My meal arrived. It was a bowl of tepid, green curried water with two spinach leaves floating in it. The waiter called it 'vegetable soup'. I called it inedible slop.

He was lonely. I could see that. He was working his butt off-and mine, too-in the hope that a million rupees might sort out his sex life. I prayed to Buddha he would be successful. If he didn't get some action soon, I doubted I would, either.

Damoder climbed slowly to his feet. 'Buy lot!' he wheedled, 'I am poor man. I sell you cheap. I am bank-Rupert! Apparently the only things that could save him from bank-rupertcy were our dollars.

After a lifetime of soft, easy living in the West, one's buttocks take an awful hammering out here. Backpacking around India is just one long round of sitting on bone-hard, chafing, bruising and generally uncomfortable seats-whether in buses our trains, or restaurants or cinemas. There is no such thing as a padded seat in the whole country.