The Smells of Jaipur

Walking down a street in Jaipur smells like this:

Outside the hotel there's a sickly sweet raw-meat smell from poultry shops that makes me choke. There are also huge open bins that smack you in the face with the sour smell of rubbish; it reminds me of how the grounds smell at the Reading festival after a few days.

Along the shopping arcade there is the earthy smell of turmeric, the fruity tang of dried chillis. Peppery sour smells from a pickle shop, the acrid smell of urine from a public urinal. From the sweet shops I get a seductive waft of sugared batter.

Round the corner is the wonderful smell of fried bread from a row of street vendors, and then a waft of jasmine from men making religious flower garlands.

Everything is lightly dusted in the smell of earth from the road.

Delhi Mental

Me and Pete knew we were in trouble in Delhi from the moment we stepped off of the plane.

A well meaning person decided to pull all the bags and cling-wrapped boxes from the luggage belt and place them in a line in front of it, making it impossible to reach the remaining bags. As I tried to establish a space in one of the gaps, people just pushed in front.

Our hotel driver was waiting for us, and managed to scam us out of an extortionate parking fee. The drive to our hotel gave us our first taste of the Indian traffic; 6 lanes of traffic battling on a road meant for two, with cows getting right of way and everyone's hands constantly on their horns. The traffic consists of cars, auto-rickshaws, cycle rickshaws, people, ox-drawn carts and stray dogs.

At our hotel, the staff were a bit strange, with their understanding of English coming and going; our details were written down in an enormous ledger. A porter showed us to our room before turning on every switch (about 20 in total), the TV and demonstrating how to work the air-conditioning unit. All in all this took about fifteen awkward minutes before Pete placed a hand on the man's back and said in a Stephen Fry-like  fashion "Yes. That'll be all"  causing me to giggle uncontrollably until the porter had left.

The room was beautiful and looked luxurious, but nothing worked in it. The plugs were all blown up or hanging out, and in the shower the hot and cold taps were the wrong way round.

Walking around the main bazaar in Paharganj, we got stared at... a lot. Some little kids waved hello to us. The housing consisted of very old venetian looking apartments, with laundry hanging between them out of the windows. Women sat on the street chewing. There's rubbish everywhere you look. Plastic is truly the scourge of India.

We learnt how to spot the touts in Connaught place by their odd behaviour. People who suddenly turn direction when we walk by, people who stop and loiter until we reach them. People who just want to chat and helpfully point out the travel agencies for you (where they will get commission).

After our first day we are physically and emotionally exhausted. Welcome to India!

Mumbai Munchies

The old town of Mumbai reminds me of Bloomsbury. It's chock full of grand, gothic brick buildings and crumbling colonial mansions with wrought-iron balconies. As I walk through the leafy avenues, watching crows breakfast on stinking rubbish bins and shouting 'bollocks!' as I trip over uneven paving stones in the sweltering humidity, I come to the conclusion that I am done with India.

It might be because I am now travelling through it Pete-free and am having to stare down groups of leery men on my own; though I am finding Mumbai is generally much more chilled out than mental, medieval Delhi. It's more likely because India is a uniquely frustrating country, and I have reached the pinnacle of my frustration. Nothing works. Everything is bodged or falling down. The bureaucracy of simple tasks is crippling. People try and swindle you -  a lot.

But I'm not signing it off forever; there are still some awesome things about it.

For me, predictably, it's mostly about the food. On the street next to my hotel there are two men with a tiny cart whipping up savory pancakes, curry and vegetable Bahjis every morning. It must be good as there's always a crowd of around 20 men, seduced by the warm smell of garam masala, who stop for a quick breakfast before work. Carts like this are everywhere in India churning out wholesome meals for less than 50p.

In Rajasthan we feasted on pooris (fried flatbreads), parathas (buttered flatbreads) and chickpea curry, in Uttar Pradesh we had fresh rotis, samosas and some fantastic Thalis. West Bengal had the bengali egg-rolls and some fabulous noodles and dumplings courtesy of the influence from Tibet. I've been scoffing bright orange Jalebis everywhere (that is, Jale-bingeing) and making myself sick on burfis and luddus.

I'm now on the gateway to Southern India, so now it's all about the dosas (savoury pancakes) and idlis (steamed rice cake). I had some idli for breakfast and they were fantastic. I then had a battata vada (potato pakora) roll for lunch, followed by a raspberry frozen yogurt and an iced coffee (yes a coffee) at one of Mumbais slick, super air-conditioned snack chains.

I'm glad I can eat veggie easily and all the time; a walk past a miserable stinking poultry shop reminds me that chickens don't have a fantastic time here.

I'm off to Goa for 3 days of R&R before heading off on a convoluted route to Australia. I'm hoping for some awesome fish and coconuts to make the most of the time I have left in this culinary paradise, before entering a land of organised traffic, sexual liberation and even paving stones.

The Tea Hustler

The 5 Second Tea Lady's tasting room is filled with pink and green polyester rose pillows and various stuffed animals wearing baseball caps and sunglasses. On the lacy white tablecloth in front of us she lays out six small bowls of different tea leaves.

"Hold part in your hand like this and blow. Strong. Four or five times. Then smell. Put them in order best first -  very easy to tell the quality."

The room is in a tiny building in the middle of the Happy Valley tea plantation, next to the factory. It's a small, steep plantation just below Darjeeling town and exports most of its tea to Harrods, London. It's apparently the highest altitude tea plantation in Darjeeling.

After ten minutes of us involuntarily ingesting tea leaves nasally, the lady beckons us over to her stove to show us the process of brwing the famous 5 second tea. She throws the leaves into boiling water and immediately strains the liquid through a holey, blackened filter into another pan. It produces a surprisingly vibrant golden tea. Banishing us back to the lounge she follows is out with a tray carrying two teacups and a tall teapot and pours us a cup of what we are assured is finest first flush Darjeeling orange flower pekoe.

I hold the cup to my nose and let the steam warm my upper lip. The tea has a slightly sweet smell and a rich golden colour. It's a light black tea - bitter and refreshing without the smoky flavour of the Assam tea used in most of the blends back home.

The 5 second tea lady displays a tea leaf to us and explains which ones are picked. "Only tippy, two and three leaf." She also shows us a tea flower, and shows us the difference in quality between first flush (first pick) and second flush tea. Then she slaps her thighs, her eyes twinkle, and she gets down to business.

"So -  You want to buy some tea?"

I can tell Pete's been tempted since we walked in; lured by the glamour of the kitsch decor and the subtler Darjeeling taste. He goes for the white tea - it's the least processed and therefore the most expensive; we pay 600 rupees for 100 grams.

The lady explains to us that the workers on the plantation are given tea but aren't allowed to sell it. She claims to be making extra money for the workers. She makes a grand show of packaging it in front of us, weighing the tea out with a set of ancient iron hand scales and strapping a tea leaf and flower to the package. We give her a thousand rupee note and she stashes it in one of her rose cushions, digging around in it for change.

"In the factory don't tell them I sold you tea -  tell them you bought it in town. We are not allowed to sell." We assure her that we are secret safe, sign her guestbook and head down to the factory for a factory tour.

The guide shows us through the production processes; withering, rolling, drying and grading, explaining how these processes differ for the different varieties. He asks us if we bought any tea from the lady further up the hill.

The bottom line is that it's all total bollocks; apparently there is no such thing as 5 second tea -  the workers aren't given tea from the estate - it comes from a different estate further along the mountain. The lady is a tea hustler, selling lower quality teas to idiot tourists for extortionate amounts of money.

Who do we believe? Have we been tea hustled? I choose to believe that we have bought nothing but the highest grade first flush white flower orange pekoe, sold in Harrods, London, also for extortionate amounts of money to idiot tourists!