Driver lynching for he's killed a holy cow

Well, probably not quite but a crowd always gathers at an accident and this car has been spun around by the impact - it is a dual carriageway too so he was probably going fast but he was lucky not to roll over down the embankment.

Cut off my nose to spite my face today and put it down to really not being 100% after the dental surgery. Wanted to go back into the park and take a bicycle on my own but there was nowhere to park my bags and the hire bikes are so rickety that tying anything to them was impossible – left in frustration and caught the bus back to Jaipur knowing that I saw probably more with Mr Khan than I would have on my own as he knew where all the owls roosted, the different water fowl spots, the python hideouts and possible sightings for antelope etc. It would have been nice to just sit and watch at each place for a bit longer and just chill out though. Next year!

The bus was probably the dirtiest and rattliest I've been in this year but the driver with his Madras towel wrapped tightly around his head and ears, bent over his steering wheel, heel of hand on the horn and wove in and out around the traffic on the dual carriageway with skill. We got back into Jaipur just as much of the city was made one way for the middle of the day and were sent around the southern circuit from where most of my photos today come from out of the bus window - just to give you a sense of what you'd be seeing...next door to tent slums are housing estates called 'colonies' or 'enclaves', there are 'civil lines', ( a term used for the residential neighbourhoods developed during the British Raj for its senior officers, new flyovers have derelict/damaged vehicles left underneath, buses have bruised backsides (and fronts too probably), street kids have altercations with one another over who gets the next job wiping car windscreens at junctions, cows get knocked over sometimes and always a crowd will gather for a holy one must be honoured and a driver chastised, cows lose a horn if they swipe at a vehicle in motion, billboards abound, graffiti and torn pasted fliers cover walls, holes are dug and suddenly the pure white Burla temple appears like a mirage below an ancient hill fort – this is India, raw and beautiful and already I feel better and have got over my self made miserable morning!

join me on the ride back