Monkeys rule. You can watch them for hours.

Well, I finally succumbed to Delhi belly (in, er, Goa) after 36 days. After eating all manner of dodgy  things in Orissa, it was the 'safe' tourist restaurants of Baga that got me in the end. Still, I'm pleased with lasting 36 days :)

Since I last blogged, I have been with Ben and Nick exploring Mumbai, Goa and now Rajasthan. Mumbai provided a nice transition between the Orissa and the adventures that lay ahead.

Mainly it consisted of eating excellent spring rolls and drinking beer in Leopold cafe (of Shantaram fame), wandering around Colaba (downtown), and, what was to become a common theme, being stopped to be photographed with locals. We took a ferry out to Elephanta Island to look at the cave temples, but finding

the monkeys to be far more entertaining. After an entertaining

overnight train down to Goa, we arrived in Arambol beach to find it

a tad, well, dead, and full of floaty-pants (one thing I am mystified

about though - why do all Western tourists here (bar us) deem it necessary to don those stupid hippy floaty-pants? Do they hand them out at Heathrow and JFK?). We taxied off to Baga, which Lonely Planet describes as 'Blackpool in a heatwave' - which I'm sure it is in peak season, but during the monsoon it proved fine, with well-developed tourist infrastructure, free-flowing beer and a laid-back atmosphere. My time here consisted of teaching myself to ride a manual 150cc motorbike and lying in bed sick, although the

other two made better use of the time.

Flying from Goa up to Jaipur (delayed) we are now in the state of Rajasthan, where we have been to Jaipur, Jodhpur and now Udaipur. We struggled to figure out why Jaipur is part of the 'tourist triangle' along with Delhi and Agra (Taj Mahal), as it seemed dirtier, noisier and more polluted than usual, and the palace wasn't as

exciting as the guidebook made it out to be. The Amber fort outside town was rather spectacular in its mountainous, Great-Wall-esque setting, including more entertaining simians. Jodhpur provided an

impressive fort overlooking the blue old city and more opportunities

to be photographed with locals (they love it - is it my 2-month

beard? do we look like cricketers?). The Rajasthan Muslim influence

is noticeable compared to Mumbai and Goa in the mosques, shisha

and Muslim architecture (like the Taj Mahal). Udaipur, where we

currently reside, is a delightful narrow-alleyed lake-side town

reminiscent of Europe. Ben just found a description of Udaipur as

being a cross between Venice and Baghdad (maybe this was written

in the 70s...?). We are spending a few days here recharging before

another overnight train to Agra to see the Taj Mahal and Delhi, which is currently in the middle of a dengue outbreak (gulp...).

Peace out

James

PS. Captions are screwing up the page formatting and I don't have the patience to figure it out (after spending 2 hours uploading photos), so they are (from top-bottom): sign at Mumbai's main train station; Baga beach at sunset; me riding a motorbike at Baga; and the view from the Amber fort in Jaipur (note monkey in foreground).