted doves that descend from the trees where they wait every morning to land in a literal heap on the bird table in the hen run where I leave them some wheat are apparently bringing me more than just pleasure.

In Delhi and Jaipur we saw entire traffic islands dedicated to pigeons - your common-or-garden, reviled pigeon that is discouraged so strenuously in other parts of the world. In the UK, the public buildings bristle with inhospitable-looking spikes on every ledge and alcove, and swathes of netting cover arches, blurring the view of the statues within them.

But in India? Where life is hand-to-mouth for so many people, where resources are limited, where selfishness would be entirely practical? In India, pigeons are generously fed and supplied with bowls of fresh water - it's good karma, to look after other creatures. The Jains take it to the outer limit, wearing masks so they don't accidentally swallow a fly, taking care not to step on insects - but more mainstream people like to do their bit, too, and stall-holders sell them grain for the birds, and pellets for the cows that wander the streets, serene and confident, seen by some as living speed bumps because they slow the traffic.

So those fat spotted doves down the bottom of my garden have been bringing me good fortune, all unbeknownst. And the photo? Amber Fort, Jaipur, with elephants for the sharp-eyed.

Happiness is warm nuts

Here we are at Auckland airport, home again, home again, jiggety jig, waiting - and waiting - for the First-Born to pick us up. Not that I'm ungrateful, but after the smooth efficiency of Cathay Pacific's service all the way from Delhi via Bangkok (unexpectedly) and Hong Kong, it is a bit of a let-down. Or maybe just real life again.

Cathay did us proud, with upgrades to their fabulous business class on every sector, and on the two long ones we had the wonderful cosy pods with lie-flat beds, feather pillows and duvets, fold-out big TVs and great food served by charming and attentive staff.

From the warm cashew nuts before dinner, through the lady who ushered us more than a kilometre through Hong Kong airport, through security, on several levels, in lifts, on travelators and even a train from arrival gate to departure in just 20 minutes, to the speedy arrival on the carousel of our priority luggage, it's been a breeze and a pleasure.

Ups to Cathay!

Mind the gap

Such bravery today! Walking the streets by ourselves! Taking the Metro! Travelling by tuk tuk round the city!

And yet not so intrepid really, thanks to the kindness of randomly-met Indians from the schoolboy shyly pointing us to the right platform to the business man in his immaculate suit recommending shops and settling on a fare with our tuk tuk driver to the young man in a t-shirt so earnestly and intensely insisting that all he wanted was to save us from being hassled by strangers. Close talkers one and all - but not so close as the other passengers on the new Metro system. Sardines aren't in it.

Buying a few trinkets cost us little money but vast amounts of time and effort, mostly convincing the driver that no, we didn't want to go to another State Emporium, we wanted a market - and then being delivered to guess where? All part of the Indian retail experience, I know.

Everyone asks where we're from as an opener, but it turns out "New Zealand" is the kiss of death to any conversation. "Australia" works better, we find, though it's galling to have to agree that yes, Australia is bound to do well at the Commonwealth Games here next year. But at least we get our own back when we recoil from their offerings as too expensive and leave shops empty-handed while they tut behind our backs at the cheapness of Australians.

Respect. Please!

Back in Delhi at the Bajaj Homestay, this time in the penthouse room on the roof by the terrace, which is less posh than it sounds, but more comfortable than our previous room which had no window but did have a pigeon living in the ventilation opening which was rather nice.

It's been an exhausting few days and I have to say that the forts and palaces have rather merged for the moment, though I know I'll sort them out once I get home and coordinate my notes and photos. Lots of cows, camels and elephants, and this morning bits of goats by the road when we ventured out of the manicured perfection of the Raj Palace into Jaipur's busy streets.

I wasn't able to write about the Taj as I had no internet, but it was a little sad. The building is still gorgeous, untouchably perfect, gloriously serene and symmetrical - the trouble is the 40,000 tourists who visit every day. They have no manners and no respect, and are encouraged by the professional photographers to treat the poor Taj like a prop for a series of cheap and gimmicky photos - pretending to hold the top of the dome, for instance and for goodness sake. The so-called Diana bench? A scrum, nothing less. And inside, good grief, whistles blown by guards and guides, and people shouting for the echo. It was like a sports hall - but it's a mausoleum!

We were unfortunate to arrive mid-afternoon on a Thursday - it's closed on Fridays - so the crowds were at their worst. Far better to have got there at 6am, if the programme had allowed. But it was still worth visiting and I would still recommend it to anyone, with those provisos.

A whole day to fill in Delhi tomorrow, by ourselves. Some shopping seems called for.

Butting out

Our elephant was a bit of a speed merchant this morning, overtaking the others on the way up to the Amber Fort. That's not the sort of traffic jam you'd want to get caught in on foot.

Today we've seen palaces, harems, mausoleums and an extraordinary observatory; as well as the usual melée of people, vehicles and animals in the streets. Not so many goats today though - it's not a good day for goats. Bakr-Eid is a Muslim festival when goats are slaughtered and eaten, and for days we've been passing temporary markets of hundreds of goats, painted, dyed, decorated with tinsel, all being dickered over and for none of whom it was going to end well.

Back here at the Raj Palace, it's all soothing piped music, fountains and super-attentive staff (I'm sure that's the norm anyway, but we're also almost the only guests at the moment). The maitre d' walks backwards most of the time, bowing, and was stern about my lunch. "Please don't compromise, if it's not to your taste I'll remove it and make you another."

Sheesh, it was only a tuna sandwich. Good thing my knife wasn't dirty.

Living like a king - or maharajah

In Jaipur after a day on roads shared with camel carts, painted elephants, buses with people on top, wandering cows, herded sheep and goats - and also a corpse on a bier. Fascinating but exhausting to be watching like a tennis match that lasts 6 hours, so this hotel is a haven.

The Raj Palace is truly an actual maharajah's palace still owned by royalty, with doormen in curly slippers with moustaches to match, marble everywhere, fountains, a velvety croquet lawn and a palmist on the staff. And swan taps in the bathroom and a TV over the bath.

Right now the fountain is tinkling in the coutyard outside, pigeons are cooing and the muezzin is calling.

So foreign but so fabulous.

Celebrity

Temples today - the fabulous Lotus Temple that looks related to Sydney's Opera House and which was perfectly reflected in turquoise pools; and the astonishing Swaminarayan Akshardham, a vast red sandstone complex with an enchanting frieze of 148 stone elephants around the base of the main building - and where we were brave with food and it paid off (or so far...)

We know what celebrities feel like now. Young men especially eye us up (yes, me too!) in traffic jams and whenever we're walking; and we had to pose with some for photos before they ran off chortling excitedly. It's been a diversion, but the last stop today put it all in perspective.

The Gandi Museum is such a heart-felt place. It's in the house where he lived, next to the garden where he was assassinated, and it was very well-used. Heaps of information, his hard low bed, statues, cute dioramas and an unexpectedly affecting animation. Plus terracotta footprints tracing the last steps of his enormously long journey.

Well worth a visit, even at the end of a tiring day - which isn't over yet: light show at the Red Fort tonight.