Is that the same tea they sell on street stalls in India, because I love that. I think they make it with soy milk or some kind of long life milk. It's very sweet and has spices in it - Ginger and Cardamon, I think.

I've tried to make it at home but it's not the same as the stuff they boil up in a dirty kettle next to an open sewer in the slums of New Delhi.

If you buy it on trains, they serve it to you in little clay cups that you toss out of the window, when you are finished.

Tea drinking in India is a great social ritual, so if you can't force down a few glasses of chai marsala, you do miss out a bit on the giddy social whirl that is the life of the budget traveller.