Martha's Birthday

Saturday 27 October.

Started day in Pushkar, to see temple, one of 7 holiest sites in Hindu. We were all separately a bit underwhelmed, but memorable was the pushiness of the hawkers, who raised it to artform level. Meanwhile all not well with the support vehicle. First they took down half the town's electricity supply hitting a cable the night before, then managed two punctures as well as the engine not starting (how do you do both?).

So we set off anyway. By lunchtime reports were that punctures and engine were fixed but now stuck in sand 30km behind us. We meanwhile were all out of water, so we stopped in next town and found shade under huge banyan tree as base for water search. Immediately surrounded by a flood of children who walked out of school to meet us and proceeded not to get bored with us for the next hour. No water in the village obviously (apart from pumped from well variety), but there was crystal clear mobile reception. Martha is 7 today and I phoned her at my parents' house - I still find technology can be awesome at times. Trying to describe the heat and chaos around us cut no ice at all of course, as I could hear the gentile sounds of England and the delights of 7th birthday presents (inc globe to see where I am). Eventually Avtar, one of our tour leaders flagged down a jeep and got the driver to take him 25km (each way) to get water and snacks - a good moment when he got back.

The afternoon improved - great cycles through quiet countryside, the bus caught us up by 4pm and some nice towns to finish the day before we completed the journey to Jaipur by bus. But we'll probably all remember the couple of hours in the middle of nowhere under the banyan tree with the children.