The first picture shows concrete blocks which form one of the boundary walls, simply washed away.

The second picture shows some of the water whih is left over which has not drained away yet.

In the third picture, there should be a six foot high stone wall right across the top of the round white pipes and it has simply been washed away.

And in the last picture there should be a six foot high stone wall right across in front of the sikh gentlement from left to right - again, all just washed away.

I understand that trees were all over the place; roots torn from the ground and branches torn from the trees. But by the time I was able to go outside with my camera a great deal of tidying up had already been done. Particularly the removal of trees from roads. Everything must be done to get services, including roads, back to normal as soon as possible.

In fact, internet an e-mail is back to normal already in most the houses and apartments. Perhaps because we have local servers. Offices are not so lucky as the main servers for here are located in Mombai and they are also pretty much under water still.

People like us survive these situations without too much trouble or inconvenience. But not everyone is so lucky. There are many, many people all over India who live in shanty towns in urban and rural areas. There home is barely more than poles or bits of stone wall or whatever, covered with tarpaulins to make roofs. How these people manage with these types of weather conditions is almost unbearable to contemplate.

Gavin's driver has a small single storey home with stone walls for himself, his wife and two small children, his mother and his much younger brother. The corrugated iron roof blew off on Monday and they were up to their knees in water. They now have a tarpaulin roof. But because a job is so important, he reported to work by lunch time on Tuesday.

There are stories like this and worse all over the place. But the resilience of these people is amazing. They just seem to accept the situation and get on with it.

What a day Monday was!!

It seemed dark in the apartment all day. This was really odd and somewhat spooky. Particularly at this time of the year when, in Scotland, we are used to it being light from the early hours of the morning until very late at night.

Torrential (and I do mean torrential!!) rain, huge, huge, huge claps of thunder and lightening streaking all over the place from about eight in the morning until about five in the afternoon. I have never seen anything like it - but have no doubt there are others who have - but I am certainly not one of them!

I have since read that in a normal monsoon in this part of the country there would be an expected rainfall of approximately 175 mm of water. On Monday, I understand, approximately 340 mm fell during the ONE DAY!!!

I battled to keep some of the windows from blowing open; mopped up when some water came inside; listened to the overwhelming sounds of nature and watched from my first floor window. By lunch time all the Reliance and Bechtel offices were abandoned - no electricity, no land line or mobile phone services, no computers, water sloshing about the floors. I understand that for some people the journey back to Jamnagar (which normally takes about forty-five minutes) took up to six hours.

After that, it was back to Jamangar and, for Gavin, back to work. What a fabulous holiday, with lots of photographs and lots of memories to keep with us long after we leave India later in the year.

We are now enjoying (I think!!) weeks and weeks of temperatures of over forty degrees, which will be with us until the monsoon starts, about the third week in June. The Engineers here all work long hours each day and six days a week. On Saturday evenings we all get together for a barbecue and a beer and have quiet and pretty idle days off on Sundays. The ladies enjoy supervising our drivers, houseboys and other maintenance staff!! Getting together every now and then for coffee and a natter and short trips into Jamnagar for a little shopping. Too hot for much else!!

We ended our holiday with a leisurely Sunday lunch time trip up the river from Panaji to Old Goa. We had a lovely lunch, were well looked after by the young staff and serenaded by a couple of young men playing violin and guitar and thought the old boat reminded us of Mississippi river boats!!

The beaches in Goa are quite beautiful, especially the ones away from the main tourist areas which you can enjoy in peace and quiet.

These falls at the National Park are the second highest in the whole of India. A little low on water during our visit as it is over six months since the end of the monsoon. However, still a beautiful sight and worth the trek through the jungle.

In the National Park these monkeys were absolutely ALL OVER THE PLACE!!!

Dudhsagar National Park on the eastern boards of Goa was quite an adventure!

We found this sign in the shrubbery 'Habitat'. But have a feeling that this is not talking about the international chain of home and garden stores!! But it did give us a bit of a chuckle!

Old Goa town is about seven kilometres from Panaji and was obviously a big Portuguese catholic centre at one time, with huge cathedral like churches and huge old convent community buildings. All quite beautiful, but now crumbling and neglected.

We had wanted to try a ride in one of these little put-put tri-cars, but in most parts of India the drivers on the road follow their own rules that we never thought it would be safe enough to risk it. But in Goa we felt things were a little different and so we gave it a go and this wee man and his machine became our driver, guide and taxi for a couple of days as we explored a bit.

Goa was a Portuguese territory until 1961, when it became a fully fledged State of India. Many buildings, much of the religion and many of the customs are inherited from this Portuguese heritage. This is now completely integrated with the Indian part of Goa's heritage.

This is the Panjim Inn in the Old Latin District of Panaji (the State Capital of Goa) where we stayed. A place for travellers rather than a modern hotel holiday complex which could have been anywhere in the world!! This place had friendly staff and such character. A good choice of hotel, the details of which we found in the Lonely Planet for India Book. A series of books no traveller or adventurer should leave home without, wherever they are planning to go.

And then we went to Goa for the second part of our trip.

Our driver, Pappu, introduced us to a number of Indian fruits which we had not tried before. Some we liked and some we did not!! But we tried! On the way back to Delhi we met his son (on the left) and his nephew, on a holiday from school. I have to say that it was the care, thoughtfulness and knowledge of Pappu that was a huge part of our enjoying this trip and getting the most out of this part of our trip.

The red sandstone fort in Agra is another magnificent place to visit. The construction of the fort was started in 1565 and buildings were later added to make it more like a palace by the founders grandson, Shah Jahan, who built the Taj Mahal. It later became Shah Jahan's prison when he was overthrown by his own son. History during this period seems to have been just as complicated in India as it ever was in Europe or elsewhere in the world!!

By the way, the view from the fort to the Taj Mahal was another fabulous site. Our eyes and minds were almost working on overdrive by this time!!

The next outing was to watch these brilliant craftsmen inlaying semi precious stone into marble to make small tables, trays, plates and even great big dining tables. They use mother of pearl, lapis lazuli and cornelian, as well as other colours whose names I cannot remember! Such pains taking work, such tiny pieces and such amazing results. These products are mostly made to order and despatched all over the world. And now two green side tables with a design as shown in the pictures in mother of pearl and cornelian are here in our apartment and will be on their way in due course to a new home in France!!

A small private sitar concert which we were part of in Agra at a place where they were making sitars. Did you know that the bowl of the instrucment is made from dried pumpkin gourds!! Nor did we . . .

This is the mosque to the side of the Taj Mahal.

And THEN we went to the Taj Mahal.

A World Heritage Site.

No doubt, one of the most beautiful man made places in the world.

And once inside the gates an almost completely 'tout' free zone.

According to Rudyard Kipling 'the embodiement of all things pure'.

According to one Indian poet 'a teardrop on the face of eternity'.

Built by the Emperor Shah Jahan as a mauseleum for his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died in childbirth with her fourteenth child in 1631.

In total, twenty thousand people from India, Central Asia and Europe worked on the building.

These pictures show a little bit of the beautiful palace of Fatehpur Sikri.

Fatehpur Sikri was built on the top of quite a steep hill/mountain in 1571, but was only occupied for about twenty years as not enough thought was given to the supply of water and it all ran out!!

Because this part of it is a mosque it is required that everyoone take off their shoes. The stones were absolutely burning hot and we had to keep trying to explore the place around the shady bits!!

Most of the time guides and people trying to sell things at these sorts of places take 'no, thank you' for an answer (certainly after a ouple of times!) and leave you alone to visit and enjoy, but the entrance to this mosque was teaming with potential guides, and touts of all sorts of food, refreshments and souvenirs. It was impossible to move and at times quite scary as we tried to struggle our way through and, to be perfectly honest it did rather spoil the visit to this special place.

But the Palace next door was a different cup of tea altogether. The mobs of people were outside but not allowed through the entrance gate. So this was a haven of serenity and beauty and we were able to enjoy it.

The people of India are trying hard to encourage tourism and they have so much to offer, but scaring people off by pushing, pushing themselves at you to accept their services is not the way to go about it. Hoever, it is necessary to remember that this could possibly be the only way that some of these people can earn a living.

These are a couple of views of the hotel where we stayed in Jaipur. At one time it was the town house of a minor Maharaja and is still run by the same family.

A lovely evening having dinner under the stars and watching the colourful costumes whirling about in the local dancing traditions of Rajistan.

The Jantar Mantar in Jaipur is a huge observatory built in 1728. The instruments are on a huge scale with sundials, constructions for timetable exclipses and the annual cycle of the entire zodiac. It was the hottest place we had visited so far and we watched (from a shady place!) all the tourists trying to find a sapot out of the heat of the day for even a short reprieve.

These are just two of the new friends we made along the way!!!

And, can you imagine, the whole of this ceiling, the far wall and the wall on the left of the picture are solid silver!!!

The whole place was quite beautiful and five hundred years old. There is a huge amount of reconstruction and renovation work going on for this original capital of Jaipur. Including the re-working of the formal gardens. It ws all so worth the long and hot climb to the top of the steep walkway.

Our first big stop was at Ajmer to see the Amber Palace. What a stunning place. You can see how high up it is compared to the surrounding area - what a climb!! It used to be possible to do this journey by elephant, but they have all been retired now and the only way is to walk!!!

From Delhi we had a great driver who also acted as our guide for the six days we travelled through the 'Golden Triangle'. He always managed to find us good places to stop for comfort breaks and lunch! Always particularly important for Gavin!

We then went to a Craft Market and amongst other things we watched this very talented man painting papier mache boxes with the finest, finest brush. His concentration was incredible and the craftsmanship was fantastic. He told us he had been an apprentice for years before he reached this standard and was able to teach others.

These are some of the papers with the writing for the carpet patterns. The carpet makers just thread one sheet at a time between the long strands on the loom and follow what is written there!! Quite incomprehensible to you and I!! The other picture is of OUR carpet!!!

We watched Tibetan refugees making the most beautiful silk carpets in the most intricate and age old designs. And lo and behold, after numerous cups of Tibetan tea and lengthy conversation with a fascinating professor we bought a fabulous carpet for our living room in France!! Not that we have the living room yet!! This will take a little longer!!

And what do you think of this carving? Hard to realise that it is about eight hundred years old!!

By the way, a big thank you should go to Christopher for reminding us to bring a copy of the Lonely Planet to India book with us to use on this trip. It has been invaluable for finding hotels and telling us about what we are seeing and what we should see and even where to get the best seafood in Panaji, Goa (but more of that later on!).

No matter how I try to lay the photographs out in an artistic fashion, they almost seem to turn up just any-old-where. Oh well, I suppose the only thing that matters is that the pictures show up at all!! After all the trouble I have had.

Anyway, these pictures show the Qutb Minar in Delhi. The QM itself is a soaring tower of vistory dating from the beginning of islamic rule in India in 1193 and is of early afghan design. It is a beautiful place and we seemed to be visiting when there were not too many people about. A difficult thing to do anywhere in India!

These pictures show the largest Mosque in India in Delhi. And there is no doubt that the place is huge. This was the first of our visits to sites of historial and architectural interest.

During March this year we were able to enjoy a two week Indian holiday. We had a marvellous time. We saw lots of forts, temples and palaces and covered a fair bit of Indian countryside. We met interesting people and stayed in some lovely hotels converted from old Indian and Portuguese homes and have collected lots of fabulous memories to be enjoyed and re-lived with a glass of wine on the terrace we will build when we retire to France in the coming months.

We visited Delhi, Jaipur and Agra in the north and then went to Goa for a weeks rest and relaxation. As you can see we started off our visit to Delhi with a leisurely outdoor breakfast!