Family, friends, people we’ve met with on the way, people we’ve yet to meet but who grace us with their e-mails: greetings!

We are currently in the Gujarat, that strange desert land between Bombay and Rajastan. One moment it’s the sea, as wide open and brave as all the world; and at others it’s the rolling scrub desert, peopled with gentle welcoming people of the land, beautiful camels and cows, their corns like old boughs. Yet more cows, always more cows.

We’ve spent so far time in the dusty city of Bhuj in the delicious Annapurna hotel. From the balcony of our room we could see all the life of the city. In the early morning the cows and buffaloes are fed near the rickshaw stand and trucks begin to enter the market area. The tea stall man (tchai wallah in local parlance) unlocks the bits of plywood which protect his business and the shoe repair man returns with his tools to sit under the shade of a dusty torn awning.

But the evenings! Things die down slowly; the city wears its way down to a stop like an unwound clock. Scarlet streaks through the sky, lighting up the lake like embers. In the end, the streets are deserted save the reclining cows, the pigs scrounging at breakneck speed with their snouts parallel to the ground and the dogs. The dogs become the true possessors of Indian towns at night and woe to the unwary human who walks out during the canine hour. All night long you can hear them tearing and snapping at each other, moving and attacking and scavenging in packs.