At the Taj. Wow. The Taj Mahal was just amazing. We've taken hundreds of photos but it's hard to describe what it's like without being there. Archie was able to concentrate after he'd managed to do his first poo of the holiday while he was sat on the lady Di chair (he'd been having problems so had to go to a pharmacy to get a little help, poor boy. Wasn't exactly Boots but did the trick). Security is really tight at the Taj Mahal - so tight that they confiscated my sellotape?! It's dangerous stuff. On the tuc tuc on the ay out of the Taj we were accosted by the usual touts selling rubbish. They were just kids but some Indian guy started whipping them with a stick, which was horrifying, so we ended up with 8 mini Taj Mahal snowstorms and a fridge magnet because we felt so bloody awful for them.

The Home Stay here was lovely - massive room and bath and extremely well looked after. Clean and comfy and really peaceful. Usual cows meandering happily around outside.

Set off to Jaipur at 4ish after a good lunch (thank god Archie likes naan and rice). What a journey. The roads are dodgy and there are cows and camels constantly getting in the way. We passed village after village of farmers and then got a flat tyre, which was apparently fixed by the driver. However, not very well because it went flat again further up the road, By this time we were truly out of white man territory. We waited for an hour with hundreds of villagers surrounding us just looking. It wasn't at all threatening but very odd. The kids were filthy but quite happy just to stare and point and laugh. We gave them some crayons which they thought was just fantastic.

Anyway, we made it to Jaipur and stayed in a lovely homestay. Cleaner than my house and very friendly. Archie loved the tortoises and the "Granny" who was an old lady they had taken in when she was put on the streets by her family because she was too old to bother about. Archie far too excited by everything. Very manic and totally loving the attention he gets. A real show off. He keeps putting his hands together and says Namaste. He also says "don't like it" quite a lot. This is possibly because he had a vegetarian pizza and unfortunately the peppers weren't actually peppers.......

We went to Janter Mantar which is an amazing observatory built a couple of hundred years ago. There were a few english couples with their very young offspring which was reassuring! They probably don't get out the milton wipes as often as I do (I'm getting better).

Archie a big fan of tuc tucs (mummy not so much a fan - just frantic). For the unitnitiated they are about 25cc motorbikes on 3 wheels with a covered seat. Don't worry though Vera - they only do about 2 miles an hour.

The evening was a bot of a disaster as the (swearword) taxi got another flat tyre taking us out for a quick evening tour before dinner. Paul went spare and called the travel company. Subsequently, we were picked up with 4 new tyres and a spare the next morning.