I've never been abroad in January before but it was a real treat to feel warm sunshine (23 - 33 degrees in the daytime) and to see flowers you either don't see in England or only see at the height of summer.
As you step into some hotels a garland of French marigolds is put round your neck and your forehead touched with red or orange dye. This looks beautiful on Indian ladies but made some of us British look as if we'd just been shot!
At this stage of our trip we stayed at the Lemon Tree hotel at Jaipur, a particularly nice place to stay. As well as the usual garland and bindi we were given a lemon-scented damp hot muslin flannel and the foyer smelled of lemons. There were all lemon toiletries in the rooms and some of the best meals of the trip. I was still struggling with finding curry alternatives (I managed to lose over half a stone on this trip!) but here I enjoyed baked yoghurt (yes really!) and halva which was ground nuts and chopped dried fruit with honey. A delicious breakfast!
I'm not good at naming flowers and I don't want to get it wrong. But we saw a lot of bourgainvillea from deep pink to orange and deep red, pictured fourth photo down.
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