First of all, please forgive me for not returning to you sooner – Frieda was very cross this morning when she realised that I have not yet thanked all of you! It’s the birthday of her youngest son today and when I called to congratulate everyone, I inadvertently let slip that I was amiss in this and she really let me have it!

So, our sincere and heartfelt thanks to your beautiful and stylish wife and daughter and, of course, yourself, for a wonderful evening at a great restaurant. We so enjoyed having such graceful hosts for the evening and tasting some of the superb vegetarian cooking at Ohm. Please send our regards and love to both and our invitation stands: visit us in South Africa soon! I live right next to the sea in gorgeous Cape Town and Frieda lives in the Northern Cape where you can watch game until you get tired of it!

We had a superb time in Rajasthan: Rajesh was such a pleasure to have as a driver. What a wonderfully humble, resourceful and friendly man. I think he had serious doubts about our sanity every time we insisted on having tea with a tea wallah next to the road, but he managed to let us have a great experience none the less!

Our guides were great but I have to make two exceptions: one good and one not so good.

Harry in Delhi really did not listen to our requests on what we wanted to do and see and insisted on taking us to where it suited him and his pocket. Not on. He also lied to us about our visa problem etc and that is unforgivable. Seen in the light of the fantastic service we got from all the other guides, this was truly a letdown.

But Pakaz Guphta in Jodhpur was just what the doctor ordered! What a super cool guide! He listened very carefully to what we wanted, took us there and threw in some more surprises, especially in the market where I finally found my Pasthun! Now that is what I call service – he even managed to find a painting of a foot which I could bring back for my friend who is a reflexologies. And found me a magazine with some cricketers in which cricket mad friends ordered here in SA.

Ambrish in Jaipur was a pleasure and really knowledgeable although he nearly had a heart attack when we insisted on having tea not in a fancy restaurant but with a tea wallah – Rajesh’s first indication that these two ladies were seriously strange! Our guide in Agra (whose name escapes me just now) was also a pleasure to deal with and really wanted us to feel the special atmosphere at the Taj. They also had a difficult task as we ran late most days as the monsoon does not take mere mortals into consideration.

The hotels everywhere were of high standard and the Rattan Village in Jodhpur especially had excellent food and true friendly service in all aspects.

We especially enjoyed the fact that we could walk around everywhere we went and enjoy the street scenes and, of course, the magnificent historical places.

The only town we did not enjoy at all was Pushkar which was filthy (in stark contrast to the rest of the places we visited) and the priests were unbelievably rude – but, then again, you did warn us! That said, we met two traders with whom we had some of the best chats on our trip and drank tea with. From one Frieda bought some trinkets and from the other we bought nothing, but both truly seemed happy to talk and just shoot the breeze a bit. Here we also met two brothers who gave Frieda an Auyurveda massage and myself a hand massage and they were excellent and really friendly yet professional.

I loved driving through the countryside and seeing all the small farming communities at work although Frieda, as usual, went straight to sleep and woke up on the other side. We often tease her and say that she sleeps her way around the world…

Although I was really ill with a high fever in Udaipur and missed the sight-seeing, Frieda enjoyed her time there, especially as she had some clothes made by a tailor that we stumble upon and is really happy with the results.

I will most certainly return to India and look forward to making use of your services to see places like Mumbai, Kerala and Goa.

Thank you once again for sorting out our visa problems and flight tickets and times and for refunding us for the places we could not go to as our time was seriously curtailed. Seeing that the visa problems were my fault to start off with, your assistance and understanding meant all the more to us.

I would not hesitate to recommend you strongly to friends and fellow travellers.