Blogs from Rajasthan, India, Asia - page 3

Blogs of Rajasthan are plenty in the net, covering almost all well known places. I will add one more with a different perspective. I searched elaborately thru internet for appropriate inputs, to finalize the logistics of a weeklong tour program covering important historical places, wildlife of Ranthambore and of course the desert of Jaisalmer. But I did not get it in a nutshell and had to pick and choose from various sources. In this blog I attempted to summarize our overall experience, program, means of transport, accommodation arrangements etc. sharing our feelings, advantages and pitfalls as felt by us, to facilitate planning of an overall tour schedule by future travelers of Rajasthan. I also narrated detailed description of my location wise experience in detail, thru separate blogs. OUR PROGRAM Rajasthan is one of the most popular ... read more

We are now on stage 2 of our trip. Vejay came to our BnB yesterday with all the paperwork for the next 16 days. And for us to pay the final balance... that's involved numerous trips to the ATM as you can't get much out each day ...and David has been spending money on getting a new suit made! So far all going to plan. He sent a photo of the car and driver and Mr Rahul arrived 9am Mon morning. Said our goodbyes to Elaine and Kevin, who are going to look for more Tigers. We are on our way to Udaipur, the White City, or the one famous for being in The James Bond film Octopussy. ... read more

Jaipur So having walked about a mile along the platform, we eventually found our carriage and settled in for the 5hr.journey to Jaipur. The Pink City. The train took off exactly on time but some how we ended up being 45 minutes late arriving at Jaipur. The first hour was mostly traveling alongside various rubbish dumps and shantytowns which was really very surreal and unbelievable that people lived in those conditions. We shared our compartment with an other couple, who where doing an organised tour....their luggage was following the train with their driver, who then met them on the station platform!!...why?!! Anyway we are now in Jaipur for a full week and even though there’s still lots of traffic and horns blowing, it feels very different to Delhi. Met up with Kevin and Elaine at the ... read more

Time to move on from Agra and explore Rajasthan, known as the Golden Triangle. We boarded the train at 2.30 in the afternoon and just like before it left bang on time at 2.50pm. Could teach British Rail a thing or two! Out seat numbers were 34 and 35 so we thought they'd be together but the weren't. A group of Americans got on and their seats were all over the place but in the same area too as was another English couple's seats. Between us we rearranged things so we were sat with our respective partners. When the ticket man came along to check tickets he was totally confused and finally gave up and let us stay where we were sat. Each time we stopped at a station and more passengers got on we pretended ... read more

For the next twelve days, we have the luxury of our own private driver and car, something we’ve been looking forward too. No more haggling with taxi and rickshaw drivers or airport runs for nearly two weeks...... Bliss! Hariom was waiting outside the hotel at 8.30am as arranged. His car, an SUV as I requested, was immaculate, with white covers on our two buckets seats, free water/wipes and onboard wifi. After introductions, we planned the days activities with him and headed away. Our first stop was in the town of Amer, 11klm from Jaipur, to see Panna Meena ka Kund, one of the stepwells responsible for sparking my interest in these structures. The water at the bottom of the stepwell was bright green, obviously full of algae. All it took was a Pinterest photo and I ... read more