Frank and Robyn visit India in 2019

Day 3 in dry, vegetarian Gujerat. Recipe for a Gujerati martini: Combine 3 parts hand sanitiser with 2 parts buttermilk and 1 part cumin powder-Stir vigorously and drink vigorously. Does the job. They take this prohibition business very seriously here and apparently all vehicles get searched as they enter Gujerat from the normal states. This morning's activity is a tour of the Calico museum of textiles-I must agree that this does not sound tremendously exciting but it turns out to be quite fascinating, so much so that the Memsaab and I will be building a loom and weaving silk saris as soon as we return to Melbourne. Lunch of course is a vegetarian thali with buttermilk and quite delicious. After lunch we take a tour of the toilet museum, where we see all the latest in Indian rural toilet design-also fascinating. Then it is a tour of a Jain temple. Exhausted by everything we veg out for the rest of the day dreaming of a big, thick juicy T-bon...

It is day 2 of our stay in dry Gujerat and the strain is starting to show. Today we visit the ashram in Ahmedabad where Mahatma Gandi spent 18 years.: Spinning like Gandi, but he didn't have a mobile Mr & Mrs Gandi's home-seperate bedrooms of course We had lunch at the local Thali joint(with buttermilk!!!!) Getting booked-no helmet In the evening we go with our loyal guide, Param, to another street market where one can buy costumes for the Gujerati 9 night festival. Not at all gaudy

Picked up at digs at 5am(in the morning!) and driven out to airport-extra security due to recent unrest with the Pakkies. Walk away from security forgetting my backpack and discover 10 minutes later I also did not pick up laptop-both successfully retrieved. I am now in state of high agitation but am calmed down by a morning dose of dosa. Picked up at Ahmedabad by our guide for the next 3 days; too early to check in at hotel so we do a tour of the ancient stepwell, a water storage facility. Then we are taken to the House of MG, our abode for the next 3 nights. Our room is slightly larger than our home and the Memsaab and I communicate via mobile in the bed; we are given a map of the room to avoid getting separated. We take a walking tour in the afternoon of the local street market; Ahmedabad is a hamlet by Indian standards with a population of a mere 7 million. The market turns out to be a trifle bazaar and we spend our time dodging bicycles, motor scooters and...