Yes, we have arrived - no member of the royal family to meet us at Heathrow but we were four hours late due to the runway at Mumbai being 'rebuilt' so excuses can be made.
With only a few days left before ending our overland journey and flying to the British winter we've managed to find a nice little beach hut in Goa with a great view of Arambol beach to recuperate from the journey and prepare for job hunting.
Walking the streets of Mumbai aka Bombay aka Bollywood can be treacherous for a pair of odd looking Kiwis (the beard is definitely coming off). Walking back to our guest house after going to see one of the hundreds of films produced in Bollywood each year Michaela and I were spotted by a 'talent' scout and signed up to star as miscellanous restaurant patrons numbers 25 and 26 in the next Bollywood Blockbuster - 'Yuvraaj' (apparently costing 50 million Rupees to shoot).
All in all a great day being close to some of Bollywood's big names (including Salman Khan who apparently is always in the gossip pages of the papers) and our share of the 50 million rupees enough (400 rupees each (about NZ$14)) to consider doing this full time ...
It's already gone a little to Michaela's head (the boys just wanted to know which country she came from) ...
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After finally walking off the effects of our camels we unleashed ourselves on western Rajasthan - the forts, the palaces and the epic battles of tourist v tout. Determined to come out on the side of good we refused to pay anyone's initial price and stoutly resisted all efforts to steer us to various handcrafts emporiums (emporia?) We were not wholly successful though - the retail urge overtook us at times (although in Shaun's case it was mostly the urge to buy food). We also found something Pepsi might want to take a look at ...
The forts at Jodhpur and Jaisalmer were the most impressive I've seen so far (there's a photo of Jaisalmer fort in Shaun's last blog entry)- although they had their more sombre sides. Below are the handprints of the widows of one of the 19th century maharajahs of Jodhpur - pressed on the fort wall as they left it for the last time to burn themselves alive on his funeral pyre.
Leaving Jodhpur we arrived in the land of Octopussy - Udaipur - the setting for the James Bond movie of the same name, which we watched twice in 3 days on the roof of our guesthouse. Watching the crowd scenes it is surprising/terrifying how so little in India changes. 
Feeling all inspired we hired an 'Ambassador' car (not quite an Aston Martin) to cruise the countryside the following day. No champagne on board unfortunately although we did have our own driver.
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