The second Stone (or Iron) Age village and sand-dune sunset

Impressions of India: 18
I’m currently travelling for 3 months in India, through Goa, Kerala and Rajasthan, with a pretty hot and hectic schedule of boutique hotel reviews. The galleries below are my online photojournalist diary of scenes caught, people met and things found along the way. I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I did and am still.

Please do take a moment to log and/or e-mail me your reactions and comments and, if you're on Facebook, attend/join my Indian Adventures photo-blog cyber-event there, or become a Follower, due right on this page? The more people I know are reading and enjoying it, the more fuel it adds to my fire, so all forms of encouragement and support will be gratefully received.

A traditional camel cart, off-duty.

To my Western eyes, used to the squared-off lines of so many of our buildings, these round, thatched mud huts look very picturesque, and it's sad to see them steadily being replaced (as in The Serai's local village), by brick boxes. But these age-old ones probably pay a heavy toll during the monsoon rains, if and when they come. 

No dyed-in baby-girl eyebrows here, just heavy khol eye-liner and jewellery.

This lady was bashing stones to turn them into a powder. It would then be mixed with dung and water and pasted over the remaining rough area to make a bonded smooth, hard surface like the one in front of her. 

Then we were off across the sand, which Singh negotiated very expertly, grinding through gears and flooring the accelerator up the soft slopes, to catch the sunset over the dunes.

This gentleman and a young boy hopped aboard along the way and joined us for the sundown. I strongly suspect that the wonderfully-bright materials worn by desert dwellers have a very practical purpose. You can see them for miles across the pale sand, which probably ensures rescue arrives a lot quicker if anyone's lost/dehydrated/in trouble, though a German traveller I met likes to think it's more romantic - that they're cheering themselves up in the face of harsh conditions. 

On the way home, as it started to get dark, Singh offered to let me drive the jeep. I accepted, slightly nervously, but only on condition he moved to the passenger seat rather than sharing my driver's one.

Posts still to come before we're up-to-date: 
The national park ruins of a village suddenly abandonned 300 years ago
Magical Jaisalmer Fort
Jodhpur to Jaipur