During our visit we came into contact with many different types of people. At the approach to every tourist attraction (and just about everywhere else we stopped) a host of beggars, hawkers and side-shows would always appear - all, of course, after one thing - our money! We soon worked out that the best approach was to completely ignore them - not even acknowledging their presence. If you as much as glanced at anything the hawkers were selling they took that as a confirmed sale and would not leave you alone - often performing a one-sided haggle with you as you walked. You couldn't even shake them off by entering the tourist attraction as they would still be waiting for you when you came out hours later and would even bang on the side of the coach shouting ever decreasing prices if you managed to make it back inside without giving in to them. The beggars were even worse. If you took pity on them and gave them anything then they always wanted more and invariably a whole host of others would appear from nowhere and attach themselves to you (often quite literally) demanding the same donation and sometimes becoming quite aggressive.

However, whenever we wandered around by ourselves, away from the tourist traps, we met a completely different type of people who would often come up to us just to say “Hello”, shake our hands, ask us our names, where we were from etc. and generally practice their English on us. This was especially true of the children who seemed thrilled whenever we asked them similar questions back. We always carried around a supply of pens to give to these children but we had to ensure that we had enough for everyone or they would start fighting over them. One enterprising lad kept joining at the back hoping for another handout but Lina spotted him! He still followed us for ages trying to convince us that he was someone different this time!

We only really had one bad experience while out exploring on our own. We were in the centre of New Delhi and I fell victim to the famous shoe shine scam which we had been warned about. This is where somebody will inconspicuously dirty your shoe and then appear a few yards away with a shoe shine kit and offer to clean them for you. In my case I was wearing canvas trainers which miraculously acquired a dollop of very wet manure which I wouldn't have noticed if the suspected culprit hadn't pointed it out to me. I don't know how he hoped to clean it off with just his brush and polish but I didn't give him the chance to try.

This term actually originates from India where the mountains of paperwork associated with the various procedures and formalities were bound in red ribbons. The British civil service is usually blamed for the birth of bureaucracy in India but it actually dates back much further (to around 250BC). Our guide book advised changing all of our traveller's cheques in one go so that we only had to wade through the mountain of paperwork once. However, the process turned out to be just as straightforward as in any other country. In fact, since just about everything was arranged for us as part of the tour, the only time we encountered any sort of bureaucracy during our stay was when buying a bar of chocolate in a large store. Instead of simply paying for it over the counter, the chocolate was put to one side and we were given an invoice (in duplicate) which we had to take to a cashier who stamped and signed both copies (after we handed over some cash) and then returned one copy for us to take back to the counter to finally exchange for the chocolate!

As you are probably aware, the cow is a sacred animal to the Hindus and I am convinced that the cows know this too!. They walk freely around the streets and they particularly like to sit or stand in the centre of roads playing chicken with the traffic and they never back down! There is actually a heavy fine for killing a cow and they obviously know this because they will stand rock steady as a massive truck bears down on them trying in vain to scare the cow into moving only to have to slam the brakes on at the last minute. The drivers either have to squeeze past them somehow or get out and convince the cow to move by slapping its backside - hardly the way to treat a minor deity! It came as a shock when, one day, we were actually served up with some beef in a hotel but we later found out that it was actually buffalo meat - which is apparently OK.