Highlights of 2012

Looking back on 2012, it has been a very busy year, with plenty of incident. To avoid this summary growing to the size of a novelette, it has been ruthlessly pruned. Honestly!

Garden

The house is on high ground.  The soil is thin, barely crumbled granite, but Eve has made significant progress.  With the application of hard working green fingers and sacks and sacks of compost the garden is slowly developing good soil.

Last summer was not a great growing season.  Everyone in the valley had their tomatoes attacked by blight.  But we did get good quantities of courgettes (zucchini) and strawberries.  Later in the year, in the Southern Spring, we harvested our first crop of asparagus.  Eve had to restrain Bill from taking too much.  The plants are still relatively immature and have to be allowed to grow their fronds.

In the autumn the orchard was visited by deer. They look cute and delightful but they ate the tops off all our fruit trees. This essentially put the orchard back by a year. Retribution finally overtook them, though. Four deer were spotted on our hillside from across the river. Dion Maclean, whose sheep graze our land and do not jump over the orchard fence, telephoned. May he come and have a shot at them? Of course. He came with a friend and his son, Lawson. We are pleased to report that they got two of the cute vandals and we have venison in the freezer in exchange for our damaged trees.

Work

Most of Bill's work continues to be as a practice reviewer for the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants. Changes at the Institute have made this less enjoyable. Reviewing has always been a mix of practitioner education and policing of sub-standard work. Over time this is becoming more stick (policing) and less carrot (education) and generally less fun. However, it pays the bills and will continue, although steps are being taken to generate more consulting and presenting assignments.

Hockey

Somehow the Federal Hockey Club was prevailed on to give Bill a regular place in the 'Seniors' side, although it would be true to say that he was probably last choice if the club ever worried about fielding a team based on merit. He turned 60 during the season, but was still not the oldest player in the team. After his birthday he actually scored a goal. Indeed it was a good goal, involving trapping the ball, controlling it and guiding it accurately into the chosen corner of the net. The only time he demonstrated so much skill all season.

Richard & Tansy's Wedding

5 February is now an important date in the Heritage calendar. That's when Bill's son, Richard, and his fiancee, Tansy, tied the knot. The ceremony was outdoors in Kaitoke Regional Park, near Wellington. The locality was used in the filming of Lord of the Rings and is now known as Rivendell. Richard and Tansy wrote the entire, secular 'service' except for readings by the two mothers. We thought it was very suitable, and the setting very attractive.

One very happy couple.

NZ Residence

Shortly after the wedding we received the welcome news that Bill's Dad had been granted permission to reside permanently in New Zealand. The application had been about two years in processing and was never a certainty. However, his passport now bears the vital endorsement that means he can forget about the possibility of being chucked out of the country. He persists in telling people that he is a New Zealander now, but citizenship is another round of forms and cheques and anyway won't be available to him for years yet.

Dad's 90^th

Less than a month later, on 3 March, Dad celebrated his 90^th birthday. Luckily his other son, Nigel, was able to fly out from the UK and join us for the occasion. The party was at a cafe in Mapua right on the estuary shore. Dad was surrounded by both his sons, both his grandchildren (Richard and Elizabeth) and a few select friends. He had consistently said that he didn't want any fuss, but he seemed awfully pleased with the fuss we made.

90 today!  "Gramps" with Elizabeth and Richard

Bob died

The land we have built our house on was purchased from Bob Anderson and Kate Burness, who continued to live next door at Golightly Farm. Bob had recovered once from prostate cancer and was a very fit octogenerian, frequently walking up the hill to visit us. Unfortunately the cancer returned and this time could not be overcome. In March we lost a very good neighbour and friend.

Our Wedding

In contrast to the colourful and well attended ceremonial of Richard and Tansy's wedding, we snuck off to the Registry Office in Nelson. In fact it was a room in the Courthouse building, but court business was slow and we did not share the waiting room with drug pushers, arsonists or hooligans who breach the Road Code. There were just the two of us, with our witnesses and immediate neighbours. The witnesses were Bill's dad and Eve's son, Matthew, representing the previous and next generations. The neighbours were Kate and another couple living at Golightly Farm, Maria Hudnutt and Urs Isenring, who wielded a camera.  No-one else was even notified that the wedding was happening.

The marriage was brief, but the words were very tasteful and appropriate. It was exactly right for us. All seven of us lunched at the Boathouse Restaurant in Nelson (do we see a waterside theme coming through here?) and enjoyed ourselves very much.

A slightly more wrinkled couple, but just as happy!

Then we let the rest of the world know about it!

Sailing

Traditionally a newly wedded couple goes straightaway on a romantic honeymoon. We don't pay convention too much heed and modified this. It's all Peter Bould's fault. Peter is a more-or-less retired accountant in Auckland. He invited Bill to crew his yacht from New Zealand to Tonga. Now, an ocean voyage was high on Bill's list of things to do. What would you do? Bill went sailing, of course.

Peter generously invited Eve to accompany us on the first part of the voyage, from Auckland to the Bay of Islands so she got her first proper on-the-sea sail. The wind direction was inconvenient, so we motor-sailed the whole way, but at least Eve had a chance to see Manawa II in action and to be reassured about the sturdiness of the vessel and her master.

A fleet of yachts assembled in Opua. Eve went back home and the crew was completed by the arrival of Jim Murchison from Sydney, a veteran of several ocean races.

We set off on 1 May and for the second time I sailed out of sight of land. The first occasion was the ill fated voyage that ended in mutiny and the loss of Air Apparent. That ghost is firmly laid to rest now. We had some lumpy seas in the first few days but no cyclones, waterspouts, collisions or kraken attacks. And like most of the fleet we paused at North Minerva Reef. The original atoll has sunk and there is nothing now but a ring of coral with safe anchorage for passing boats. The snorkeling was great.

The skipper watching for the entrance to Minerva Reef's lagoon

After 3 nights we sailed on to Tonga. It was about 10 days sailing time and over far too soon. Thank you, Peter.

Does anyone need experienced crew for some more blue water sailing?

Garlic

We have our first commercial crop. It is organic garlic. The deal is Steve Perry knows about growing garlic and we have land on which garlic may be grown. Steve gets some wages for his labour, but also a share of the crop. Further labour has been supplied by Eve's son, Matthew as a casual employee of the company that owns the land, Shnurg Limited.

Getting organic seed garlic proved to be a major problem. We could not find enough and could only plant about an acre. However, at the time of writing it is growing well and we should harvest sufficient seed to plant the entire paddock next year and still have some to sell.

Norfolk Island

Only about 2 months after getting married, we had a honeymoon on Norfolk Island; a popular destination for the newly wed and the nearly dead. No comments, please.

It was a great place to unwind and just be lazy. Our package included a rental car so we could get around all 30-odd km of the island's roads. We did most of the touristy things, like a murder mystery dinner (Eve correctly guessed the villain), a progressive dinner and reading the history of the island in its headstones.

Bill usually makes a list of the birds seen when we go overseas. He is very pleased with this list because we saw all the island's endemic bird species except the two silvereyes, which are in any case very difficult to tell apart from the common one found in Australia and NZ. We did particularly well to see the island's rare 'green parrots'.

Norfolk Island's inhospitable coastline

Bill's 60^th

He spent it working in Invercargill.  No big party.

Irrigation System

Developing farmland is an expensive business. The garlic thrives best with a reliable supply of water. More reliable than the random cascades from the sky. The irrigation system includes two large water tanks. These were delivered from the factory in Christchurch. For a full account of how the truck got stuck and one of the tanks made a bid for freedom see 'Fun and Games on the Farm' posted in July.

The runaway tank at rest.  It was unloaded a little to the left of the shed in the background.  Our house is the slightly higher building to the right.

The ever reliable Dion Maclean brought his big tractor over and sorted out the muddle.

Steve and Matthew made a start on making a 'basin' in the stream from which we could pump water up to the tanks, but that stalled and eventually we did the sensible thing and recruited the experts at Thinkwater to install pump & piping and get the water tanks filled. It's simple. All I had to do was write cheques.

Now I have to remember to go down and switch the pump off when the sun doesn't shine. On a sunny day we have enough power to run the water pump, but not on a cloudy day. In theory, it will rain on cloudy days, the garlic will grow and we won't need the tank water.

Richard's Prize

Bill's son Richard is a geotechnical engineer. That's an engineer who is concerned with foundations, retaining walls and whatever else my be needed where the structure meets the planet.

In July he attended an Australasian Young Geotechnical Professional Conference in Melbourne. For accounting conferences you just decide to go and send a cheque. Engineers who want to confer must submit a paper and, if it is accepted, stand up and present it. Richard estimates that about one paper in five of those submitted was accepted.

Briefly, Richard's paper was judged the most outstanding presented from NZ. His prize is to present a paper at a World Young Geotechnical Professional Conference in Paris next year. Bill couldn't be prouder if he had presented the paper himself.

Holiday

November was devoted to travel. It was India's turn this year, with a stopover in Kuala Lumpur (KL) on the way North. The hotel in KL was the first time we had used the web site Booking.com and it was brilliant. See the posts in November for details of our Malaysia visit.

India was certainly memorable. We were warned that it would be a shock – and it was. We arrived in Delhi at night, but you could still see the smog, it was so thick. And of course you can smell it and even taste it on bad days.

We did not enjoy Delhi, but that may have been simply our introduction to what we later learned was the commonplace in India. Rubbish is everywhere. Unwanted items are simply discarded on the spot. Plastic accumulates in huge drifts in some places. In one town we did see a woman sweeping the street. She tidied the rubbish into a neat pile and set a match to it, plastic and all.

The driving is terrifying to the uninitiated. All drivers use their horn frequently. If there is any right-of-way rule we could not detect it. Every driver just barges ahead to where s/he wants to go. There are occasional traffic lights in the cities, but obeying their signals seems to be optional. Blue-jerseyed traffic police are found on some intersections. They glare and blow their whistle, but we could not detect any attention being paid. All the major cities' roads are packed with trucks, buses, cars, large numbers of motorcycles, bicycles and auto-rickshaws or 'tuk-tuks'. These are 3-wheelers with a motorcycle engine and handlebars that act as cheap taxis.

A lightly laden tuk-tuk.  It is common for extra passengers to squeeze in beside the driver.

In our pathetic, Western way we had thought that a motor bike was for no more than 2 people. Ridiculous. Although helmets are generally worn in the cities, they are expensive, effete extravagances in the villages, where the average load is three people. Several times we saw four adults on one bike and with children we definitely saw six-up and Bill spotted a seven, but it was gone too quickly to double check.

The expression “lane discipline” has no translation in Hindi. The only vehicle that reliably keeps to left in India is an elephant. Camel carts are pretty good, too. Others will use the centre or the right if it suits them. Major roads are 4 or 6 lanes with a median strip. Most traffic does use the left lane, but we also encountered examples of 2-way traffic in both lanes. But we saw no more accident debris than elsewhere in the world. Somehow the system works. Indian drivers must have terrific all-round awareness.

It's just as well, because we had pre-booked a car plus driver for the major part of our tour. The driver, Satish Sharma, was very quiet and an excellent driver.

Our itinerary was Delhi – train to Jaipur – circuit of Rajasthan by car and driver - end up at Agra to see the Taj Mahal – fly home from Delhi.

We could easily write a thousand words per day, but we will spare you that.

The highlights were:

1. The Taj Mahal. Seeing the famous memorial was Bill's 60^th birthday treat. It truly is a beautiful building. We went before breakfast. Some reckon that it is most gorgeous at dawn. The air was too hazy to tell, but we suspect that at least we avoided the worst crowds. If you've never been there and it's not on your life list, then it should be.
   

   

   
   
2. The Diwali lights. We happened to be in India at the time of this major festival, with many buildings festooned in lights, similar to the Western Christmas, and several consecutive nights of firework parties.
   

   

   
   
3. Keoladeo Bird Sanctuary. We must have seen 70 species of bird in one day.
   

   

   A lesser whistling duck has a satisfying scratch.

   
   
4. Ranthambhore National Park. Everyone goes for the chance to see tigers, but we were well satisfied with crocodiles, deer, boar and birds, including the cheeky treepies. And a scene at the ticket window that came straight out of a comedy film. Satish was buying our park entrance permits for us and was surrounded by drivers of the special tour vehicles all shouting and gesticulating excitedly at once, while the clerk behind the desk quietly completed his forms and took no notice at all.
   
   

   

   A spotted deer and her faun.

   
   
5. The people we met. There are Indians who are just friendly and do not try to sell you anything. And we encountered some very agreeable fellow travellers.
6. The food. Although many waiters were careful to make sure our feeble foreign stomachs did not get anything too spicy, Rajasthani food does not use much chili and none of the dishes we tried was very 'hot'. The local cuisine was certainly tasty and outside the hotels a good meal can be remarkably cheap. Most dishes are vegetarian, and many restaurants serve only vegetarian food. If they do serve meat, the menu will have separate lists for “Veg” and “Non-veg”. Best meal – ker sangri (desert beans) at the Hotel Pleasant Haveli in Jaisalmer.
7. Decorated camels at the Pushkar Camel Fair.
   

   

   
   
8. The observatory in Jaipur. Shah Jahan, who built the Taj Mahal, constructed a very fine observatory, long before anyone had invented a telescope, when he was a young man.
   

   

   
   
9. Forts, palaces and temples. Some of these were very fine indeed, but there are a lot of them in Rajasthan and we fear we overdosed a bit.
10. Best hotel: Pleasant Haveli in Jaisalmer, with Vimal Heritage in Jaipur close behind.

The major frustrations were:

1. The “priests” in Pushkar who have a slick scam that starts with a 'friendly' local giving you a flower “for the holy lake” and ends with a demand for a huge, by Indian standards, amount of money. This is not for the temple but goes into the individual's pocket.
2. The commission system, whereby shops pay up to 35% of your purchases to the guide, driver or other individual who brought you to the emporium. The worst example was the tuk-tuk driver who didn't even take us near the place we wanted to go.
3. Incessant attempts to sell us something we did not want.
4. Demands for tips that ranged from annoying to outrageous.
5. A mild attack of 'Delhi belly'. The travel doctor had us prepared with a small pharmacy so it was dealt with before it could get serious.
6. Worst meal: The buffet dinner after our camel ride in the desert was the only disappointing food we encountered. Even the samosas on the train were much better than this.
7. Worst hotel: Taj Heritage in Agra. They denied all knowledge of our booking. They did nothing to find us alternative accommodation and we ended up in a pretty rough hotel with no hot water.

We were in India for 24 days and by the end of it we were both ready to come home. Stepping on the plane seemed to release a good deal of built-up tension. Now that we have had a spell of 'normality' we are both willing, even eager, to see some more of India, particularly Kerala in the South. We think we might limit a future visit to 2 weeks. But if we're in the South we've heard that Pondicherry is nice – and we can't go back and not visit Abhishek and Smitha who live in Mumbai – and ...

Chooks go feral

If you read the October post, 'We Have Livestock', you will know that we have taken to keeping chickens. We put some photos of them on Bill's Facebook page.

While we were holidaying the house sitters, Ted and Susan, carefully cared for them and the chicks grew to be bigger than their foster mum, Beryl the bantam. On our return we decided that they were big enough to be allowed to wander through the orchard. They had been living in the run for 8 weeks and would associate the run and the coop with security and thus would return at dusk and sleep there. Anyone who has kept chickens will confirm that they are creatures of habit.

All except ours. At dusk we went down to top up their food and water. “Chook, chook, chook” we called, “Chook, chook, chook”, but there was no answering cluck. Indeed there was no sign of them. Eventually we spotted the chicks dutifully clustering around Beryl under some pine trees on the neighbour's property.

After a couple of days we found they could be tempted by a scattering of wheat, but actually catching them was much more difficult. They were wary and very quick to jump and dodge. We'd managed to recapture three when we were advised to go after them at night. Once they start roosting they would be dozy and easy to capture.

And they were. The difficulty was finding where they were roosting. When there were only 3 escapees remaining, Eve carefully watched where they were settling in the late evening. When it was fully dark we returned with torches and a sack. We expected to be able to nab the last two chicks, but Beryl had been perching rather high up. In the event, they had moved. Luckily one of the chicks was a white one, and Eve's torch picked her out. She was roosting much higher than we could reach next to ringleader, Beryl.

Bill tried to reach the branch where it grew out of the tree's trunk and shake them down, but all we got was a couple of groggy clucks. He then went back to the shed for a rake, hooked it over the branch and pulled it down. Both birds were clucking, but neither made any attempt to jump or fly away.

That left a single well-grown chick, whom we christened Betty. She was now exceedingly wary of us and since she had black feathers she was impossible to find at night. However, Betty was not finding much wild food and getting very hungry. We did feed her (we didn't want to starve our chook) but we couldn't catch her. Eventually she found her way back to the run, but was still much too leery of us to catch. Eve found the solution. She herded the main flock into the coop, folded back the wire roof of the run and put Betty's food down inside. Betty hopped into the run, Eve folded down the roof and we had the full complement under control.

A Good Couple of Days

When I started this post I wrote, "Yesterday, if my cellphone tells the truth, was Friday 16th."  That was November.  Our schedule was to drive for a few hours, visit a Jain temple and spend the night at Kumbalgarh. It's good to have a plan.

First we willfully modified it by asking our driver, Satish, to take us to a lake a little way off the highway. "No problem" so off we went. He'd never been there before so he stopped at the turn off to ask directions. The car is not equipped with maps. The detour started by following a highway enjoying major renovations and was essentially one long detour using first one lane, then the other and then bumping us across rubble strewn wilderness.

Once off the main drag we travelled on minor roads with one paved lane. Passing other vehicles involves at least one of them driving onto the soft shoulder. The kilometers mounted up. Satish checked with villagers that we still on the right road. Finally we took a right turn and were faced with locked gates. The lake is in the grounds of a large, posh hotel and the hotel didn't want to know us. No-one  from the gate house responded to our approach. So the lake and the waterfowl promised by the guide book were denied to us. :-(

Satish didn't exactly retrace his route, so we saw different villages on the way back to the main highway.  Fortuitously (or cunningly) he took us through the town of Pali, which boats a large lake not mentioned in the guidebook.  He helpfully stopped 2 or 3 times so that we could give the binoculars a workout and identify comb ducks, egrets, pelicans and spoonbills.  We also observed a man in a pink turban and a bareheaded boy up to their waists in the muddy water.  They were diligently doing something.  Eve thinks they were harvesting lotus roots.  Please leave your even better guesses as a comment.

What is this man doing?

This ornithological detour had used up a fair bit of time.  The normal hour for lunch came and went and Satish drove on.  His custom, when we lunched on the move, was to stop at a posh hotel, which catered for foreigners at very fancy prices.  For example, 2 samosas on the train cost us 20 rupees (50 cents).  At these tourist traps 2 samosas cost up to 200 rupees.  Admittedly they were better cooked and fresher, but not 10 times better.  What is going on in the background is that Satish was getting at least a free lunch and probably a cash commission as well.  Today Bill got too hungry to wait until Satish could earn himself a commission.  "We'll eat here" he commanded.

The eatery I chose was not a truckstop or village snack-a-teria (I am willing enough to eat at such places, but Eve draws the line). It was a modern building with freshly painted signage.  Satish could not refuse, so we pulled up and he accompanied us inside.  A conversation entirely in Rajasthani ended with us, but not Satish, being ushered away from the other diners into an air-conditioned area.  Is this some kind of apartheid?

As we studied the menu, printed in English and the local script - a valuable legacy of the Raj, an Indian family approached the air-conditioned area, pushed open the door and paused.  Luckily Eve spotted this and waved them inside.  What is it about Europeans that they should be separated?

The food was very good and about a third the price of the places Satish chose for us.  Interestingly, when the bill arrived it included Satish's meal.  What the heck?  We would be paying for it one way or another.

The major attraction of the day was the Jain temples at Ranakpur.  What we first noticed was monkeys in the car park.  They were grey langurs, lolling on the tarmac and in the shrubbery and, since we appeared to have no food for them, ignoring us completely.  Next we noticed that chucking out time was only 45 minutes away.  We would have to hurry.

The first small temple, the custodian advised, had erotic carvings.  If there was anything terribly rude we didn't find it.

The main temple, Adinatha, is stunning.  The guidebook reckons there are 1,444 pillars.  They are all carved and all different.  The ceilings and arches are carved in great detail.

The exterior is also a mass of decorations:

Shoes must be removed at all temples, but the rule on socks varies.  The Ranakpur temple complex is a very holy site and a popular pilgrimage destination.  The priests here require visitors to remove their socks.  There is no admission fee, but a small charge is levied for a camera.  Quite reasonably, they ask that the central part of the temple be used only for worship, and no photography is allowed there.  The Jains eschew violence towards all living things, so no leather may be taken in to a temple.  Harder to understand is the refusal to admit menstruating women.  But that's the rule at every Jain temple we visited.

Each temple is dedicated to one of Jainism's 24 tirthankars, or teachers.  Since they all lived long ago and nobody knows what they looked like, they are all represented with the same bland image.  Each has a unique symbol painted below the statue to identify which one you are looking at.

It was a terrible shame to have to rush round.  The carvings are superb and very varied.  However closing time came and we had to leave.

Our itinerary had us lodging at Kumbhalgarh, which didn't seem very far away on the guidebook's map, but we were using slow, minor roads.  Evening became night and Satish apologised that we were missing delightful forest scenery.  Time passed.  Each time we came upon a village we hoped we had arrived, but Satish kept on driving.  Eventually we came to a significant town, but this was Kankroli, not Kumbhalgarh.  Weaving through traffic as dense as Delhi's, Satish managed a right turn onto a main road.  "Not far now".  It was about this time that I remembered there was one place where the car-and-driver company had failed to book a hotel (it was still Diwali, when many Indians travel to be with family) and had offered one that was the nearest they could find.  Since it was a premium room at the Labhgarh Palace we accepted happily.  This after-dark excursion was the result.

When we finally arrived at Labhgarh Palace, it made a great first impression.  It seemed to be a modern building rather than a palace converted to a hotel, but the reception personnel were very friendly.  "There's a cultural show with a buffet dinner this evening."  Sadly, the room lacked any charm, the cultural show was a couple of children dancing to recorded and excessively amplified music.  We sat as far away as we could from the speakers and still get a meal.

The first item on the schedule for 17 November was Kumbhalgarh Fort.  Did we want to drive all the way back to Kumbhalgarh?  No.  We'll go straight to Eklinji Temple, which was only a little way back up the highway.

We saw our first elephant! It was ambling along the highway with its mahout and stopped in Eklinji to scoff some bananas.

In the same village we met a nice Parisian couple. Bernard had lost his razor so he was keen to have a shave while we waited for the temple to open.

This is quite a posh barbershop.  The chair is indoors.

Tariff for a shave - 50 rupees = $1.25

We got on famously with Bernard and Annie.  We have already arranged that they will visit us next year and we will go to Paris in 2014.

The (hindu) temple is dedicated to Siva, the family deity of the Mewars, who ruled locally until Independence.  It had several features in common with the Ranakpur complex, but many differences, including that much of it was open to the sky.  Photography was not allowed at all.

Many worshippers piled in when the gates opened.  We had to queue with them in segregated lines for a brief security check.  The temple's popularity has led to railings that require the visitor to follow a set route.  This took us into the central chamber and we were relieved to find no reaction to our presence there.

From Eklinji we headed for Udaipur and the usual maelstrom of Indian city traffic.  No, it was an unusual maelstrom, because we had to make our way through narrow, mediaeval streets.  There is barely room for two donkeys to pass, so cars have major difficulties.  We never saw a one-way system in India and we concluded that no-one would pay any attention even if a local council tried it.

We arrived at our hotel in quite early, but our room was ready and we were made welcome.  We decided to explore Udaipur on foot, so Satish was given a day and a half off.

The afternoon was mainly spent shopping in Udaipur, where we found lovely clothes at reasonable prices.  

Even though the hotel had a pleasant rooftop restaurant we decided to try dinner in an eatery recommended by one of our guidebooks.  We chose one by the lakeside, which served us huge, tasty meals for tiny prices.  As he took our order, the waiter asked if we would like a beer.  That was a surprise, since it wasn't mentioned on the menu and restaurants within a certain radius of the city's main temple are not permitted to serve alcohol.  But we fancied a beer so we said, "Yes, please."

We had to wait until the beer was delivered by motor bike.  It was then served in a teapot!  Who's serving alcohol without a licence then?

Camel Ride

We are half way through our holiday but have seen only a tiny portion of India. 

On Wednesday we went on an excursion from Jaisalmer town into the desert. We rode a camel. One poor beast had to carry both of us. We climbed on while the camel was sitting down and then had to hang on for dear life as it got up. 

The transformation from sitting camel to standing camel is a complicated process and possibly involves five or six dimensions. And all the time you are sitting up and enjoying the ride across the scrubland there is the ugly prospect that the camel must sit down again before you can get off!

In fact, we dismounted on a sand dune and had half an hour to explore before the return voyage at sunset. So we went through the sitting/standing and standing/sitting maneuvres twice. By the end we were more or less under control. 

There were lots of tracks in the sand that we first attributed to birds. In fact, the pedestrian was a large beetle. We observed the track-making with our own eyes and even photographed it. 

There were birds about. We spotted two species of bulbul as well as the ubiquitous doves. There were even some feral peafowl. 

The camel ride was followed by a cultural show and dinner. Both were uninspiring. The band was technically fine but the style of music didn't appeal. Nor did their frequent requests for tips. The dancers were very young and didn't have a wide repertoire, but their costumes were very colourful. The food was easily the most disappointing we've had all holiday. 

The following day we moved on to Jodhpur, the 2nd largest city in Rajasthan. Yes, the silly trousers do come from here.

India's awful traffic finally caught up with us and our car was shunted from behind. Our driver, who has impressed us with the safety of his driving, was not at fault. It was the other driver who was to blame. Luckily there is no damage that will hold up our tour. 

After Delhi

After Delhi, we went  to Jaipur by train. The trip took took about 5 hours and our carriage was one that's used as a sleeper at night. No privacy at all if you did want to sleep! Along the corridor the bunks are set along the train - two high and in the other part, three high. The bottom and middle seats fold down to make benches to sit on in the day. As with everything in India, it wasn't very clean and the windows were filthy. We could see enough to see the countryside and villages go by.

When we reached Jaipur we were met by a driver and car to be taken to the hotel. On the way, the driver stopped the car and said "There's my boss." His boss got out of another car and came over and presented me with a lovely flower arrangement with roses and ferns in it. As you can imagine, I was very surprised! 

We then went to our hotel for the night - what an amazing place! It was built in the 1940s as a house (haveli) and recently converted into a hotel. It is tradtionally decorated with many colours and decorations and is absolutely stunning!. The colours all seem to fit, even though they ought to clash. No-one would contemplate that mix in NZ. 

The next day we moved on to Mandawa with our permanent driver for the trip. On the way we passed through Sekhawati region which is semi-desert and saw some other traditional homes (rich people's) later on. We saw many farms - some poor and some obviously richer, The poor farmers live in hovels and the better off live in brick boxes plastered with concrete. There are often many people from the same family living under one roof. Our guide around Mandawa is obviouslly from a better off farm as there are 40 people living there and they have 6 kitchens. Mind you, their kitchens are very primitive compared to those we are used to. The Hotel we stayed in at Mandawa looked very flash from the outside and was quite good inside except for the lack of hot water! Even in the tropics a cold shower isn't all that nice,

Many of the people we meet who work in hotels and as guides have never been to school but in spite of that have taught themselves to read and write and speak good English.

The next day we travelled on to Bikaner where we only stayed one night. We met a lovely Indian couple who were visiting from Mumbai (Bombay). Smitha is a biology and chemistry teacher and her husband is a corporate banker. they are very keen to keep in touch with us. We also had dinner with a man who had spoken to us at Delhi station. Shiv owns a tour business and wanted to know about how were are travelling etc. He appeared the next morning just before we were leaving for Jaisalmer and took us to a nearby textile warehouse and insisted on buying me a sari. He wanted to buy a kurta for Bill but we couldn't find one big enough. We both keep wondering if he has a hidden agenda, so will forget to email him when we return to Jaipur, where he says he'll be at that time.

Before dinner with Shiv, we went to a temple in Deshnok. Those of you who are squeamish - BRACE YOURSELVES!! The temple is dedicated to rats, yes rats! You have to take your shoes off before you go in, though some tourists wore socks or a kind of soft shoe made of calico. Inside, there are hundreds of rats running around and sometimes they run over people's feet. They don't look particularly healthy even though they are well fed. Apparently they are fed on a lot of sugar and milk and that's the reason why.

The next day we traveled on to Jaisalmer. What a long trip - the speed limit is 80kmph and our driver, Satish, is very good and never breaks the speed limit. We stopped once to visit a small lake where there are a lot of birds and then once for lunch. By the time we reached Jaisalmer, we were very tired but the sight of the hotel was cheering. It is only five years old and very nicely set up with lots of carvings and is made of the local sandstone. The front of it is completely carved in traditional Indian style. As soon as we arrived, the head guy, Krishna, offered us chai and suggested we went up to the roof to sign the register, drink chai and watch the sunset over the desert. Absolutely lovely. We also had dinner up there in the candle-lit dark. 

KL Last Day

Our flight to Delhi was scheduled for 7pm and the hotel advised a 4pm taxi so lots of time for an outing. 

We chose to visit some regenerating rainforest near the city. The big attraction is a 'canopy walk' amongst the treetops. 

Before entering the forest we admired a pond where 3 arapaima flopped around in very opaque water. 

The first part of the walk through the trees was a fairly broad track frequented by mountain bikers and joggers, who all seemed quite unaffected by the humidity or the gradient. It wasn't steep but we found reasons to pause now and then. 

We had been warned that when we turned right at a trail junction the path to the canopy walk would be steep - and it was. No worse than many bush walks in NZ but adding tropical heat and humidity made it a tiring 500 metres. 

We had a good rest before stepping out onto the swaying walkway. We would have rested longer but the attendant warned that it looked like rain and he might have to close the gate. It wasn't too bad. The sides were almost shoulder high and major cables provided hand holds on each side. 

There are three platforms along the way, providing the relative security of a wooden floor attached to a solid tree. We admired the views and took photos. An Australian couple caught us up, chatted and moved ahead. A few raindrops bore out the attendant's prediction. 

Safely down on the other side we congratulated each other on our intrepid courage and looked doubtfully at the sky. A school party came across the walkway behind us, whooping and ignoring the rain. 

We let them all pass before setting off. This proved to be a poor choice because the boys stopped in a bunch a short way down the trail and we had to pick a way past them. One of the teachers solicitously advised us to "Be careful". 

Going down was not such hard work but the wet trail was slippery and care was required. We had intended to lunch at the park cafe but instead chose to return to our hotel. 

The information office telephoned for a taxi and we seemed all set. We got off to a bad start with the taxi driver. He wanted 70 ringgit when we only paid 40 for the outward journey. He settled grumpily for 50. 

The return route did not seem familiar and the journey was taking a lot longer. We got rather anxious. Eventually we ended up at Sunway Resort, despite having shown the driver the name and address of the Sunway Putra Hotel. He finally got the message that we were in the wrong place and frantically asked other taxi drivers for assistance. Finally he found someone to give him directions and off we drove again. 

The delay was serious. We had to get back to the hotel to pick ip our luggage and set off for the airport  if we were too late we could miss our plane. In the event we had 10 minutes to spare. No lunch. No raid on the adjacent shopping mall for $6 T-shirts. But we did find our bags and our pre-booked taxi and we did catch our plane to Delhi

KL Day 2

We took a whole day bus trip to Melaka (Malacca). Half the time - 2 hours each way - was spent driving on motorways with not much to look at except palm oil plantations. The guide grew up on a rubber plantation and talked more about rubber than palm oil, but I only spotted two small plantings of rubber trees. Whatever Sime Darby does, it uses a lot of palm oil. 

Malacca was not terribly interesting once we got there. It had periods of occupation by the Portuguese, Dutch and British, who all built churches. 

Much more colourful were the lavishly decorated trishaws (tricycle rickshaws) almost hidden under plastic flowers. At least some have sound systems for the entertainment of their clients. One very pink example had fitted a boom box that thumped out rock music loud enough to hear all over town. 

Maylasia is proud of its many cultures that, they insist, live harmoniously together. The tour lunch was Chinese and very good it was, too. It's rather sad when the lunch is the highlight of the tour. 

In the afternoon we had a little explore of Jonkers St. It has a couple of small temples and some interesting shops. In one of the latter we tried a durian puff. Durians are a large, prickly fruit with a strange, unpleasant smell. Many people think the taste is a delicacy so we popped them in our mouths and ate. Eve described the taste as very concentrated mango "with a touch of poo". I liked mine. 

The oil palms were even less exciting on the return journey. 

The hotel advertised a Japanese buffet that evening so we took advantage of the 30% discount offered to hotel residents. The buffet tables were thronged by locals; families and groups of youngsters. It's obviously very popular. 

We joined the scrum and pillaged the offerings for sushi, tempura and other dishes with no names. I was puzzled by the lack of regular boiled rice. Apparently the locals simply prefer fried rice or noodles and customer demand trumps authenticity. 

After eating we wanted un-Japanese coffee. We went downstairs to the coffee shop and were served excellent coffee. It was chased down by a staggering bill - 24 ringgit (over $10) after residents' discount. 

Kuala Lumpur Day One

The young man on the travel desk was very helpful. He accepted our reservation for the evening cultural tour, recommended the historical tour of Malacca and marked on our free map where to get the hop-on hop-off bus. 

In other cities we have found these very useful to orient ourselves and see the major sights. This one was not so  good. The seats were much too close together and seriously uncomfortable for someone with Heritage-length legs. 

The commentary was not very well synchronised with what we were looking at (or was I just looking on the wrong direction?). But we did get a smattering of history and see some big buildings. 

We went most of the way round the circuit before hopping off to visit the Butterfly Park. It wasn't as well stocked as I remember from my visit several years ago, but it was very nice all the same. 

Two things happened while we were there. One of the many prayer hours came round and we heard the call - from two separate mosques. The irreverent picture of competing muezzins sprang to mind. "Worship at Abdul's. One extra prayer free.". I will no doubt be struck with a lightening bolt. 

The second event was rain. It started gently, faded away and then came back harder. And our waterproofs were back at the hotel. Luckily the gift shop stocked umbrellas for just such an emergency. And then the rain faded away again. 

We grabbed a taxi for the short journey to the Bird Park. It's not as big or as good as Singapore's bird park, but it is well worth the entrance fee. My camera was working overtime since many of the birds are in walk-through aviaries and are not seen through  bars. 

Sore feet and the threat of more rain persuaded us to ignore the bus and take a taxi back to the hotel. 

The evening cultural tour took us to a night market in Chinatown. You will not be surprised to learn that the Rolex watches and Gucci bags are not authentic. Several touts tried hard to entice us into their DVD shops and only desisted when told them we had no tv and read books instead. 

Eve did want a new handbag and entered into negotiations. Eventually we decided that we didn't like that bag. The stallholder's final offer was about 40% of the initial asking price. This was vital intelligence when Eve  bargained for a bag she really liked. First ask 270 ringgit (about $110). Eve's counter offer 20 ringgit. "you give me heart attack." the final bargain was struck at 125 for a bag Louis Vuitton has unknowingly donated his name to. 

All this nearly made us late for the bus to a theatre restaurant where we piled our plates high before being entertained by dances from various cultures within Malaysia. And very colourful they were, too. We decided that the compere was the most colourful of all - overdone makeup and camp as a row of tents. Nothing very wrong with that, but the pest talked too much and detracted from the dancing. 

Since this was all for the tourists we had to have some audience participation. I got shoulder tapped to have a go with a blowpipe. Yes, please. Long ago I read they were easy to aim and you simply have a puff. That's truly all there is to it. I got two balloons with one dart. 

Finally everyone who wished could go on stage and learn a simple traditional dance. We both went and made fools of ourselves.