The Language Barrier: a Great Name for a Wrestler

Bish's Precis

- yes, I'm still milking my trip to India in November for stores

- travelling by train in India is a brilliant experience

- the food they give you is generally excellent

- in my experience, 75% of people who work for Indian Rail are Olympic standard athletes

- in my experience, 75% of people who work for Indian Rail are complete p!ssheads

- either way, they have excellent bed etiquette

- I leave Perth on 4 March

No trip to India is complete without a train journey. The biggest employer in the world, with more than a million employees, and a long history.

We took a trip to Chandigarh and back by train, then had a night in Delhi before we prepared for the big one, a trip to Mumbai. It would take 18-20 hours, so we got a second class sleeper. There are three classes of travel on trains, and third class has bars on the windows. We weren't that keen on slumming.

The train was scheduled to leave at 7pm. At 9pm we moved off. We found our beds – which weren't together – and settled in. Chopper had a spare bed in his booth so I shifted there temporarily. The train wasn't express – it was picking people up along the way. During dinner I asked our attendant if we could make the move permanent, and he agreed to ask the arriving passenger if he's agree to a swap.

Each booth had six beds, in three sets of bunks in a U shape: two facing each other, and one more running parallel with the passageway along the opposite side of the train. In addition to the two of us, three other young blokes were in our booth. One of them, Sanjiv, spoke English very well. And, it turned out, very often. He was a gymnast, on his way home having just attended a training camp.

The other two blokes in our booth were wrestlers, one of them (who we called the Nugget) was clearly in a heavier weight class than the other bloke. They didn't speak much English at all (especially the Nugget, but I suspect he didn't speak much at all: he didn't need to).

Soon we saw why they were sitting with us. They were all employees of Indian Railways, and as such had free trips to wherever they wanted to go, but didn't have a seat or bed. Sanjiv's stop was at about 3:30am, so he decided to get some sleep early (behind a curtain in one of the bunks ... at least I think he was getting some sleep), while the other blokes decided it was time for dinner.

They were well prepared. A neat little segmented thermos contained rice, dahl, curry, and pickle. They also had some excellent naan bread, and a few date cakes for desert, which they very kindly offered to us. After they ate, Sanjiv awoke, and started talking to us. In the meantime, the wrestlers had opened the crowning glory of their dinner, a bottle of whisky. Pointedly, they didn't worry about offering us any of the hooch.

We didn't mind - we were talking with Sanjiv, mainly about his sport and his hopes of appearing in front of his home crowd in the 2010 Commonwealth Games (in Delhi). But the wrestlers were quietly getting quite legless. They weren't being rowdy or annoying. Just as well: if they had been there wasn't much we could've done about it.

During this time we were served an excellent meal courtesy of Indian Rail. Another one. The meals to and from Chandigarh had also been superb: dahl, curry, rice, naan bread, pickle, fresh chilli, cucumber, a mini samosa, fairy-floss-like sugar cake or some sort, and to top it off, natural yoghurt served in a clay pot. Brilliant.

This time, while the food was good, the bloke that served us was hilarious. He was utterly off-his-face drunk. He was swaying all over the place, and wasn't making any sense to any of us. He took a swig of the wrestlers' whisky. With the inside knowledge of Sanjiv, we found out that these blokes work about 18-20 hours a day for about Rs400 (A$13). When they get a rest between serving food, chai, and anything else, they nip down the back to their quarters and drink themselves stupid. This bloke had obviously had a lot of time off during the day.

After dinner and chai we stopped at a town somewhere along the way and, much to the despair of the wrestlers, the real occupants of the beds in our booth showed up. They were clearly very tired and quickly set up their beds and headed off to sleep. I have to admit that both Chop and I had a little giggle about that.

It didn't seem to worry our nuggety friend and his smiling, not-so-nuggety-but-still-quite-intimidating mate. They had finished their bottle of whisky and tucked in to a second bottle. Still not offering us any (to be fair there was barely a litre and a half between the two of them), they kept swigging their hooch. They were settling in for the night, even though they had nowhere to sleep.

It was getting late – about 11:00 – but it was quite hot still in the train, so Sanjiv, Chop and I decided to head to the end of the carriage, where the side doors were open and there was a good circulation of air. Sanjiv, after no more than 30 minutes sleep, had decided he's had enough until he needed to catch his connection in a few hours, so we chatted to each other for a while.

A couple of times while we were sitting there talking to Sanjiv, the wrestlers came up to him and spoke in Hindi. They were certainly feeling the effects of the alcohol. We didn't really know what they were saying, but whatever it was, Sanjiv wasn't agreeing to it.

A few other characters also stopped to chat to us. Again, we were the only white people I saw on the train, and there mustn't have been much else to do. Along with friendly passengers, our drunken waiter came by again to give us some more chai. Handling hot liquids is difficult at the best of times, but doing it on a rickety old train while totally legless is quite an achievement.

So, it turned out, was getting him to nick off. He was hanging around with a drunken grin all over his face. He chatted to Sanjiv for a while, and then came back to me and was calling me his brother, with generous Indian hospitality. Too generous it seemed. He was getting rather familiar, placing his hand on my leg. This has to be put into context though: we often saw Indian blokes walking down the street hand-in-hand in completely platonic affection. Nonetheless, my first reaction was not unlike an electric shock. But I managed to control myself enough to say "you look tired – I'll let you get on with your work. I'll see you later."

No movement (except some involuntary swaying).

"See you on your next round mate. Namaste"

In slow motion, his droopy, drunken eyes opened with joy.

"You speak Hindi!?!"

He was so smashed that his eyes didn't seem to open in unison. But he proceeded to reel off about a thousand syllables of Hindi before Sanjiv could stop him and say that, no, I didn't infact understand a f*cking word he'd just said. I was just being nice.

With that, he returned to his massive drunken grin, which seemed larger than his face, gave me a huge hug, and finally moved off to dispense chai and platonic affection elsewhere.

The wrestlers joined us again. This time they wanted to talk to us. Their English was pretty broken, but through their language barrier and the not-insignificant obstacle of two bottles of booze, they managed to beg us to give them our beds for a while. Sanjiv was translating a little bit for us. We said fine, no problems, and they swayed off to our booth for some drunken shuteye in "their" beds.

Then it dawned on us. How much is "a while" in Indian etiquette – have we just abandoned our beds for the night? Do they figure that we'll be able to sleep during the day while we finish our trip to Mumbai? What's the polite thing to do here? What options do we have against two world-class wrestlers?

We figured the very least we had to give them was an hour. That was fine – we could chat with Sanjiv, who had no plans to sleep until he got his connection. All the time we were chatting with Sanjiv, I think Chop and I were both thinking how the heck we were going to get these drunken, Olympic standard wrestlers out of our beds.

Tension grew, and I think it's fair to say that some of the sweat on Chop's brow was not entirely attributable to the temperature on the train. After an hour, still uncertain about the conditions under which we surrendered our beds, we looked at each other and with a sense of foreboding decided to try to wake them.

Tentatively we shook them awake from their sleep.

The bloke on my bed, Nugget, got up immediately and acquiesced and politely got up and thanked me for the precious hour of drunken sleep he'd had. His smiling friend was not so easy to rouse. He resisted at first, but soon Nugget sorted him out, reminding him that they'd only borrowed the beds. He awoke, very drowsy and very drunk, but was polite enough to thank Chop.

So finally we got some sleep. Without my watch on or an alarm being set, I wasn't sure what time it was in the morning as I was rolling over and going back to sleep. By the time I woke up I saw a family of six on the bench facing me in silence as I was stretching out on the bench all to myself. It was 9:15am. They'd probably been like that for at least three hours.

I think it's fair to say that the Indians have the wood over me when it comes to bed etiquette on trains.

A Close Shave, Mumbai Style

For most of the second half of the India trip, I had my heart set on getting a shave from a roadside barber. You'd see them setting up under trees on the side of the road, just a chair and a mirror, a few shaving materials, and presumably some hot water. Just the basics. I was looking in Chandigarh, then briefly in Delhi and finally in Mumbai, all the time holding off shaving myself in anticipation. We were keeping an eye out in Mumbai, but I couldn't find one. They seemed to be everywhere before!

It got to the last full day in India . After shopping all day and keen to get a bite to eat and then to the pub, we still couldn't find one. I had an offer earlier in the day, but we were on our way to breakfast. We walked back to Crawford Market where we saw the guy. He'd gone but there was another guy there, who was busy with a local. His operation was set up in this tiny booth, slightly bigger than a phone booth. Ironically, he had a three-day growth himself.

We poked around seeing what was going on, and I think we attracted a bit of attention. We found the bloke free, and the attracted crowd of about half a dozen bystanders ushered me into this booth. The bloke didn't speak a word of English. To be honest this spurred me on a bit – made it seem like less of a touristy thing I was doing. And besides it was pretty obvious what I wanted as I had very ginger five-day growth (which is strong below the jaw-line but almost non-existent and camouflaged by freckles on the upper lip).

Or so I thought.

He lathered me up with shaving foam. It felt a little different. It was cold. He was gonna give me a cold water shave! That's not something I'm used to, but at least it's not a dry shave. Something else was different too. He'd missed my upper lip. I tried to sign for him to shave it – I tried to rub my finger along my upper lip, dirty-sanchez-style, but he took it as confirmation that he would retain my "moustache" and enthusiastically nodded. I tried mimicking shaving motions, vertically stroking my upper lip. He confirmed that he wouldn't get rid of my moustache. Finally I took some shaving cream from my cheek and rubbed it over my upper lip, and "moustache."

Finally he clicked. Blokes wanting to ditch the mo must be very rare in India, so tough was it to convince him to take the blade to my upper lip (and any incidental hairs thereon).

We were off shaving! He took to my cheeks with expert precision, and my jowls also got a clean shave. Outside the booth the onlookers were watching attentively and with much amusement. I got a couple of very enthusiastic and friendly head-waggles from the men watching. Presumably they were amused that a white tourist's idea of immersing himself in the Indian experience was entrusting an unshaven stranger on the roadside with a razorblade with care of my facial hair and throat, without the means to communicate with him through a common language. If that was the case, I could certainly see their point.

He was a bit more careful when he finally embarked on my upper lip. Why was he being careful? I couldn't figure it out. He stood back (as much as one can in a phone booth), and admired his work. He took out a cloth and wiped my face clean, including the shaving cream on my upper lip. He hadn't shaved my moustache – he'd styled it. He gave me a pencil moustache which, if you could see it, would make me look like a South American cocaine don. All I needed was a panama hat.

I was about to raise objection but I saw he'd lathered up again and was ready to do a second pass. This guy was a pro – one shave with the grain, and one against the grain! But my optimism that the minute burning embers on my upper lip – all that remained of my fiery red stubble – would finally be extinguished was short-lived. He just did the same thing again, leaving me with the same pencil moustache. I smiled, paid him and thanked my observers for watching me, and we walked back to the hotel to get changed and go out.

Chop, of course, insisted I wear my "moustache" out that night. At first reluctant, I soon realised that it wouldn't cost me a thing: no-one would be able to see it anyway. Take a look - if you squint you might just make it out.

And I was right: the only time someone commented was when I had some Baileys on my upper lip from drinking my " lady boy." I rubbed it off and they said I was OK. Nonetheless, I had no hesitation in shaving it off first thing the next morning.

Just another day the the cricket in India

Bish's Precis:

- We went to this game , which had pretty much everything

- The buzz around the ground before the game is pretty electric

- We got hold of a ticket in a very clandestine operation

- The ground was very good by Indian standards

- We attracted a lot of interest and friends as white spectators, during and after the game

For those of you that are not cricket fans, you need to know two things: cricket is like a religion in India (I heard the words "Tendulkar is a god" at least a dozen times), and the greatest rivalry in cricket is without a doubt between Pakistan and India (who have frosty diplomatic relations anyway).

So for those reasons this was he part of the trip I was looking forward to the most. And I have to say it didn't let me down – it was definitely my highlight of the trip. The only disappointment was that you could not bring your cameras into the ground, so no pics!

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First of all, the scorecard. Here it is. The highlights were the great Tendulkar making 99, Younis Khan's ton, and Shahid Afridi finishing off the innings. In pure cricketing terms it was a very entertaining game. But that's not a patch on what happened off the field.

We tried our hardest to get tickets to the game ahead of time. Both of us contacted people who might have lived in the area, the BCCI (Indian Cricket Board), the local Punjabi Cricket Association, who run the ground… everyone who we could think of. No dice. So we resolved to head up there early ( 8am for a game starting at 2:30pm) and see what we could find. We got dropped off outside the ground and walked around the ground. All the ticket boxes were unattended. A few people were about, but noone who could get us tickets. We walked right around the ground before a policeman saw us and told us we had to leave the restricted area if we didn't have tickets. I don't know how we got in the barricaded area in the first place.

At first we thought – well, we've tried our very best, we should try to get to a pub and just soak up the atmosphere of the game. But we wanted to watch the buildup (the atmosphere was already pretty exciting already), and I don't think either of us had totally given up on our chance to get into the game. While walking around ate a bit of street food for brekky and noticed a few people watching us. We'd only arrived in Chandigarh the night before and we hadn't realised until now that there weren't many white people around at all. I was in my Aussie cricket shirt and a couple of locals sparked up a conversation with us.

Like all conversations in India, this one started like this:

"Hello, how are you?"

"Great thanks, how are you?"

"Very well. Where are you from? England? America ?"

"No no, we're Australian"

"Aaah , Australia ! Australia have best cricket team!"

"Yes but India are better at the Twenty-20!"

"Ricky Ponting is a very good player! Shane Warne! You call Harbhajan the Turbanator!"

As the conversation continued, more people gathered around. Still only about three people were talking to us, but about fifty people were watching enthusiastically, including more than a few police and security men which made me a little nervous. As the conversation continued I mentioned that we'd tried but couldn't get tickets for the game. We spoke for a little longer – about half an hour in total - and then decided to move on and look around a bit. I said goodbye with "Jai Hind!" which I think means "Victory to India" or "Long Live India" – I had read one of Nehru's speeches a couple of days before. It got a good reception anyway.

As we walked around afterwards, a couple of people came up to us quietly and said "you want tickets?" Each time we said yes and they scurried off, presumably to find some. Then an older bloke, probably about 55, in a pink turban and red polo shirt (so probably colour-blind), quietly said "you want tickets?" We said yes and he said "come with me." He took us out to a small alleyway between shops and ordered us some chai from a nearby vendor. The alley was filthy – it stank worse than most places in the area, there were flies everywhere, and some young blokes were preparing food right there also. What's worse, we were sitting about two metres behind a group of about eight policemen.

We sat and drank the chai, more out of politeness than anything else. He was very quiet. No jovial discussion – hardly any discussion at all. I was starting to wonder what the point of it all was. After about a dozen words in total, and no mention at all of the tickets, he said "you come with me."

We followed him along the parade of shops, and noticed another white guy with us. He was English and also after tickets. We chatted for a while and it turns out his mate Taz, also English but of Punjabi descent, was on hand to interpret (and also get their own tickets). We stood on a corner waiting with our mysterious scalper and after a couple of minutes he said "you go now." At first we were mystified but Taz told us that he was worried at how conspicuous we looked, three white guys around a local. So we said we'd meet him in 15 minutes.

We shot off to get some street food (and it was excellent – mini veggie burgers with sweet chilli jam and coriander sauce for only Rs 5, our first really good street food), and after about ten minutes we found the white bloke. They had their tickets and we could go and get ours now. Taz mentioned that they'd paid Rs 3500 each for them, and may have got them cheaper because he spoke Punjabi, but we shouldn't accept anything more than that price.

We wandered over. Our colour-blind scalper wasn't there. We walked further along the parade of shops and right at the end we saw some guy who pointed out the back of the shops and said "down there." We started walking down there and saw our scalper sitting on the back of a moped, with its engine running. He looked like he was waving us closer, but e actually meant for us to go away and send a local over. We realised too late, when we were right next to him. He'd given up trying to shoo us away by then. He blurted out "3500 each, 3500 each. No time." We handed over the cash and got our tickets, and as soon as the transaction was completed he shot off. Our colour-blind, clandestine scalper had shot off down the back street and away.

It was quite an operation!

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Once we had our tickets we had to head back to our hotel and dump a lot of our stuff. Mobile phones aren't allowed inside due to terrorism fears. Worse, digital cameras are not allowed in either, so we have no photographic record of what happened inside the stadium.

As you can imagine, security was tight entering the stadium. Our tickets were checked five times on the way in, and we were searched four times. The stadium itself, which is quite modern, was surprisingly clean also.

Once inside, we saw some food available and made a bee line for it. Chow mein (i.e. noodles with some scant veggies), fried sandwiches (?), samosas and heaps of other goodies for Rs 20 each (about 60 cents). The food was great. We were worried when we went to take our seats as they weren't together. As soon as we got inside and were looking for our seats, several groups of people told us that we could just sit wherever we wanted. We did, and immediately befriended some of the blokes around us.

Like so many people we met, they were very enthusiastic to meet us and talk cricket with us. The bloke we mainly spoke with had taken the day off and driven straight from his work the previous day in Kashmir south to the stadium. He was a bureaucrat working for the state government in Kashmir, and had a few mates around him who were all similarly enthusiastic.

One of his mates was a freak though. He just sat in the crowd all day making animal noises, screaming them into the air when there was a quiet moment, and mocking the guys selling food and drinks in the crowd. He was pretty funny, because all Chop and I could think about when watching him was how much he was like our loveable but extraordinarily obnoxious mate Jamie, except this bloke wasn't drunk.

The game itself was an incredible one. As Tendulkar, God of Cricket in India, approached his century the crowd noise built from a dull roar to a screaming din, leaving the atmosphere thick and tense with anticipation. This was immediately juxtaposed with deafening silence when he was out for 99. Its pretty incredible when so many people at an event can be moved to silence, and this was one of those times.

Despite the closeness of the game as Pakistan's run chase continued, we were surprised to find the rivalry was very friendly. Fifteen years ago violence was common at these games but now this game was friendly, with many of the crowd vocal in their support for Pakistani excitement machine Shahid Afridi. Punjab, where Chandigarh is, was split up during partition, so this part of the country has a longer history of friendly relations with Pakistan, and it might have been different for games further from the border. That said, there was blanked coverage of the political crisis that had just broken in Pakistan with President Musharraf declaring emergency rule – media coverage of Pakistan had been very negative for about a week leading into the game.

The attitude between the fans could be summed up by a bloke in the crowd who said to us " Pakistan and India are like siblings," to which he added quietly, "but Pakistan is the sister."

It was a tense finish. After chanting for India in English, I asked some of our new friends what we could say in Hindi to support their team. His response was "just say Chak de India – it means 'go India'." After a while of saying this I got a bit bored and mischievously decided to alter the chant slightly, using one of the few words in Hindi I knew. I chanted "Chak de gora." The bloke who was coaching me fell about laughing, unable to contain himself for about ten minutes and sharing what I'd said with those around us.

Gora means "white man."

The game ended with Pakistan winning after successfully completing an amazing run-chase. I noticed a few younger kids starting to look at us as the game came to a close. Young blokes, about twelve or thirteen were looking at us rather than the amazing cricket being played. Between balls I'd look over to them and smile. I was wearing my Aussie One-day shirt, so they kept saying to me "Ponting, Ponting" and pointing at me. I responded by patting my belly and saying "Lehmann, Lehmann", but I don't think their cricketing knowledge ran that deep.

Their attention was just the beginning. After the game finished, we were talking to the blokes we watched the game with about how great it was. The younger boys came up and started talking to us also. Then a few more people wanted to chat to us and shake our hands. Pretty soon it had snowballed. There must have been about 300 people around us, all extremely happy and friendly – not a hint of malice, ane we never felt we were in danger. Songs from Bollywood movies would come over the speakers and we would dance with our new friends (usually at their insistance).

People from all around us were wanting to shake our hands, ask us a few questions (usually the same ones) and were just very happy and curious to see us. The amazing this is that at no stage did either of us feel in physical danger, or that we would be pick-pocketed while we were there. It was all so good natured.

After about 30 minutes of this unrelenting friendly attention, my sides were sore from laughing, my cheeks ached from smiling, and my back was starting to hurt from the friendly pokes for attention. I had to say to Chopper. "I think its about time we left mate." To clear our path I used one of the only other words I know in Hindi, challo ("let's go"). I was quickly and happily mimicked by the assembled crowd, who were happy that I knew a little Hindi. The crowd then proceeded to join us in trying to squeeze out the exit at once. After many happy goodbyes to our new friends, we finally got out of the stadium and, eventually, back to our hotel.

The whole day, especially what happened after the game finished, was really amazing. I heard often before going that people either love or hate India the first time they go, and that experience would have been a real watershed for most people in that respect: we were absolutely inundated with people, but all of the people talking to us were full of happiness and curiosity – every last one of them. Without a doubt it was the highlight of my entire trip to India. I couldn't wipe the smile off my face for some time after we left them.

I've "done" India

Yeah, I think two weeks is enough to cover 1.1 billion people and 5000 years of history.

I've thought long and hard about how I'm going to organise this email. I took notes in a vague journal/diary form for my time in India (especially my time by myself), and those notes are extensive, even by my standards. And I feel like I've forgotten so much. Narrative isn't really an option. Like Indian food, the best thing to do is to try and break it down into vaguely digestible nuggets.Hopefully at least part of it is manageable for those of you that have read this much. So I'll cover the basics in this email. See also my 600-or-so photos (also on Facebook)

So without further delay, let's get into it…

BISH'S PRECIS

- I'm back in Perth – both the trip to India and the stealthy return to WA had been planned for a year, but if you read my last blog entry you'd know that

- Chop was delayed and joined me only for the second half of the trip

- I'll do a few more emails on specific incidents later, but this is the meat-and-potatoes email about our experiences

- Delhi was pretty bland and businesslike, but they make a mean suit

- Jaipur, the Pink City is incredible. I rode an elephant there!

- Agra can cram it with walnuts, but you have to go and see the Taj Mahal (unless they move it)

- Chandigarh was a massive highlight because of the cricket, and also because it's off the beaten track a bit

- Mumbai was also really great, although we did more shopping and mixed with more expats there

- Finally, Merry Christmas to everyone, hope you have a great one!

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The first thing you need to know is that, thanks to the excellent recommendation of a few of my friends, I read a book called Shantaram, about an Aussie escaped criminal who flees to India. If you haven't read it I won't tell you what happens (you don't have to read it – the movie comes out next year with Johnny Depp starring), but the one thing I got from it as a visitor to India was to just open up and let the experience hit me. I reckon I might have done that anyway, but in India it seemed especially important and I was conscious of being open no matter how much it overloaded my senses.

So where did we go?

Delhi

I was in Delhi solo for a few days at the start, and then with Chopper for a couple of days either side of our trip to Chandigarh. I did some sightseeing there on my first full day, which included:

- the Red Fort (its amazing the way they used water in the complex, and the marble and semi-precious stones, pointed out by my excellent guide, were also incredible),

- Jama Masjid (the main mosque in Old Delhi, which is not very ornamental, but offers a great view of the city from its southern tower),

- Raj Ghat (where the ashes of Indian PMs and national heroes are scattered – Gandhi's memorial and eternal flame was pretty cool, especially school children came past to pay their respect),

- Humayun's Tomb (precursor to the Taj Mahal in style, and 38 metres high),

- India Gate (an Arc de Triomphe style monument to fallen soldiers of World War I and Afghan wars, very well attended by locals),

- the government district (lined with beautiful colonial buildings, on a broad avenue which leads to the India Gate, creating a Champs-Elysees-style effect), and

- the Indira Gandhi memorial (her residence in Delhi while president and site of her assassination, painstakingly preserved and also packed with locals)

With all that, thankfully I had a driver to take me to these places. The second day, I headed for something I was looking forward to: a bespoke suit. Suits are obviously cheap in India , and some roadside operators can turn one around for next to nothing in 24 hours.

But there was a place that Chop and I decided on which was, by all reports, the best bespoke tailors in India. Generations of tailors at this place have worked their trade on the famous Saville Row in London. They treat you in a very gentlemanly manner also, taking their time, and tending to your every need. There are employees all around you.

Of course, with all this activity, standing at close proximity to me, engaging me in polite conversation, and asking me questions about my suit design, there could be few worse places to have an encounter with Delhi Belly. My first, no less.

I knew I was in trouble when I was sweating profusely in the air conditioned tailors. Half way through them asking me some crucial questions, I had to blurt out "where is the toilet?" They directed me to it (upstairs – eek!) and after a temporary lull in food poisoning, I emerged to see them standing there with a rehydration packet and some hard-core immodium-type stuff. That's what I call service! From now on, when I go to a tailor I will inspect their medicine cabinet before looking at materials or letting them take measurements.

The rehydration salts were stamped with the World Health Organisation, so I was probably stealing from the UN by taking the sachet. Of the other tablets, our tailor, Sachin, said only "only have one a day – any more and you'll be clogged up." Nice!

Also had my first experience with a travel agent, to find that I couldn't get trains to Jaipur and Agra (the "Golden Triangle"), so I had my driver take me to those places. The round trip was to take about 5 days in all.

After that it was straight to bed to rest up for the following day. I didn't want to be this delicate for a 6 hour drive to ...

Jaipur

The trip there allowed me some time to sleep, a chance to see (semi-)rural India, and to sample some more local delicacies . Jokes aside, the scenery with the morning haze looked pretty cool. The traffic was almost as hectic as Delhi the whole way there.

Jaipur is called the Pink City: the old city is painted … pink. The colour isn't natural; it's been deliberately painted onto buildings fairly regularly. The last time was for when Bill Clinton visited in 2000. It's not very old by Indian standards, less than 300 years old. And it's a fully planned city, planned in accordance with Hindu architectural manuals. As a result, the streets are surprisingly wide: almost boulevards. The city is known for its jewellery, fabrics and textiles, and I loaded up on the textiles when there. That evening I went to a fairly touristy but still nice Rajasthani outdoor restaurant. The food was nice, and they had some dancers in traditional dress doing all sorts of crazy stuff, including dancing with pots of fire on their head! No wonder their posture was so good!

They asked me up to dance also, but I had to politely decline: after all that food, I had my own dance.

The highlight of Jaipur was Amber Fort. I got to ride an elephant! The guys who "drive" them sit on the elephants' necks all day and try to extort money from you. It doesn't look like a very nice job. But it could be worse.

The ride up the hill was to the palace itself, an ornate compound with a mix of Mughal and Hindu architecture, as pointed out by my guide. He also showed me some amazing detail in the decoration – semi-precious stones still embedded in ornate marble. He wasn't quite as good at taking photos.

While in Jaipur I also headed to:

The City Palace , which has heaps of old weapons, the largest silver objects in the world (a pair of jugs – cop that Pamela Anderson), amazing old costumes, and some fascinating old artefacts in a museum there. It's really beautiful too.

Jal Mahal – the water palace, beautifully (if impractically) situated on Man Sarobar Lake

Hawa Mahal (the Palace of Winds) – which was closed and covered in scaffolding but still provided something interesting to look at (no harnesses on those blokes in there).

Jantar Mantar (the astrological observatory), which consisted of heaps of instruments that plotted the night sky, and a 27 metre high sundial , which is accurate to within two seconds. Two seconds! It wasn't working when I was there though – it was just flashing "12:00 " constantly.

The world's worst Indian Massage. Not rough enough to get knots out, not soft enough to be relaxing, and the masseuse was not feminine enough to make it erotic (he was hardly feminine at all).

Aside from that, Jaipur was a fantastic city. It has a different energy to Delhi, which, while busy, is pretty bland and businesslike. It seemed a lot more fun, and not just around the touristy areas (which were quite touristy).

I saw some fireworks that night from my hotel balcony and headed to bed, ahead of more driving the next day, to Agra.

Agra

Agra is famous as the home of the Taj Mahal. It's also famous for having the worst touts in Asia . Turns out both reputations are true. We got in mid-afternoon and I didn't want to head straight to the Taj as I'd heard it was best early in the morning. So I headed to the Red Fort. My driver said I didn't need a guide, but he was wrong I think. It's an amazing compound, right over the river from the Taj, but information on its history is a bit thin on the ground. I saw a good amount of it (I guess, I could've missed a heap for all I know), but it was starting to get dark before I'd seen it all.

I ate, headed to the hotel and to bed. I planned to see the Taj at dawn. I set my alarm but unfortunately slept through it, mainly because I'd been awake all night with Delhi Belly.

Still, the Taj was wonderful , if a little hazy when I went. Obviously it's a must-see, and it's worth the hype (although the main tomb is surprisingly small – I guess he didn't love her that much). Amazing ornate carving, incredible gardens, and a wonderful setting on the river. The only let down is the electronic sign that tells you exactly how polluted the air you're breathing is – it was displayed prominently on one of the mosques to the side of the main tomb.

Before leaving Agra we managed to stop at the Baby Taj , which I really should've gone to first I guess. It was still lovely, cheap and nowhere near as crowded. Like Humayun's Tomb it was built before the Taj itself. Still lovely, and still has embedded semi-precious stones, but it's not quite as well preserved as the Taj.

The Taj aside, I wasn't sad to leave Agra. It was full of the most touristy shops and, worse still, the most obnoxious touts I've come across. And I got crook on the food there. Very crook. But hey, everyone's going to go there to see the Taj. I suggest you don't make plans to spend much longer there though.

On the way back to Delhi there was one highlight – stopping for lunch we came across a snake charmer. He gave me a snake to handle (second time this year), and let me charm another (although from the look on his face I wasn't a great musician).

Chandigarh

Finally I caught up with Chop and we headed up to Chandigarh (also a planned city, planned by the Modernist w@nker, Le Corbusier) the following day for the big highlight, an India vs Pakistan cricket match. Our trip there was our first experience on India's famed train system. The game and the antics surrounding it will be the subject of another email, but I will say that this was the one thing I was looking forward to more than anything and it definitely didn't disappoint (except that no cameras were allowed). Here is the scorecard.

The following day, November 9, was the biggest festival in the Hindu calendar, Diwali. It was also pretty amazing. The markets went nuts during the day, and we saw Pakistan coach and Aussie cricketing legend Geoff Lawson amongst the throng. The fireworks were even crazier during the night. Everyone seemed to be lighting something explosive that night. We split a whole tandoori chicken in celebration of the holy day.

Our final day was spent at an unusual rock garden. Some guy found some disused land and started living there and building rock figures in a massive rock garden. He was so isolated that it took authorities 18 years to stumble onto the illegal sculptures. After that long, they told him to keep going with it, and gave him a staff of fifty to continue the work. It covers 40 acres, but isn't built for large people! Very … um … unique.

We stuck out a bit in Chandigarh. It was off the beaten track, and I think white folk ("gora") are a bit thinner on the ground there. We got more attention there than elsewhere anyways. But it was all very friendly and helpful.

Chandigarh was built in anthropomorphic form, with government at the "head" and commerce at the "heart" (see? Modernist w@nker). Despite the utterly ludicrous literal design – which wouldn't be out of place in the original Sim City – the town itself is very clean and noticeably more prosperous than any other we went to. It's also the place we fell in love with Indian street food. I really liked the place.

Mumbai

After a return train journey, and our last fitting of our suits, we hopped on the train for a 23 hour trip to Mumbai. The train journey was an event in itself, which warrants an email of its own. Let's just say I'm wary of Indian wrestlers and gymnasts now. By and large the people were incredibly friendly though. On arrival in Mumbai, we found ourselves a long way from the city centre, and our hotel.

The hotel was awful, but we didn't hang around for long to investigate. We wanted to get to Crawford Market to check it out, but couldn't really find much to meet our fancy. It was getting dark, so we wandered off to Colaba, the ex-pat area of central Mumbai. Heaps of energy, and the roadside stalls were still open selling everything. We made a bee-line for Leopold's, the ex-pat bar made famous by the book Shantaram. We headed out there for the night, trying in vain to secure Bombay Sapphire gin. Y'know, when in Rome…

No dice, but we did sport sizeable hangovers the next day nonetheless.

The next day we intended to go sightseeing. We headed to:

Victoria Terminus (VT) a lovely old train station made very much in the style of the grand London stations, like St Pancras.

The Gateway to India , another symbolic arch that sits on the shore and reinforces Mumbai's history (and ongoing) role as a landing point for new arrivals in India

The Taj Mahal palace and tower , a lovely old gentleman's club built by a wealthy Indian who was denied entry to a white's only club. Good smarm that.

And, um, that was it. We were surprised by how little really appealed to us for sightseeing in Mumbai. That night we did some for searching for Bombay Sapphire again, but failed again, and ended up in Leopold's … again. We did other stuff during the day too, shopping, indulging in street food and being offered a part in a Bollywood movie (a paid part no less – Rs400 for 10 hours work, but it was an all-nighter so we knocked it back).

After getting a quick photo with our waiter, who didn't look unlike Anil Kumble, we foolishly had Indian ladyboys. Both of us had a "little bit of sick" afterwards. Ladyboys!

The next day, my last in India, was spent getting cricket bats (look how seedy Chop looks here), then shopping for pressies for the rest of the day, and eating street food until we felt better. Luckily, by the end of the day I'd recovered enough to get on the plane!

Which was just as well, as I had to surprise my folks – and everyone else - on mum's birthday the next day!

So that was it! India was absolutely amazing and I definitely want to go back. They say you like it even more the second time. And there's so much to see! We didn't even get to the Ganges or the Himalayas. But that's next time. As mentioned, there will be other emails coming that cover specific incidents or aspects, but I had to get this email out at least before I embark on the rest!