Well that's India concluded. I do hope you have enjoyed the posts and accompanying photos. I must admit, I am guilty of including the odd cliché. I try to avoid travel guide vocabulary where possible, such as jaw-dropping, overwhelming & picturesque but in some places no other words are up to the job. No words contained within in my pitiful vocabulary anyhow. Writing a sentence about the Taj Mahal, which hasn't been written 1000 times before, and expressing how good the night in the desert under the stars turned out to be, were both tasks far beyond my literary skills. I did however, wish to summarise India and my time there in some way. So, I have tried my best and this is what I've come up with. Being as I'm sat on a plane, with a 5 hour flight to Singapore ahead of me, what better way to spend the time than a bit of reminiscing.
India is generally a dirty place, especially the bigger cities. Littering, spitting and urinating in public are all part of everyday society. Cattle graze the streets, eating cardboard and other general household waste, then replace it with a waste of their own and there are more Beggars than you can shake a stick at. When I first arrived this really threw me. Mainly because I had rarely strayed far from home and certainly never past European soil. The culture shock of a country, that in most places has dirt tracks for roads, was sizeable to say the least. But after a few days I soon acclimatised and the everyday annoyances of cold showers and commission touts soon became part and parcel. Even the begging children, that really startled me at first, soon escaped my conscience. It didn't take too long to discover that the majority are crafty little tykes who go out of their way to appear as dirty as possible to play on the heart strings of unfamiliar tourists. Begging in India is more of a franchise than an unfortunate circumstance.
There are of course people who genuinely require support but these don't tend to be the people tourists see on the streets. 
Sadly, the Indian government don't seem to offer the real needy much assistance. We witnessed first hand the level of corruption with the car crash incident, and also got held up in a protest in Delhi in which people held placards with the slogan “Help people, not Co-orprations”. I get the feeling India likes to show the western world they aren't too far behind, but scratch under the surface and you soon see it for what it really is. Government bailouts for large commercial companies and a growing economy seem more important to the political parties than road maintenance or basic healthcare. The Indian government can send a shuttle to space but they can't send a child to school.
That's enough of a rant for now. I really didn't wish to paint a negative picture, although I feel for many readers I may have already gone too far for them to consider a nice city break to Delhi. If you can live without a few home comforts, India really is a beautiful country in many different ways. It is only spoiled by the small minority. Sadly, it is the minority that target the tourists and cause the hassle.
India is vastly rich with culture and has the scenery to match. It is a country with thousands of years of fascinating history. In its past, India has been the birthplace of major world religions and the home of many of history's greatest empires. Amazingly, Indian people have managed to preserve many of the architectural aspects, artefacts and traditions that resulted from such a history. In less than a month and only covering a relativity small area of the country, we managed to visit the spots where Hinduism and Buddhism were 
conceived, multiple forts of Muhgal emperors, luxury palaces of the Indian Raj, various geographical environments ranging from vast deserts and the large mountain ranges and even got to see Mahatma Gandhi's flip flops. To name but a few.
I can honestly say I'm gutted to be leaving. I can only hope, that I get the chance to return one day. Return with the knowledge and experience I have gained in avoiding the annoyances. And living as comfortably as possible in the conditions. If anybody wishes to hire a reasonably cheap, English speaking guide, I'm available from late September.
On a lighter note, there is one characteristic of the Indian people that both Rory and I just can't understand, the Indian head gesture. For those unfamiliar with this phenomenon, the Indian head gesture, as I have named it, is a nodding of the head which combines both a horizontal and vertical motion. A cross between a “yes” nod and “no” shake of the head. The closet thing to the Indian head gesture, in the western world, is the nodding dog. You know the ones, they can usually be found on the parcel shelf of a tastefully decorated car and can be seen in commercial breaks barking “Ohhhhhh Yes” in a deep northern accent. After an entire month I am still unsure as to weather it indicates a positive or negative response. For an example of the Indian head gesture's application, I have recreated a scenario that we experienced in script format:
Setting: The small enclosed environment of a taxi
James : (Wishing to make small talk)
“Raj (Parker), do you like cricket?”
Raj replies with an Indian head shake
James : (Assuming the previous answer was positive, despite the lack of clarity in Raj's response)
“So, Do you play cricket?”
Raj replies with an Indian head shake
James looks at Rory with a puzzled expression
Rory : (Searching for clarification on the response)
“So, Raj, Are you a batsman or a bowler?”
Raj replies with an Indian head shake
Needless to say, we never did discover Raj's sporting credentials. He was slightly overweight and moved awkwardly, so in his case I would put my money on all responses indicating “No”. Another one of my favourite Indian traits is their ability to multi-task profession wise. In the western world people, myself excluded, tend to stick to a single trade. An individual may be a butcher, baker or candlestick maker, but very rarely all three. In India, individuals, who may have no previous experience in a given industry, will try their hand at anything for a days wage. You see children, who in the morning are milling flour, are laying tarmac on a motorway in the afternoon. This jack-of-all-trades approach to life is no more evident than in the Bazaars. We were sat having a tea late one night in a busy Delhi market when a man walked past with a table on wheels. Upon his table he had a cabinet containing cigarettes, a selection of toilet roles and remedies, multiple eggs, and a gas cooker. Obviously, this man was a professional omelette cooking, tobacconist who had seen a gap in the market for street level pharmaceuticals. 
Ill give £100 to anybody who has that title on their payslip. This was not an isolated event, it happened everywhere. If we walked through a market, stall owners would go to almost any length to sell us something. In Jaisalmer we went to a book shop. Just outside the shop was the owner so I asked him “Do you have any Bill Bryson?” He replied “Yes come inside”. Once the wisecrack had me in the shop, and the door shut, he then japed “What was it you were looking for?”. Displeased, I walked away from shop and as I did the shop keeper started to shout the names of various items he did stock. Items that might provoke my interest. “Carpet?...... Turban?......... Wooden Buddha?........ Incense sticks?.........”. Just before I was out of ear reach, he went for the last ditch attempt items “Indian Sauce pan?....... Plastic cobra in a box?........ Sundial?....... very good price!
Who
could possibly need a sundial that is only accurate to the nearest hour, it's 2009. Rory would really struggle with a sun dial, his sleep pattern means that some days he's practically nocturnal. The absence of Sunlight can play havoc when time-telling with a sundial in the early hours of the morning.
They say, all good things must come to an end, and so they have. But I do have the next leg of the adventure to look forward to, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. I should imagine the extent of culture I experience there will be in the form of pro-biotic yogurt, but we shall have to wait and see.
