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Published: August 7th 2007
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We've fallen in love with camels, there's no two ways about it. Following our adventures at the camel farm, we headed west to Jaiselmer in search of more. If you're looking for it on the map it's 26.92° N 70.9° E and gas mark 12 on a conventional oven.
On arrival at the wonderful Desert Haveli at 4 in the morning, we were sleepy and still vulnerable, so when we were shown to a room which was far too beautiful (expensive) for us, we were defenceless against the lure of a comfy bed where we managed to sleep for all of 1.2 minutes before the outside world stirred awake at 110 decibels.
Havelis, for anyone that's interested, are reet posh houses that the rich people built for themselves so they could lord it over the plebs. The ones that haven't crumbled through neglect are usually very ornate, a little bit luxurious and importantly, cool. Our was certainly luxurious, I could tell because there was a separate bathroom at the end of which was a toilet which had a little window next to it which overlooked the whole city. Glamorous or what?!
Once inside the fort, the energy sapping
began. On day one we managed to potter about for half the morning. Our activities then gradually reduced. Out went pottering, in came lying on the roof with our books. Then out went reading and in came movement only when in dire need of water. Eventually even that became a struggle and so with our final grains of energy, we, booked a camel safari. We had tutted disdainfully at the thought of spending anything more than the bare minimum amount of time on top of a camel. It seemed that a 3 day safari was the usual fare, but we thought 'bollocks to that' and booked an afternoon/morning safari which included a total of 2 hours aboard a camel. Perfect.
Our safari guys were two in number, equipped with a jeep, 12 bottles of warm-simmering drinking water and clutching one tiny bottle of olive oil. It's been a feature of our trip that everywhere we've been, we've had to ascertain the type of cooking oil going into our meals. Quite often in India, peanut oil is used and as the consumption of this would reduce our number by half, we've used all sorts of gestures, accents and forays into
kitchens to make sure Jen doesn't cark it on a dicky biriani.
After a couple of visits to villages along the way, we were finally introduced to our trusty steeds, Tiger (Jenny's) and Rocket (Ant's). By this stage we were both ready to puke from all the warm water we'd been drinking, but amazingly, the lollop of our camels and the freshening air made us both feel better than we had done in days. The two hours flew by, and I was given a buttock clenching demonstration of why Rocket got his name - and then we posed for photos of the five of us in our 'David Carr 65' t-shirts (happy birthday dad) before settling back on a sand dune and sleeping under the stars. It were brill. And if we could do it again, we would definitely do the 3 day safari.
Revived and with renewed energy, we were then back on the road, this time heading to Jodphur (the blue city). Rajastan's colour-coded it seems. Jaipur's pink (but we saw no gays), Jaisalmer's golden (cos it's sandy), and Jodphur's blue (because it's blue). No doubt about it, it's blue. Everything's blue. Apparently it's because of
an insect repellant everyone's put on their houses to stop ants eating the whole city up. Apart from that it's got a ma-husive fort parked on top of a ma-husive rock. Centuries of battles, attempted sieges and god-knows what surround the fort, but most interestingly it's where Liz Hurley recently married her new fella. Not that she stuck around to see us, cow. Actually she gave her in laws several cows as a wedding gift before falling out with them. Can't really blame them, I'd want a Ferrari if Liz Hurley was dishing out the presents.
Jodphur's got a great bazaar where we spent hours and hours nearly buying a load of lovely textiles. The trouble is, we never intended buying textiles before we came. It's a strange phenomenon that somehow you get lured into convincing yourself that you want certain things, just because that town produces them to much higher standards than the last town. Also the standards that we can afford are still a bit crap...but somehow we narrowly avoided blowing our budget on some very average bed covers.
That was it. Enough was enough, the heat had got to us, we had to escape. Mount
Abu was next on our list and with it, the promise of some cooler, fresher air.
As the name suggests Mount Abu is at the top of a mountain. This means a long windy road up, with huge drops down the mountain if you make a mistake. Whilst we luckily landed the slowest cab driver in the world on the way up, on our way down we were back on the bus.
“Hey...it may be a blind bend with a 200 metre drop on one side, but don't worry, overtake anyway, as long as you keep blowing the horn all the way, you'll be fine.”
I was brave, but Ant spent the whole journey with his head between his knees and ipod on full blast. I suspect that he may even have been crying. Despite this we thought that Mount Abu was fab, definitely our favourite place so far. One of the great things was that our hotel (Shri Ganesh) organised wildlife walks. The first day was a nice gentle amble through the countryside, and we expected more of the same the next day.....but no....we had to walk across a dam, which was about 1 metre wide
with a huge drop down one side, then slide through a hole in a cave, swim in a reservoir and climb up a massive rock. We were terrified!
Mount Abu is very much an Indian tourist destination, so with only a few whities in town it does mean that you're a bit of a spectacle. Cue, people trying to surreptiously take photos of us, which was quite bizarre....especially when you're in the middle of a lake on a pedalo.
Whilst we were there we also had the pleasure of seeing a couple of polo matches. Somehow we managed to get ushered into the posh seats with all the local maharaja, then at the end of the match Ant was asked to give an interview to the local news about the match. Very amusing, especially as in true brit style Ant had some rather fine comedy sun burn. A true ambassador....I was so proud.
Anyway, enough of Mount Abu....from there we hit the road to Udaipur.
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