We had already missed the Holi Festival (in retrospective we admit that we were not very keen on throwing colour or being thrown colour at), we decided not to miss this one, which was said to be very lively and colourful. We immediately left the City Palace at closing hour and headed to the street where we could see best. The Gangaur Festival celebrates the union of Lord Siva and Parvati, his heavenly consort and is a symbol of conjugal and marital happiness. People explained that it is a festival for women, married women pray for their husband’s long life and good health (a cause Klaudia embraced with all her heart) and unmarried women prayed for a good husband. We only knew that a colourful procession was going to take place and were much looking forward ... read more

We were going roughly the same way as our Swiss friends Cynthia and Laurent, so we decided to take the same bus. It was empty for Indian standards and we had a nice time passing through several cities full of painted havelis. We were doing sightseeing from the bus, by sitting higher we had the chance to see the incredible paintings almost at eye level, and furthermore the bus was moving very slowly through the crowded streets. A high percentage of the havelis these days are occupied by different people than the ones who had them built and they do not really care about their lodgings’ value. For this reason, the lowest part of the painted wall is faded or plastered with posters, and from the bus we saw the better conserved parts. There is always ... read more

Astonishingly, we had to come to India to ride on a camel for the first time. Actually, Jaisalmer lies on an old merchant route through the desert to Afghanistan and further on to Europe, it was the spice road. That’s the reason why you still find many camels in this region, which are used as powerful beasts of burden, and as a major tourist attraction as well. The group met at Jaisalmer’s main square for breakfast, where we made the acquaintance of a very nice Canadian couple who would be on the safari with us. We made the first part of the trip by jeep, we were eight people and packed like sardines, in addition we took part of the provisions with us. There we already wished to be on camel’s back, at least we would ... read more

We came to Jodhpur by luxury bus with quite comfortable seats, Klaudia even managed to read a book. Once we had not decided upon a hotel beforehand, which turned out to be quite a mistake. Upon our arrival, we were immediately surrounded by an impressive number of rickshaw drivers, who seemed to smell our indecisiveness. One was shouting louder than the other trying to outwit his colleagues. We were quite helpless trying to fend them off until Stephan resorted to a trick, saying that we were taking another bus and would not stay in Jodhpur. He made them laugh when he asked whether we were the only tourists in the city. Once you prove to them your sense of humour, they also show theirs. They left reluctantly, far from being convinced, but polite enough. Then we ... read more

In Ahmadabad we had three hours between the two journeys, which we decided to spend in the station's restaurant. Our train was to leave at 11 p.m., but the place already closed at 10 p.m., so we walked to the platform to find the train already there. This train was almost empty, it did not seem very popular, no wonder as it took nine hours for only 380 km! This time we chose one middle and one upper berth because the last time it had been very cold on the upper berths. We immediately realised that this train was smaller, the single berths on the other side of the aisle were missing. This stretch was a metre-gauge one and we had read in the papers that the government was about to unify the track system to ... read more