Today we saw some of the monkeys Steve watches at Mandore Gardens. Pretty-ish, but snided with Sunday picnickers which meant mega-hassle from kids and their mums, totally innocently poking and questioning these strange creatures with pale skin. It feels like I’m one of Steve’s monkeys, being the source of incredulity and amusement, even of good luck. People want to be photographed with us, as at Balsamand Reservoir. Weird. I’m glad they don’t throw food at us though, as they do to the incarnations of Hanuman. That makes Steve mad, because it upsets his troupe’s behaviour, and throws out his observations. He brought photos of NZ to show us. Very proud, he is, of a beautiful land, which sounds surprisingly egalitarian. Discussed politics, evolution, India etc till 12.40. Maybe we can arrange a Christmas visit one year.

Caught the plane, eventually, after a 90 minute delay because two people got off the flight from Jaipur to Jodhpur thinking they’d arrived in Bombay. On checking bags against passengers, there was a mismatch, so it was ‘all out and stand by your bags’, until the miscreants were retrieved. Fell in with Doug Cook, a Canadian computer dealer (?) to share taxis, and by coincidence, planned for the same hotel. 25k of lunatic driving later … our taxi had candles for lights but he was clearly a skilful driver 1) he got behind a snazzy new car with good lamps 2) he knew to go down the left hand side of dual-carriageways. Aagh! Apparently, many of the drivers are constantly stoned. It explains a lot.