Thursday, February 22

Sanu persuades us that we should go on a jeep safari, and so off we go. We have a 19 year old driver called Bibin who drives his jeep like a teenager should: recklessly with an undentable belief in his own immortality. We head off down tracks at angles of forty five degrees, barely wider then the jeep.

We soon realise that almost every teenager in the area who can drive has a jeep and we form a jeep convoy that reminds me of the queues I have seen on documentaries of tourists climbing Everest. Among the locations we visit: a waterfall in the almost-no-water season. The river at the bottom has become a stream. In the rainy season, apparently, it becomes a raging torrent.

In the rainy season, we learn, the jeeps do not always grip the muddy roads properly. We make a note never to go on a jeep safari in the rainy season.