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Published: February 3rd 2008
Its been a few days since we last updated you on our adventures so I will be covering quite a lot!
From Pushkar we took a 10hr overnight bus to the desert city of Jaisalmer in the West of Rajasthan near the border with Pakistan. Despite being dry, Jaisalmer turned out to be very cold! Its not a huge city but does have the obligatory fort and assorted temples, none of which we could face after an endless barrage of them to date. Jaisalmer's star attraction is the desert that surrounds it - The Great Thar Desert - and so camel and jeep safaris are the city's big business. Camel safaris lasting upto 6 days were on offer but with limited time and money (combined with cold desert nights) we opted for an afternoon jeep safari that would take us to the dunes (only a small area of the desert consists of sand, the remainder is just dry, barren, dusty land). We booked our safari with the enigmatic 'Mr Desert', apparently given the title by the Indian Government! His office is adorned with posters of himself in his youth standing next to a camel and looking thoughtfully out into the
desert. Unfortunately we didn't manage to get a photo of the man.
Our desert safari was well worth it and we even managed to get a short ride on a camel!
From Jaisalmer we took another bus to Jodhpur. I have to say that I was particularly unimpressed by this dirty, polluted city and after a quick tour of the impressive fort and a few snaps of the old quarter (The Blue City), we took (yet) another bus to Mount Abu. After taking several private buses we opted for the cheaper and more readily available Government-run bus service as our carrier of choice. The private buses are essentially 30year-old coaches. The Governement buses are in a slightly worse state of health! However, we did prove popular with the local people travelling between rural villages enroute and spent most of the time explaining (in our rapidly progressing pigeon English) where we were from, what our jobs were and where we were going.
Mount Abu stands at an elevation of 1200m and as expected, turned out to be even colder than the desert! This was certainly not the India we had been expecting! However, Mt. Abu turned out to
be a welcome break from the hassle and pollution found in most other places. The majority of the surrounding hills are a National Park said to contain many species of birds, hyenas, bears and panthers. Next morning we took a guided trek into the park in the hope of seeing some of the animals but apart from a lot of bear poo and a few panther tracks, the most we glimpsed was a mongoose and a few wild chickens. Our guide did say that he was chased by a bear the week before so we werent left too downhearted at not seeing anything glamorous!
From Mt. Abu we took a bus to Udaipur, termed the Venice of the East, surrounding Lake Pichola. At the centre of the lake is the floating Lake Palace, the setting for part of the James Bond film Octopussy. Now a hotel, it costs over $500 a night at Lake Palace. Needless to say we looked elsewhere for lodgings and managed to find a good hotel with great views of the lake for 4 pounds a night.
Udaipur is filled with western tourists and is a great place to relax - it also helped
that the temperature had risen significantly from the cold of Mt. Abu! After spending a couple of days relaxing and walking around the city, we booked onto a bus bound for Mumbai (Bombay), marking the beginning of our journey South.
I'll put some photos up when I get the chance. Hope all is well in the UK and its not raining toooo hard!
Liam
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MaD
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snow
It's been snowing heavily in half the UK (but not our half) - can't wait for your photos (especially riding the camels) - just think, a fortnight yesterday (2nd) we'll be flying to India (but we'll miss you) MaD