Mumbai to Delhi

Three weeks of trains, night buses and jeeps across Rajasthan in the dry autumn light.

November 2015

From the back seat of a taxi, the driver in silhouette against a bright street of parked cars and handcarts — Arriving in Colaba, where the air is full of corrander and the architecture is full of colonial legacy.

The Taj hotel across an empty plaza with pigeons turning in the air above it, a family of four standing in the foreground — Arriving in Colaba, where the air is full of corrander and the architecture is full of colonial legacy.

Shantaram pilgrimage to Cafe Leopold.

A concrete clock tower on a curved balcony above worn steps, deep in green shade, one person sitting alone underneath

Busy early morning markets with fresh vegetables and herbs.

Across to Udaipur, a city built around its own reflection, for Diwali.

A swimmer bathing in the lake — A shrine by the lake, where people also come to meet and bathe.

The base of an old tree growing through the paving, trunk smeared with red pigment, a small white shrine tucked into its roots — A shrine by the lake, where people also come to meet and bathe.

A woman cooking on the pavement outside a bright blue house, scooter parked beside a red gate, marigold garlands over the doors — test

A tiered white gateway with balconies and arched openings, people passing through the arches below into the bazaar — test

The festival of light begins as the sun sets. Fairy lights across every lane, firecrackers going off every few seconds.

A wide street under converging lines of lights, a pandal tent glowing green at the far end

A busy street strung end to end with orange bulbs, women in saris walking towards the camera

A temple entrance packed with people under heavy marigold garlands and cut-glass lamps, a policeman at the edge of the crowd

Two boys holding sparklers at arm’s length in a doorway, faces lit hard from below

Two women sitting on a step in front of a green door, one in cream and one in red, a rack of souvenirs beside them

The Lake Palace at first light

A low colonnaded building standing straight out of the lake, a tree leaning over its roof

Four women in red, yellow, pink and green saris standing at the carved base of a temple — Jagdish Temple, still busy from the festival.

Two carved stone elephants facing each other on a temple frieze, worn smooth and marked with red powder — Jagdish Temple, still busy from the festival.

West into the desert, to Jaisalmer.

Carved sandstone balconies stacked up both sides of a lane, meeting a narrow strip of blue sky

A haveli façade of tiered projecting windows above an archway, people passing underneath into the light

A wedding mural painted on a whitewashed wall — Ganesh on a lotus between two pots, a mouse at his feet

A roundabout monument outlined in yellow bulbs at dusk, motorbikes and cars going round it

Two domed cenotaphs standing out in still water at dawn, pigeons crowded on the nearer roof

A dirt track running out into scrub, the sun coming up flat and pale through desert haze

A figure in a red shirt walking a narrow stone causeway across water towards a low sandstone gateway

Inside a yellow stone temple, a brass pot raised on a stand over a bed of marigolds, women gathered at the side — A morning puja we walked into the middle of, and were waved further in.

The same temple from the front, women in bright print saris filling steel buckets around the offering — A morning puja we walked into the middle of, and were waved further in.

A man driving a red tractor and green trailer loaded with sand, the fort walls on the ridge behind him

Two days out on camels from a village west of town. It is much colder at night than anyone tells you, and much slower than you imagine — which is the point of it.

A single wide-crowned thorn tree standing alone on pale sand under a hard blue sky

Camels sitting in the sand in their red and white saddle blankets, the nearest one looking off to the right

Riding out through low scrub at dusk, seen from the camel behind — a rider ahead with a pack on their back, sand track winding between bushes

Bare gradient sky after sunset, orange to deep violet, a single star out over a black line of trees — Dinner cooked on the fire, and everyone asleep on the sand by nine.

Two of the camel men talking across a low fire, faces lit orange, a water drum between them — Dinner cooked on the fire, and everyone asleep on the sand by nine.

A ginger dog curled asleep on a dune in the cold blue light before sunrise

Packed into the back of a shared jeep, heads and shoulders filling the frame, the road bright through the windscreen — Most of this trip happened in the back of something.

A jeep and a painted bus coming the other way down an empty desert road, dust behind them and men riding on the bus roof — Most of this trip happened in the back of something.

Jodhpur next, and the blue starts at the edge of the old town and does not stop.

A boy walking away down a wet lane between a brick house and blue-washed walls, carrying a bag

A young potter sitting cross-legged at a stone wheel in an ochre room, shaping a pot between his hands — A stone wheel, a stick to start it, and about ninety seconds a pot.

The same potter driving the heavy wheel round with a wooden stick, looking straight at the camera — A stone wheel, a stick to start it, and about ninety seconds a pot.

An older man in white sitting cross-legged on a rug in front of a wall painted with red vine patterns, hands folded

A man holding out a length of red cloth outside a mud-walled house, a woman in red standing in the doorway behind

Two men riding one motorbike towards the camera down a white gravel track, under a yellow and black height barrier

Woven rugs laid overlapping across a stone floor in raking light, reds and blues in diamond patterns

Two men behind the counter of a spice shop, the older one giving a peace sign, packets and film posters stacked behind them

A painted shrine behind red railings — Shiva on a blue mountain with a bull, a bell hanging in front

A sadhu in an orange dhoti standing bare-chested in a temple courtyard, grey beard to his chest, looking level at the camera

Blue-washed houses with peeling paint and green shutters, a white temple spire rising behind, scooters lined up along the wall

Three men squeezed onto the red bench seat of an auto-rickshaw, all looking into the lens

Amy on the train, half in shadow against the window, a platform sliding past behind her

Jaipur is pink and enormous and the traffic is a different order of thing. We mostly gave up and walked.

The Hawa Mahal from below, its honeycomb of small windows curving up into a cloudless sky

The street framed through the windscreen of an auto-rickshaw, men sitting on a wall opposite, the driver’s blue shirt at the edge

The blank yellow flank of a Jantar Mantar instrument, arched recesses along its length, hard shadow down one side

A huge spreading tree filling a run-down courtyard, ochre buildings on three sides, sand piled in the beds below

A stone floor covered in chalk and pigment marks around a small moulded figure, left from a ritual

A pink and cream palace gateway across a junction, traffic and a crowd of women in bright saris in front of it

A dim bazaar lane with shops either side, cables slung overhead, figures walking away towards the light at the end

Stuck in traffic at sunset, a bus and motorbikes in silhouette against an orange sky under a flyover

A stop at the bird reserve on the way east, which after two weeks of towns was startlingly quiet.

Looking up into a big leaning tree, a green parakeet just visible on the trunk

A stork flying low over still wetland, reeds in the foreground and nesting trees along the far bank

Agra, then Delhi, and the end of it. The Taj we saw from the wrong bank of the river, across the sand, which turned out to be the better way to see it.

Sunrise over rooftops through overhanging branches, a figure in silhouette at a stall in the foreground

A domed tomb in the trees with the low sun burning through its colonnade

The Taj Mahal in heavy morning mist, almost weightless above the scrub and sand of the far riverbank

A pierced stone screen in a dark alcove, a figure standing beyond it in the bright arch of the next room — Last morning, out of the sun.

Amy and a woman she got talking to, standing against a wall thrown all over with the lattice shadow of the screen — Last morning, out of the sun.