Kids shout “the white people are here”, and a crowd gathers. A smile and a hello usually bring wide grins in return, often with fits of giggles. The brave ones try their English with “what’s your country?” or “what’s your name?”, then collapse in laughter. 

This is Gujarat, NW India, close to the Pakistani border – at one point we’re only 20 km away and fighter jets patrol the airspace. We’re the object of considerable curiosity. Just a small group of seven, but few westerners make their way here so we attract intense interest. In fact, not many Indian tourists come this way either, and later in our trip we constantly meet people who are amazed that we’ve been there. Our interest is in the culture, design and fabric heritage of India, but more of that in the next instalment. That’s especially for the artists and artisans among you.

I didn’t come to India for surgery, but tuk tuk rides over rough streets and old city cobblestones are definitely rearranging my internal organs. We climb into bright pink tuk tuks, run by a local tour company with only women drivers who all look about 12 years old. They charge off into the maelstrom and deliver us safely to the early morning wholesale flower and vegetable markets.

Colourful and noisy, frantic with commerce, the narrow alleys throb with action. Do not get in the way of the women carrying 20-40kg bags of veggies unless you’re ready for shove and a concise Hindustani correction.

Everything is pink in Jaipur – it’s like falling into the Barbie movie. In the old town most buildings are a gorgeous shade of dusty salmon pink, a hangover from 1876 when the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) came to town.  Pink being the symbolic colour of hospitality, Maharaja Sawai Ram Singh had the whole city sloshed with pink paint to welcome the royals. Prince Albert nicknamed Jaipur the ‘Pink City’ and the name stuck.

Jaipur is an huge contrast after the remote villages of Gujarat. Flying in after dark, the lights reveal the grid design set out in 1725 to establish India’s first planned city, completely surrounded by a wall that still stands. The higher rise, more modern commercial spaces and hotels spread out from the centre.

Planning a city doesn’t mean it’s not chaos. As in all of India, the system somehow works, even though lanes and traffic direction are merely ideas; horns are mandatory – to announce your presence but never used in anger; cows, dogs, pedestrians and beggars are generally avoided; everyone – except the animals – is on their phone; and you are responsible for your own life. There are remarkably few accidents, though death appears imminent- possibly my own due to cardiac arrest as we narrowly avoid another rickshaw/car/dog/pedestrian.

The go-to in Jaipur is Amer Fort, which rises out of the Aravalli hills and sprawls along the ridge line like it owns the place. A16 kilometre wall, studded with watchtowers, snakes along the the hills and around the perimeter. The fort is a blend of architectures, Rajkot and Mughal, covering over four square kilometres and overlooking the gardens on Moata Lake. From the International Space Station, this is apparently the only wall you can see. Take that, China.

To reach the fort we load into jeeps. What they lack in suspension they fail to compensate for with comfort. The kilometre or so climb up the cobbled road is bone-shaking in the most character-building way. Progress is slow, traffic jams stop traffic as every other tourist in town has the same idea – arrive early and beat the crowds.

This whole Raj thing is such a contrast to the backwaters of Gujarat, where we stay in small villages and visit home based workshops. We also travel across the Great Rann Of Kutch, a huge desert that at this time of year is typically a vast, blindingly white, salt flat. However unseasonal rains a couple of weeks ago (hello climate change) deprive us of the spectacle. We stay on the eastern side of the Rann ( which means desert) and one morning load into jeeps – again with the jeeps – for a morning safari. We are on Little Rann and see some wildlife, including a native donkey, and watch the desert come to life.

We meet a family working out here: they live here for six months a year, establishing the salt ponds by digging then stomping the ground flat, flooding with salt water pumped up from the water table, and raking them daily to build up the crystals. God knows what it does to their health walking in salt every day. The family earns about $250 a month. The company provides the infrastructure – solar panels to run the pump, a couple of drums of fresh water each week for living purposes. A gutted bus, set up as a school room, comes out during the week, but other wise the kids are working as well.

It’s a basic, very basic, life we witness.