The madness & the magic

The late, great UK travel writer AA Gill once said that India was such a polarising location to visit that it was best to lie and say you were going somewhere else, because people would immediately bombard you with warnings about all the bad things that would befall you: illness, scams, filth, rubbish, heat. And it’s not that those things don’t exist, but they exist alongside a whole bunch of magic as well. India is a lot to take in – it is the best and worst of humanity. It requires patience, generosity and a good sense of humour. If you can practise all three as best you can, you will be rewarded greatly by some of the most beautiful sights the world has to offer. Recently, The Australian Women’s Weekly was in Rajasthan for a whirlwind week – the temperature hit 47˚C and daily life seemed to grind to a sticky, sweaty halt, just as we were running around trying to pull off a cover shoot with Kiwi icon Rachel Hunter on an intense schedule. Mad dogs and magazine people go out in the midday sun.

Full bellies in Delhi

Before the week of the cover shoot began, the Kiwi contingent