Days 12-14: 3-5 December – Dharamshala

Photos: the prayer wheels at the Buddhist temple in the centre of Mcleodganj, and views of the distant mountains taken on our walks.

Dharamshala is our final destination on this journey. Tomorrow afternoon we are taking a small plane to Delhi to transfer to the flight home.

The part of Dharamshala where we are staying, Mcleodganj, is situated at 1750 metres above sea level (so higher than you can get in the UK). As we drove here from Amritsar we drove along flat land until we entered the state of Himachal Pradesh, after which we started climbing rapidly and going through a ribbon of villages along the road. The landscape here is made of a series of ridges, each higher than the previous. To the north of us, and visible from the road here and some of the surroundings, is a ridge at about 5000 metres, the western flanks of the Himalaya range. Our hotel room is built on a hill, so we entered from the road on the fifth floor and went down to the third floor to our room. It has a great view of the small town around us and the plains to the south, and as I write this I can see the red sky of our last sunset in India. (We won't see a sunset in Delhi – it's probably too hazy.)

Dharamshala is where the Dalai Lama resides following his exile from Tibet in 1957. As well as himself there are many Buddhist monks walking around town in their orange robes, and a good proportion of other people who, judging from their appearance, have a different ethnicity – Tibetan or perhaps from Central Asia. The book said that Tibetan people had opened restaurants for people who were tired of Indian food – following my little “incident” a few days ago I am still playing it safe and following my stomach, so one night we had pasta at a place called Oogos and the other enjoyed a great Japanese vegetarian menu tonight at another restaurant down the road, Ta Lung (Bird of the Wind). 100 rupees (£1.50) for a great plate of veggie tempura, rice, miso soup and two salads. The cheesecake afterwards was a bit – well, cheesy – it tasted disconcertingly strong and I wondered what animal it came from...

There are lots of western tourists here and other people who might be staying longer, attracted by the alternative culture here. People come here to learn massage, meditation, Tibetan, Hindi, whatever... Despite this it has a fairly relaxed feel and it is a good choice for a final destination – also with lots of shops catering for tourists, internet cafes, bookshops, tour operators, cafes...

We spent the free day taking a couple of walks in the surrounding countryside and enjoying the views, and hanging out on the main street in town. Also they have a wifi cafe (final name check for the Mandala Cafe) so it was great to sit out in the sunshine updating my blog and enjoying a banana lassi.

Day 11: 2 December – Amritsar

Photo of the day: the Golden Temple, Amritsar, with the Harmandir in the middle

Jack here again! Well the less said the better about the last 24 hours, but how many people can say that they spent time in Agra and never got to see the Taj Mahal?

We took the morning express train from New Delhi up into Punjab state, passing through fertile fields growing a variety of crops and emerging from the misty haze of Delhi. On the train the number of turbans people were wearing was a sign that we were heading towards the holiest city of the Sikh world. One thing that has surprised me on this trip has been how few women seem to be travelling or working in the places we have been to – in the countryside there were women engaged in manual work, carrying bales of grass or pots.

Our hotel in Amritsar was friendly, professional and well equipped – even with a kettle in the room – so another name check for the Ritz Plaza. The porter who took our bags up performed the feat of putting us in the lift and running upstairs before us, carrying almost all of our luggage with him. Very enthusiastic service in the restaurant, with the best Indian meal of our trip I think - and if you ever go there check out the head waiter who looks a bit like Matt Lucas.

The Golden Temple is the spiritual capital of Sikhism. We got there at about 4.30 and took a bit of time getting ready – taking our shoes and socks off and leaving them in the cloakroom and getting appropriate headgear. The Doctor was allowed in with his hat, but mine was not, so I was stopped and sent to get an orange headscarf, which I am pleased to say suited me perfectly.

The temple – in which we didn't see a single other tourist – was a huge cluster of buildings around an ornamental pool, with the spirtual centre, a golden pavilion called the Harmandir in the middle. It was relatively quiet apparently, compared to how it is in the mornings. Everyone was either friendly or in party mood, or something because we were chatted to by many other people there. It was a really lovely atmosphere – no hassle from anyone. A singing voice played constantly over a loudspeaker – this is a feature of Sikh temples – to which many of the pilgrims hummed along.

We walked over the causeway to the Harmandir. We were with pilgrims carrying food offerings and made slow progress over the causeway, being jostled gently by the pilgrims. Inside the pavilion we only had a few seconds and although it was a small space it was difficult to take everything in – a senior blessing us, an orchestra and singing, and women preparing cakes in wrapping which we presume were taken away by pilgrims. We liked it so much that we walked around the temple complex twice, even though the temperatures were falling and the marble floor was getting cold – waving to our new friends.

I liked Amritsar very much: it seemed less touristy than anywhere we had been before, and again it meant that there was no trouble from anyone. We also got a couple of rides in an auto-rickshaw - a three-wheeler with space for a couple of passengers on the back seat and the kind of engine that makes you rub your ears afterwards to get some feeling back into them – very exciting and atmospheric.

Day 10: 1 December – Agra

Today's blog is being guest-authored by S – let's just say that J has been otherwise disposed and was unable to visit the attractions of the day, which is a pity as they included the most famous of them all – the Taj Mahal.

Mr Solanki was my guide and he did a great job explaining the whole story – wife of Emperor Akbar dies having her 14th child in 19 years, Akbar is heartbroken and so commissions a mausoleum to represent not only love, but also their great partnership. As the Mughals had recently gained access to the white marble mines near Jodhpur, through a marital alliance, the architect Lahori was able to use white marble on a grand scale for the first time – and it is a 'wow' moment when you step through the East Gate and see the huge scale and pure whiteness of it, heightened by it being a misty morning.

The attention to detail and symmetry of the complex is remarkable – as is the fact the East India Company (Brits) tried to auction off the whole place for scrap marble.... of course later Brits put it to much greater use and to today there are people who queue up to have their photos taken, using just the same poses as Princess Diana when she needed to make a point about her marriage. You can decide for yourself whether my pose is a good copy or not – I think, despite Diana managing to visit on a day when there were no school parties, the similarities are remarkable.

We then moved on to the Agra Fort which was the prison-home of Akbar for the last eight years of his life, his youngest son having forced him to hand over the throne during a period of illness. The fort is across the Yamuna river from the Taj Mahal and from there Akbar could look out from the fabulously beautiful Jasmine Pavilion onto his wife's mausoleum – apparently anyway because the mist made it impossible for me to see.

The whole complex is really a number of interconnected palaces surrounded by fortifications with the standard public and private meeting spaces of the Emperor, harem (just the 500 ladies in this one), stables and pleasure areas, always incorporating water in some way, which is somewhat ironic here as there is a huge great river just outside, but it is in keeping with the high regard in which the Mughals held water, coming from arid central Asia as they did.

Talking of waterworks, it is hoped that J will be back on duty tomorrow.....

Day 9: 30 November – Fatehpur Sikri

Photo of the day: the mosque at Fatehpur Sikri

On the train a man came round and took our orders for dinner, which was brought on board at Jodhpur. The Doctor chatted to our fellow passengers who were experts in alternative medicine and who gave me an ayurvedic pill for my cough – not sure how well it worked but in the end I slept quite well. After 5am we got to Jaipur and luckily got off at the right station – I had been worried about missing our stop and ending up miles away. Our driver was waiting for us there, along with hundreds of travellers, even though it was way before dawn. He took us to our earlier hotel where we spent a few hours having a proper sleep and breakfast.

We drove east from Jaipur on a cooler day than we were used to (still short sleeves weather). At lunchtime we vetoed our drivers' choice of restaurant which was expensive and fairly characterless, and went instead to another place just down the road where we had an excellent dosa in a more friendly environment, with Indian families eating there as well.

Fatehpur Sikri is about 50km west of Agra and we spent a couple of hours there in the afternoon. It was built as the capital city by the Emperor Akbar in the 16th century. He lived there for just 14 years, before abandoning the city and moving to Lahore. Because it was quickly abandoned, it was extremely well preserved and very impressive to walk around – it was very easy to see what the buildings had been used for and to appreciate the scale of the city. The book had warned of too many tourists, but it was relatively quiet and pleasant to walk around (although there were lots of people offering themselves as guides and the mosque had quite a lot of hassle factor from young hawkers).

The Emperor clearly was making a statement as he built the city – there was lots of architecture there to show his power and importance, so for example he would have the highest position in a building in a kiosk – and it is possible that he was setting himself up in a semi-divine position, for example by having people facing him in the same direction as Mecca.

We walked around the abandoned city and then went into the nearby mosque. I had never been in a mosque before – this was huge and without a roof, although walled and with shrines and tombs inside. We were very impressed with the scale of the place and the architecture was dominated by strong straight lines.

We headed back through the city and took an auto-rickshaw (my first time in one) back to the car park, where we joined our driver again and headed for Agra. Night was falling and we went through crowded streets with cars, bikes, motorbikes, cycle and auto-rickshaws all trying to push in front. We got to our destination – a home stay in Agra – had a pleasant veggie curry dinner there before going to catch up with more sleep.

Day 8: 29 November – Jaisalmer

Two photos of the day:

- Jaisalmer railway station – our carriage before departure

- a view of the walls of Jaisalmer fort, with fabrics for sale

Jaisalmer was built as a fort in the 15th century. Now it makes its living from the military connection and from tourism for six months of the year – for a few months the temperatures rise up well into the 40s and it is too hot to do anything. It did have the feeling of a border town, quite remote and not seeming as prosperous as the other cities we have visited.

First we visited an old artificial lake which had been created with the town. Water has always been scarce in the area, and for the last 13 years the monsoon has not come to Jaisalmer (although a pipeline brings water now from the highlands). The guide explained the importance of water in Hinduism. He also told us about the different castes and the rules that his caste had: similarly to the Jains he did not eat onions or garlic (because they smell like meat).

Unlike cities like Jodhpur, the old fort is inhabited by a couple of thousands of people. Because of the demand from tourists, many houses in the fort have opened rooms to guests, and this is having an effect on the buildings. The fort was designed using dry stone architecture (no cement, just joining stones together) and the water used by the guest houses and shops is damaging the buildings. (We were staying in a hotel a couple of km away from the fort.)

Inside the fort we walked around the old town first. We looked at the old Jain temple and got a great view of the city from the ramparts. Our guide took us down some of the old narrow streets, saying hello to everyone. (He had grown up in Jaisalmer and been a guide for 25 years, during which time he had taught himself English, French and German.) Then he took us to a couple of the old merchants' palaces – the havelis – in the city outside the fort. They were really ornate and well decorated, although apparently not always lived in now. One house we visited was a antiques shop which had an amazing number of goods on sale, crammed into a small room.

In the late afternoon, we went to the station to take the sleeper train back to Jaipur. (Our driver from Delhi was making the journey back by himself during the day to meet us in Jaipur in the morning – probably relieved to listen to the radio instead of Englishmen moaning about prices.) We were travelling in the best part of the train, the 2 tier air conditioned sleeping carriages. For the first part of the journey I looked out of the window at the desert scenery before going back to my bunk where the fellow passengers had rigged up an array of entertainment systems and were eating mooli radishes with some kind of white substance.

As I write this, I have no idea whether we will get anything to eat on the train or whether I will die of starvation before we get to Jaipur in another 10 hours...