The story is about the murder of an English tea planter in Ceylon, as it then was, and now Sri Lanka in the 1930's. The plot has some similarity to a story by Somerset Maugham, "Footprints in the Jungle", set in Malaya. The author acknowledges an account of an actual murder entitled "The Pope Murder Case" written by the author's father, O.L. de Krestner. The murdered planter's best friend, another English planter, is accused of the murder after damning evidence given by his wife that the mudered planter had been molesting her. The accused hangs himself in gaol leaving a suicide note protesting his innocence. The prosecutor accepts the evidence against the accused. As the accused has already met his demise, the case proceeds no further. As the author points out, the prosecuting attorney has identified all the clues in the best traditions of that hero of Agatha Christie, but in becoming obsessed with the detail, had missed the whole. However, I will dwell no further on the murder as all will be revealed to the patient reader. The story is not so much about the Hamilton Case as about the character of the prosecuting attorney, his mother, and his sister. It gives an interesting insight as to what life might have been like in Ceylon in the 1930's and 1940's. The author was born in Sri Lanka and emigrated to Australia at the age of fourteen. What she did not know of Ceylon from first hand experience she seems to have researched from the sources that she acknowledges. The author commences the story writing in the first person but switches to the third person in the second part of the book. There is a scarcity of tales of Ceylon and I enjoyed this one.

Sir Walter Scott is said to be the pioneer of the historical novel. That may well be but I have found him to be almost unreadable. This work by Anchee Min is interesting and very readable. The author says that all the characters represent real people and only the detail of the events has been filled in by the author. The story is about a seventeen year old girl selected to be one of the emperor’s concubines but who produced a male heir and became an Empress herself. The events took place in mid nineteenth century when China was becoming increasingly a haven for foreign traders, in particular those who sought to supply the Chinese population with opium. Interestingly, the author points out that at the time China was not a territorial concept but included the Chinese people and the land on which they lived. It may explain why Hong Kong, an uninhabited island was ceded to Britain. As it was not inhabited by the Chinese it may not have been regarded as a part of China. It would appear that supporting the Forbidden City must have been an immense burden on the Chinese populace. Raising of revenue was a real problem but it was solve to some extent by an Englishman in the employ of the emperor. The administration appeared to be cumbersome as it appears that any proposal by the emperor had to be passed around the regional administrators before it could become law. Although there may have been laws, the administration of those laws and the imposition of capital punishment appears to be upon a whim of the emperor. Perhaps it was a way of solving the problems of such a large population.

I first became aware of “Looking for Alibrandi” from a review several years ago. I put it on my reading list at that time but never managed to track it down, After finding it in the Australian top 100 I renewed my efforts and found it at the local library. The story is about a seventeen year old Sydney school girl. She is a member of a single parent Italian migrant family. The novel is written in the first person. The author was born in 1965 so she was 27 at the time the book was published. She gives the reader a meaningful insight into the traumas of growing up as a member of a single parent family. Of course the protanganist was nicknamed “bastarda” by the Italian community. It makes me wonder why we label the innocent victim a bastard when the real bastard is how we would usually describe the perpetrator. We also get a meaningful insight into what it was like for Italian migrant families imported into an alien culture, being unable to speak the language and having little opportunity to learn it. It is perhaps a tribute to these people for the adversities that they have been able to overcome. It was said that Charles Dickens’s “Great Expectations” was originally written as a serial. Consequently, each episode had to end with a significant event that compelled the reader to obtain the next episode to find out what happened.. Similarly, this novel has significant events distributed right through the story. The story and the descriptions of the setting give the reader the feeling that the author knew her subjects well. Only towards the end does the story get a bit mushy and over-sentimental. However, I will not spoil it for the potential reader by going into too much detail. At first I could not find the book in the library because it was in the ‘young adults’ section. I think it is a pity to categorise the reader and ‘hide’ the book from a wider audience. I may not be so young but I found the story to be sufficiently ‘adult’ to be very interesting. One is reminded of perhaps “Bonjour Tristesse”, a very ‘adult’ story written by the eighteen year old Francoise Sagan. I think that the mark of a good writer is that their words capture the essence of the time and place, I felt that D.H.Lawrence, although a visitor to Australia, capture it so well in “Kangaroo”. Similarly, after reading Melina Marchetta’s novel you feel you have been to Sydney.

We are going to Rottnest Island, 19 kilometres out in the Indian Ocean from Fremantle in Western Australia. The crossing in the ferry takes about 45 minutes and on this occasion the sea is flat. In fact the tsunami wave is only about three hours away. 10,000 years ago the island was attached to mainland Australia. At another time sea levels were a couple of metres higher than they are now and Rottnest was then nine separate islands. The first Europeans to arrive at Rottnest were Dutch Captain Vlamingh and his crew, almost 100 years before Captain Cook discovered eastern Australia. In school we were taught that Captain Cook discovered Australia. There was no acknowledgement of earlier Dutch ships blown off course en route to Batavia (now Jakarta) in the Dutch East Indies. However, it is claimed that the first of Vlamingh’s crew to come ashore was a man called Leeming who was believed to be an Englishman. Maybe that is just a bit of English propaganda or wishful thinking. Anyway, Captain Vlamingh named the island “Rottnest” because of the animals of the island which have long tails and resemble large rats. They are still there today. They are in fact not rats but are marsupials related to the Kangaroo, which carry their your in a pouch. They are tame and friendly. They are vegetarian and they will try any vegetable material that visitors have to offer. At one time these friendly little animals were all over the mainland but were killed off by settler’s dogs and cats. They only survive on rottenest Island as dogs and cats are not permitted. There are no motor vehicles on the island except for the island service vehicles, a tourist bus, and a shuttlebus. We get around the island on bicycles which can be hired on the island or we can bring our own. The roads around the island are good. They only have bikes on them. Back to the holiday. How do I fill in my time on an island where there is nothing to do? I get up at 6am as usual. First I make a cup of tea and then read ten pages of whatever book I happen to be reading at the time. There is a small library on the island. After a modest breakfast of cereal and toast, I am ready for the road. We are at the eastern end of the island so I ride my bike to the other end, about ten kilometres away. There are three ways to get there. The longest way is around the south coast. Another way is around the north coast. But the shortest route is straight through the middle of the island. I choose the shortest route. This turned out to be a bad choice. I find the wind is coming from behind me. If I return by another route, as I intend, the distance will be further and I will be pedalling into the wind. The island is undulating. A good downhill run will get you most of the way up the next hill before having to change to a lower gear. There is another bike rider ahead of me. At one point he veers off to the right hand side of the road. He has spotted a snake lying in the middle of the road. It has been aroused and slivers over to the right hand side of the road so I go to the left to avoid it. It is a dugite and about a metre long. They are poisonous but not deadly if one can get straight to hospital. After about half an hour I am at the west end. It has been an easy ride with the wind behind me. I pause for a few minutes before returning. I take the longest route back and going into the wind is much tougher; sometimes I am down to my lowest gear. Nevertheless, at about 9.30 I am back at our villa. It is time for coffee, a cake, and another ten pages. Some time after 10am ferry boats from the mainland arrive more frequently. We go down to the jetty to meet the ferry to see if anyone we know has arrived on the island. I perform this activity on each of the six days of our stay on the island and I never see anyone I know. After the jetty, it is time to go shopping. There is a supermarket, a newsagency, a bakery and a few speciality shops. They are all monopolies so prices are higher. If you couldn’t bring it with you , you pay the penalty of a higher price. Armed with our shopping, we go back to the villa, make sandwiches, and then sit on the balcony overlooking the bay to eat lunch. The bay is full of boats from the mainland. It looks like a carpark but with boats instead of cars. After lunch, I read another ten pages before siesta time. Siesta takes anything up to an hour. Then it is three o’clock in the afternoon and time for a cup of tea and another ten pages. Round about four o’clock the sun is getting a bit lower in the sky . If I am going to do any photography, now is the time. So it is back on the bike with my photographic gear in my backpack and out to find what potential images are revealed by the afternoon light. At six o’clock the light is just about finished so I might pack it in for the day. The ferries will have left for the mainland. Barbecue smells are starting to rise in the yards in the street back to the villa. So I go back to the villa and back to the balcony for drinks and appetisers. Seven o’clock is dinner time and it is just about dark. Washing the dishes becomes a pastime instead of a chore when there is nothing else to do. When everything is done its time for some more reading. Perhaps twenty pages this time. Towards ten o’clock in the evening, all that remains of the day is a shower before bedtime and another ten pages. Each day progresses much the same. On the last day the routine is interrupted by packing. The luggage has to be put out by eight o’clock in the morning for collection by the island staff. My bike ride has been necessarily delayed but it is still important as it might be the last opportunity for some time. Off we go, a little later, and it is a little warmer. Today, I see four snakes; two and different spots on the way to the west end and two on the way back. If one had been walking, they hear you coming or feel the vibration of your footsteps approaching and sliver off into the roadside vegetation, so you may never see them. However, approaching by bicycle, you are upon them before they have time to move. The last thing we must do before getting on the ferry is to return the books to the library. I have just finished “Princess Sultana’s Circle”. It is written for the Princess by an American author. The Princess is married to a younger brother of the King of Saudi Arabia. She tells about the problems of her relatives and the problems of being rich. She expresses concern for the women exploited in her society. In all, a very interesting read.

I must have now read nearly all the travel books on the planet. I have enjoyed travel books as a factual account of places and the people who live in those places. It is not that I am a complete armchair traveller. I do travel occasionally. Armchair travelling perhaps eliminates those places that are uninteresting and allows you to travel to those places that are too difficult without suffering any discomfort whatsoever. Armchair travel is certainly a lot cheaper than the real thing but it is never as satisfying. One person’s experience of a place is never going to be the same as another person’s. Alain de Boton in his book “The art of Travel” tells the story of a Frenchman who’s ambition was to visit London. He read all he could find about London. On arriving in London he was so horrified that he returned to France immediately. Another, an Englishman’ who read all about Paris but he never went in case he would be disappointed. The State Library of Western Australia put on an exhibition of books they were holding on travel writing. I had previously been a fan of Paul Theroux. I have read all he has written. He is a wonderful travel writer. However, the exhibition introduced me to the great travel writers of earlier times. My project was to read the works of all these writers. I soon discovered that the earlier style of travel writing presented the reader with a purely factual account of the places they had visited. Among these were Patrick Leigh Fermour on the West Indies, Jan Morris on Hong Kong, and Geoffrey Moorhouse on Calcutta. Somehow, Paul Theroux gets closer to the people by speaking with the people and giving more than a mere factual account. However, I must exclude from these examples Isobella Lucy Bird, a spinster from Edinburgh. This lady, later in life, spent six months travelling in Japan in the 1890’s when it was recently opened to travellers from the west and still quite primitive. In it she describes a prominent Chinese merchant beautifully dressed in brocades in contrast the native Japanese dressed in rags. She describes the skin sores of the Japanese brought about by the lack of washing facilities and a change of clean clothes. She ravelled around Japan on horseback with a Japanese guide staying at Japanese inns. Perhaps the duties of the guide included physical protection. There were no traveller’s cheques in those days. Somehow a traveller had to arrive with a letter of credit to present to a local bank to obtain some cash in the local currency. And then there was the ever-present danger of robbers. As pioneer travellers they must have been extremely conspicuous and probably the first white people the locals had set eyes upon and would provoke as much interest as a traveller from another planet. Isobella Lucy Bird went on to visit Malaya, as it then was, and to write an equally interesting account of Malaya in the 1890’s. It appears that Malacca was the main metropolis in those days. From there she travelled into the interior by river boat. It appears that she knew some British residents who assisted her with her travel arrangements. She provided an interesting description of Malay kampung houses built on stilts and the burning of coconut husks as a mosquito repellent. Isobella Bird went on to travel through Persia and she may have travelled in North Africa. Other travel writers featured in the exhibition included William Dalrymple, another Scot, who travelled across Asia via the Silk Road to Xanadu in China when still a university student. The journey produced “The Road to Xanadu” at a time when travel in China by westerners was severely restricted. Dalrymple had already written on the Middle East and went on the write about the city of Delhi and the “Age of Kali” after living in India for some years. Other writers exhibited at the sow included Norman Lewis and Eric Newby. Norman Lewis had been an army officer and commenced his travels at the end of the Second World War. He gives an interesting account of Vietnam and Indochina under the French colonial occupation in the 1940’s. He also wrote a book on Burma in the late 1940’s or early 1950’s. Subsequently there is a book on India which concentrates mainly on the tribal villages. Ultimately, as an old man, he travels through Indonesia. On this occasion it appears that he is not travelling alone. This time he has a greater rapport with the indigenous residents and gets a closer insight into the country and its people. I found that he is never very far from the political situation of the country he is visiting. Eric Newby wrote an account of his journey on land around the Mediterranean Sea which makes interesting reading. He also wrote of his travels in India which seemed to drag on a bit. However, his “Short Walk in the Hindu Kush” is widely acclaimed as the finest piece of travel writing. I would also credit him with the finest photographic “eye” among all the travel writers. While Paul Theroux is a great travel writer his novels are not of the same calibre. On the other hand, while Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene were great novelists, their travel writing is also pretty good. Somerset Maugham rode through Burma and Thailand on a donkey. No doubt he deserved a splurge at the Oriental hotel when he arrived in Bangkok. He wrote a travel book on China; a very different China from that of today, the likes of which may not be seen again. Somerset Maugham’s travels in Malaya and Borneo produced a series of short stories about the expatriates resident there. Somerset Maugham, one imagines, was not a verbal communicator because of his severe speech impediment. The reason that he did so well may be due to the services of his travel companion who made the enquires while Maugham took the notes. Graham Greene’s travel writing is on Mexico and Malaya. However, foreign places also feature in his novels. For instance “The Quiet American” is set in Vietnam. “Our Man in Havana” is set in Cuba. “The Comedians” is set in Haiti and another novel is set in Argentina. While Greene was in Malaya on of my friends was assigned to looking after him and showing him around. He found Greene a particularly uncommunicative character. It is perhaps not so surprising that the writer communicates through words but not in speech. On the other hand, it could be that as Greene appears to have been attracted to experiencing opium dens in Vietnam, by the time he got to Malaya he may have been suffering from some kind of withdrawal symptoms. What makes a great travel story? I think it requires the author to experience adventure and suffer discomfort to be able to do more than to just deliver a mere factual account of what he saw. An essential ingredient seems to be to have sufficient interaction with the local residents to be able to scratch beneath the surface so to speak. Geoffrey Moorhouse, one of the authors featured in the library exhibition for his factual account of Calcutta in the 1970’s, visited Pakistan in the 1980’s. On this trip he really got to the heart of the matter and produced a more interesting work than he did on Calcutta. Dervla Murphy wrote on Madagascar. I could not finish her book. It did not hold my interest. Yet, when I wanted to read about Laos, the 66 year-old author enthralled me with her tale of adventure and discovery. This goes to show that even if the writer does not hit peak form on the first attempt, do not write him or her off! Train journeys make good travel books. Paul Theroux wrote an excellent account of his travels around China in “Riding the Iron Rooster”. He is no stranger to train travel and wrote about his rain journey through Asia and return to Europe through the Soviet Union aboard the Trans-Siberian railway. The train, of course, brings the writer into close proximity to the local residents and the opportunity to strike up conversations. One of the key ingredients to the success of Paul Theroux is that he seems to be able to get into conversations with the locals in the places he visits. This gives a better insight than mere observation. Of course, getting into conversations is difficult enough even if the local residents speak the same language. If the travel writer does not speak the language of the residents, communication maybe well nigh impossible. This may be the reason why Jan Morris could do no more than produce a factual account of Hong Kong not being a Chinese speaker. Justin Wintle deserves credit for his interesting report on Thailand, Indonesia, and the Solomon Islands. A later travel book on Vietnam was equally excellent. Travel writing is obviously demanding. To be away from one’s home and family for several months can takes its toll. Travel can be lonely. For many people, the joy of travel is in sharing the experiences with other people. However, some may prefer to travel alone and to meet people along the way, particularly other travellers who can provide useful information on how to et to the next place and where to stay etc. Somerset Maugham pointed out that the novelist is not the same person at the end of the book as he or she was when he or she started to write the book because of the elapse of time. Similarly, because of the experience gained, the travel writer is not the same person at the end of the story as he or she was at the beginning. This last word is inspired by Alain de Boton – what the traveller went to see may be only a small part of what the traveller actually sees. In other words, the traveller sees a lot more than what he or she chose to see. In addition to historical monuments and other places of interest, everywhere has its garbage dumps and places that are not pretty. The writer has a choice as to which of these things to write about. The writer’s personality will dictate his choice. What the writer chooses to include will have a profound influence on the outcome of his work.

"Justine" is the first book in this quartet of novels. It is pretty heavy going for the reader. The first 170 pages meanders along setting the scene and trying the reader's patience. It is only in the last 30 pages that the story really begins. Even then, the story is vague and inconclusive. You finish the first novel wondering what it is about and not really understanding what is going on. The second novel, "Mountolive", flows easily from start to finish and could almost stand alone as a story in itself. The third novel, "Balthazaar", is interesting reading. It contains most of the events which are central to the plot. The fourth novel, "Clea", brings together the various strands of the story. If the reader has been attentive he has the sum of the parts. The Alexandria Quartet was quite an innovation as a story in four parts; each told from the point of view of a different character. Durrell is a beautiful writer. His english expression is immaculate but he tends to meander rather than sticking to the point. The Avignon Quintet was a similar project. It is set in and around Avignon in southern France at the time of the German occupation. At the time of writing it, Durrell was consuming possibly five bottle of red wine a day and has just about lost the plot. However, one of the novels, "Constance" contains the most erotic passage I have ever come across but it was also short listed for the Booker Prize.

We left Perth at 1.30am and arrived in Singapore five hours later after having about four hours sleep on the plane. We booked into the transit hotel at the airport and rested for six hours. We left Singapore for Calcutta at 7pm and arrived about 9.15 local time but it was about four hours flying time. First impressions of India? It reminded me of Vietnam. No better, no worse. We went first to Kamala’s sister-in-law’s brother’s place and had some food then we went to an hotel in Park Street. A little bit more filling out forms before we could get in and Kamala flatly refused to allow them to retain our passports overnight. I was not too perturbed as I had come to expect it from being in Vietnam. There were not so many people wandering around the streets at night as I had been led to believe there would be. The immigration formalities were slow as was to be expected. The arrival terminal reminded me a bit of Saigon. One might have expected that with such a huge population India might have got people handling down to a fine art. But not so. Half the cars on the road are 1950 something Morris Oxford’s with a 1500cc diesel engine. Saturday. We went to the Victoria Memorial which contains paintings and other memorabilia about the British settlement. We also drove around the city centre and saw Government House, a palatial building used by the state governor. We saw the Writer’s Building which appears to house the income tax department which is currently in the news for conducting raids. We also saw Eden Park cricket stadium and various other cricket pitches. The traffic is chaotic and mostly controlled by policemen. In the evening we went to a jewellery exhibition. Jewellers from all over India were represented The visitors were all middle aged Indians and I was the only European. There were guards with First World War rifles to guard the jewellery. Sunday. We went on a shopping expedition to a shopping centre. I had a walk up the street while I was waiting. People were cooking on the street and there are fruit and vegetable stalls. However, I did not find parked motor cycles to be an obstacle like I did in Kuala Lumpur. The shopping was not particularly interesting for me but Kamala found what she wanted. In the evening we walked through a slim are across the road from where Kamala’s sister-in-law’s family live. I have yet to find any restaurant, money changers or ATM’s. Monday. We spent most of the morning shopping at New Market. Then we went to the AC market for more shopping. Actually, New Market is not new at all. It is a Victorian, red brick edifice from the 19th century. The whole city is quite dusty. The leaves on the trees are brown with dust. It is cause by digging up power lines, etc and not filling in. The majority seem to be Muslim. At least, Kamala;s sister-in-law’s family are and they live in a Muslim neiighbourhood. The weather is warming up and it is reaching 30 degrees during the day and the minimum each night is about 20 degrees. They still have hand drawn rickshaws and they look very heavily built. At least the city is flat – no hills. Rickshaw pullers are bare footed. Tuesday. Today we made a late start but we got our travel arrangements for Delhi put in place. I am not sure about going on because I am having a bit of diahorrea and I have caught a cold. Kamala wants to see the Taj Mahal and it would be a pity not to when we have come this far. We were told that overnight temperatures had recently gone as low as 8 degrees. Kamala’s sister-in-law’s family had enjoyed the cool weather but 200 people living on the streets without warm enough clothing had died. I remember in one of Rumer Godden’s books she said that they lit firess in the winter but the poor Indians did not have warm enough clothes. I noticed in a bookshop a book titled “Whjte Mughals” by William Dalrymple which I must follow up back in Perth. Kamala is most impressed with the cheap shopping and is giving to the beggars. The Muslim family said that they had offered a beggar a job sweeping the yard but the beggar preferred to go on begging. The Muslim family lives in a tenement building in a slum area but they own the whole building which has three stories and is quite well built with massive steel girders supporting each floor. One of the hotel porters very kindly went out and got me a jar of Vick’s which enabled me to clear my blocked nose and have the best night’s sleep since we arrived in India. We packed early, had breakfast, and were collected by Kamala’s sister-in-law’s people. Aftre breakfast I had a walk around the nearby park. A few grazing goats had escaped theslaughter of the day before. Against the wall of the park immigrants from the villages are living under tarpaulins that have been erected. After we arrived at sister-in-law’s brother’s residence we made an expedition through the slum area to a cyber café so that I could send a message. We had lunch with the family and at 3.30 set out for Howrah station. To get the five o’clock train to Delhi. Fortunately we got a clear run across the Howrah bridge which we had expected to be very congested. The Howrah bridge is a steel girder bridge built in 1943 and I think it was the longest single span bridge in the world at the time it was constructed. Howrah station is a massive brick edifice but where we caught the rain was fairly modern. Kamala did not like the third class births that Kamala’s nephew-in-law had got for us so she upgraded. Even the railway bedsheets compared favourably with the grey ones in the hotel. The railway food was surprisingly good. We arrived in Delhi after nineteen hours on the train. It is an hour and a half late. After daybreak we had been able to look out of the window and see the Indian countryside and villages. What I presume to be rice paddies are lush and green. The land is flat and there are embankments between the paddies. The buildings have changed from the English style tenements similar to Nuneaton, to red brick boxes with flat roofs. Each rice paddy seems to have a small onion domed mosque, perhaps for field workers to answer the call to prayers during the day. We passed several yards where cow dung had been shaped into regular round shapes and built into stacks. I think they use it for cooking fuel. New Delhi station was another disappointment. We were led to the wrong office on arrival across a very busy road by a person who may have been trying to help. We had to be led back to the station by a person from the wrong tourist office across the station carpark. We eventually arrived at the office where our driver was waiting for us. He drove us to our hotel in his government owned Ambassador. After half an hour checking into the hotel we set about the important business of sightseeing. We head along the wide boulevards cutting across New Delhi. New Delhi appears like a park. You do not see any buildings from the roads except for the occasional ancient monument. Our first visit is to the Qtab Minar which is a thirteenth century tower over 200 feet high. At the same place is a Hindu temple which we did not see. Next we went to see Tugluquabad, the thirteenth century ramparts built from dry stone. Whereas New Delhi is the eighth city of Delhi, Tugluquabad was about the fourth or fifth. The whereabouts of the first Delhi is unknown. We left Delhi early. Pollution on the outskirts of Delhi is terrible and it continues to a lesser extent all the way to Agra 200 kilometres away. Once we were clear of the traffic and only 30 kilometres from Agra, all hell broke loose. Both lanes of the freeway were blocked with traffic. We followed the vehicles in front of us on to the wrong side of the freeway. We nearly got wiped out by a bus at one spot. Before long there were more vehicles going the wrong way down the freeway than the oncoming traffic. Eventually both sides of the freeway were blocked. I thought there must have been an accident and an ambulance did come in the opposite direction, but no, the road to Agra had been closed because there was a visiting VIP. We got to the Taj Mahal and got in without too much trouble from the touts. A truly impressive building but the façade had scaffolding erected. However, we were not there for very long before all visitors were cleared from the premises for a visiting VIP; the President of Poland. A bit rough after we pay $30 entrance fee. The driver was anxious for us to attend an establishment where a photographer could shoot a model of the Taj Mahal under an artificial moonlight. We declined. The hotel was old and fairly basic but the evening meal we had there was at bad at all and with the usual tomato soup which seems to be the first course for all Indian meals. Although the hotel boasted views of the Taj Mahal in the promotional material, the view could only be seen from the roof of the hotel. The roof could only be accessed up a little use stone stairwell draped with bare electric wires. Even the view from the roof was disappointing because a line of electricity pylons and power lines stood between the view and the Taj with no way of avoiding them. The next day we set out early from Agra for Fatepur Sikri which is fairly close by. Fatepur Sikri is a Mugal ghost town. The red sandstone ruins were most impressive. It was the capital of the Mugal empire and was built between 1571 and 1585 in the reign of Emperor Akbar. However, it was abandoned soon after it was completed. Again, we were not allowed entry because of the visiting VIP but had to content ourselves with a walk around its walls. Driving from Agra to Jaipur was highly dangerous. It was a two lane road but there were lots of slow moving tractors and camel carts. Fields of wheat were into ear. T other crop is mustard which has a yellow flower and is used as a vegetable. Jaipur is called the ‘Pink City’. In 1876 Maharaja Ram Singh had the entire old city painted pink to welcome the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII). The hotel at Jaipur was new and modern and much better than we had met so far in India. The next day I went sightseeing. Kamala was not well so I went on this outing solo. Kamala had no interest in seeing more sights (after the Taj Mahal) and she was not feeling well. The first visit was to the Hawa Mahal, or Palace of the Winds, constructed in 1799. It comprises a couple of courtyards and a five story façade overlooking the main street of the old city. It is a stunning example of Rajput artistry with its pink, delicately honeycombed sandstone windows. It was originally built to enable ladies of the royal household to watch the everyday life and processions of the city. The palace was built by Maharaja Sawaj Pratap Singh and is part of the city palace complex. The next site I visited was Jantar Mantar, the astrological observatory begun by Jai Singh in 1728. This observatory is the largest and the best preserved of five in India. The most striking instrument is the 27-metre high sundial with gradations of fractions of an inch inlaid into its marble slabs. The idea was to achieve great accuracy in measurements by using huge instruments. The next visit was to the City Palace commenced by Jai Singh. It consists of a series of courtyards and galleries. Exquisitely carved marble features in the Peacock gate in the Chandra Mahal courtyard. There were also the world’s largest silver vessels in which a former maharaja took holy Ganges water to England because he preferred not to risk the English water. The palace is a mixture of Rajput and Mugal architecture. In Jaipur, people are 90% hindu, 2% christian and 6 or 7% muslim. It rained overnight and it was raining as we left Jaipur and headed back to Delhi. Kamala was not well so we dispensed with any further sightseeing. However, we saw the Amber fort perched on a hillside overlooking a valley 11 kilometres from Jaipur. However, access is by four wheel drive or elephant and quite expensive. The Amber Fort was the establishment of Jai Singh before he came down to the plains and built the city of Jaipur. The hill road over to the Amber fort was pretty scary as we had to overtake several elephants on blind corners. We also saw the Water Palace in the middle of a lake just outside Jaipur called Jal Mahal. It is reached by a causeway. We left Jaipur by a different route from our arrival so we did not see again the ancient walls and Mugal architecture that we noticed on the way in. After the Amber Fort we met the dual carriageway to Delhi, 300 kilometres away. This had been a very dangerous road until it was made into a dual carriageway. Even though, there is no guarantee that all the traffic is going the same way. We did meet a car going the other way in our lane at one point. We arrived in Delhi the same day and checked into the same hotel. We had a late lunch of dosa across the road where we had had our evening meal on the first night in Delhi. Later, we had an evening meal in the hotel. We started with breakfast at the hotel and then off to see the Red Fort the walls of which are red sandstone; almost the colour of dried blood. Contained within the walls were several exquisite Mugal pavillions made from marble. There is also what looks like barracks which may have been built by the British. After the Red Fort we drive past the massive rampars of Qila Purana (the old fort) which is thought to be the site of the original city of Delhi. we also drove past Hmayun's tomb. We thought the $10 entry fee was exessive and started a shopping expedition in a department store that was clearly intended for foreigners. It was here that met a Kashmiri. Instead of talking cricket as with other Indian shop assistants we talked about poloitics. Then we went for a meal in a restaurant complex that was also clearly intended for foreigners but the food was very good and the cost was quite reasonable. After the meal we drove past the India Gate, an Arc de Triomphe look a like, the parlaiment buildings and then made it to the railway station for 4pm. We found the the departures board and located the platform. Someone told Kamala that our carraige would be fourth from the end so went dragged our luggage to the other end of the platform. When the train arrived we found that our carriage was at the other end of the train so we dragged the luggage all the way back again struggling through all the people trying to get on to the train. During the night we passed throught the city of Kanpur, population 2.5 million, in which Vikram eth's novel "A Suitable Boy" was set. It also has the distinction of being the most polluted city on Earth. Kamala was happy with our 3rd class accommodation as she had to talk with her the servants of the chief executive of the Royal Calcutta Golf Club who we met briefly on the platform while waiting for the train to come in. I was particularly happy as I had a window seat. I witnessed the sunset over the wheatfields of Utta Pradesh and the sunrise over the rice paddies of West Bengal. we saw bullock teams ploughing the paddies and teams of people transplanting the rice. At one point we passed over a very long steel girder bridge spanning a wide, but dry, river bed. We were advised that the train had been delayed due to technical difficulties but we were not actually stopped for very long. The delay might have been due to fog. We were four hours late into Calcutta. On arriving at Howrah station we had to take a taxi. This was no easy matter. we got into one taxi and then got out and into another taxi. Ths led to a great altercation between the taxi drivers apparently over who was going to get a commission. we stayed our final two days in Calcutta with Kamala's sister-in-law's family. Kamala had her final shoping expedition into New Market while the driver took me over the new Hoogly bridge and we paused on the riverbank to get some photos.

"The Australian" newspaper has published a list of the all-time top100 books. The result is from a nationwide poll of about 15,000 readers. The all-time favourite is "Lord of the Rings" by JRR Tolkien. Second is Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" and third is the Bible. Many books in the list have been either recently been made into a film, recently been in the best sellers list, or have a special connection with Australia. The rest are recognised classics. There are also more than a few I have never heard of. Popular Australian writers Patrick White, Thomas Kennealy, and Maurice West did not make the list. Nor did the author of the popular "Rumpole of the Bailey" series. Proust, Zola, and Flaubert also missed out. At the end of the day, I guess it is a matter of taste. Taste may be influenced by what bookshops and libraries think Australian would like to read. Personally, I am not into fantasy or science fiction. I could not read "Lord of the Rings". I have attempted "The Hobbitt" and given up. I have also attempted "Pride and Prejudice" and given up that up too. In spite of that I would not say that I give up easily. If there is one book in the list that I would like to see made into a film it would be "A Suitable Boy" by Vikram Seth. However, it is a very long story of over 1,800 pages. Short stories seem to translate into a film more successfully than a full length novel. I do not expect "A Suitable Boy" could ever be made into a film. What will I read next? Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta has been on my must read list for a long time and since it is in the top 100 list adds a bit more incentive to track it down.

I read “The Downing Street Years” by Margaret Thatcher – all 900 pages of it. It is always fascinating to read an account of the events that shaped history written by someone who was so obviously at the centre of those events. This auto-biography only commences on Mrs Thatcher becoming prime minister and what happened from then on. It does not describe how she became prime minister. In totality it is a justification for what she did as prime minister. It is “why I did it my way” and “why my way was best”. She certainly left her mark on Britain and whether it was for better or worse history will judge. In giving their opinion about the Thatcher government other writers have pointed out that it was often unsuccessful in achieving its aims e.g. poll tax and many things it did achieve would have happened or had to happen anyway. Perhaps the greatest achievement of the Thatcher government was in breaking the trade unions stranglehold on the economy. It was a difficult thing to do as no other post war government had been able to make much of a dent in union power. Unfortunately, the baby got thrown out with the bath water. Not only were the unions smashed but whole industries were smashed as well. Britain is no longer able to make ocean liners, aircraft and cars. Mrs Thatcher’s relationship with the EEC was interesting. There seems no doubt that she re-negotiated Britain’s financial contribution to the EEC on more reasonable terms. She refused to let Britain be bullied by the dominant EEC members. But, further than that, she was opposed in principle to member states surrendering their sovereignty to the EEC which stymied the further political integration of the EEC members into a single state. In this she was perhaps no more than echoing the views of the British population who had become frustrated by subjection to EEC laws that were simply inappropriate for local conditions. One wonders whether it was her opposition to the EEC that lead to her eventual downfall and whether her own party considered that to take Britain out of the EEC would be simple unthinkable. However, Thatcher had a remarkable rapport with President Reagan and developed closer ties with the US. This was good from a cold war perspective. It may well be that she was the more active partner in the alliance than the ageing president. Without actually saying so it is apparent that she would like the reader to think that she won the cold war. I had previously thought that much of the credit should go to the Polish shipyard worker Lech Walensa for putting in train a series of events that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and perhaps to Mikhail Gorbachev himself. What surprised me was that the re-unification of Germany took place without Britain and the US having any power to prevent it. Mrs Thatcher deserves credit for the sympathy she expressed towards the plight of the Palestinian people but there seems to be very little she could do from a practical standpoint. The fall of Mrs Thatcher, at the hands of her own party rather than those of the political opposition, was amazing. She won the leadership ballot but failed to get the required majority. Her succession plan to advance youth in preference to senior party members who had served long and faithfully annoyed the senior party members and Michael Heseltine in particular. After the ballot she interviewed each of the party members individually to see whether she had sufficient support to contest a second round ballot. Each said that although they personally would vote for her, they did not see how she could win. She resigned with some reluctance what must have been a life that was difficult to give up. If there was one thing I learned from reading Mrs Thatcher's autobiography, it is that people do not learn from other people's experience.

Kennedy – an unfinished life by Robert Dallek. It is not the first or the only biography of JFK but it is perhaps the first to reveal how sick the man really was. It was this revelation that aroused my curiosity. The revelation that JFK’s decision-making may have been influenced by the cocktail of drugs he needed to be able to operate at all must be a surprise to all. Kennedy was diagnosed as having Addison’s disease. One of the symptoms is that the skin takes on a sun-tanned appearance. Whereas JFK looked tanned and healthy he was in fact the opposite. The author suggests that Kennedy knew that his life was likely to be cut short. In recognition of this he may have been spurred on to achieve what he could in the short time he had before he would be prevented from achieving them by his medical problems. In spite of this he presided over his nation at a time when it was never very far from an all out war with the Soviet Union. One thing was that, unlike the current incumbent, Kennedy had travelled extensive in Europe in the 1930’s and had become an expert in foreign affairs from that first hand observation of the European political situation . He therefore had better credentials than any other candidate. Kennedy may have been mislead into the disastrous attempted invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs but he may have learned that military men will always recommend a military solution just as a surgeon will recommend a surgical solution. However, when it really mattered, when the Cuban situation had developed into a confrontation with the Soviet Union. Kennedy maintained control of the situation and did not allow himself to be led into military action by his military advisers. However, it was Kruschev who gained an advantage from the skirmish. He did not lose face with the Russian people by backing off. In return for the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba, the US had to withdraw its own missiles from Turkey. The US missiles had been in Turkey before the Soviets dispatched their missiles to Cuba. Getting the US missiles withdrawn was a win for the Soviets. What is alarming is the way that Bobby Kennedy would order the assassination of anyone, such as Fidel Castro, who was a problem to the US. It would seem that Bobby was a hothead and frequently an embarassment to JKF. It is apparent that if JFK had not been assassinated he would have ended US involvement in Vietnam. Kennedy delayed ending US involvement in Vietnam because he thought that a withdrawal would damage his chance of election for a second term in the White House in 1964. The biographer criticises Kennedy for not doing more for civil rights at a time when the average American voter had come to accept that change was due. The ending is a little disappointing in that the author readily accepts that Lee Harvey Oswald and nobody else was responsible for the assassination of President Kennedy. All in all a fascinating read.