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Published: September 25th 2006
Anwar
Here is our cheeky driver Anwar, negotiating the tricky Indian roads. This is a very typical Indian village setting!We opted to take a 2-week driver tour in 'the land of kings'. This would include all the major stops including Jodhpur, Jaipur and Jaisalmer.
Our driver was nice (although a bit strange, with terrible jokes and many homeopathic remedies for everything imaginable).
Our first stop was a small town called Mandawa, followed by a larger one called Bikaner. There was a lot of looking at old buildings and forts etc. for which we both only had a certain tolerance. However, the beautifully painted buildings in Mandawa and the huge magnificent fort in Bikaner were worth seeing at least.
We then went onto Jaisalmer (the Golden City) where we did more sightseeing, but more interestingly, had a camel safari through the Thar desert, led by local villagers (really cool). One of them was munching big blocks of Opium whenever we rested (!). The nice meal we had that evening in the village was slightly marred by the omnipresence of giant, flying desert beatles which was a bit more than Louise could take (especially when they kept going down her top!).
Next was Jodhpur (The blue city) where we saw another fort with a long and boring audio
One of many of Louise's shopping trips!
I bought some of this patchwork. It was very beautiful. tour. We saw some amazing views from the top and bought some authentic spices from a lonely-planet recomended stall outside the fort.
We then went to a small place called Ranakpur where we experienced our first hotel swimming pool of the tour. This was a really relaxing day splashing about in the hot sun. Unfortunately, I (David) got sunburnt and ended up itching like mad for days. We also hunted down an internet cafe that turned out to be someone's house! We ended up making friends with the whole family which was one of the real India experiences of our trip so far, It was sad when we had to go.
Next on the list was Udaipur, the famous lake palace city. This is meant to be a fantastic place but sadly our only real memory was the curry made for us by Anwar, our driver. It was a lamb Pasanda, our favourite, but looked and tasted nothing like one and was actually just really chewy lamb in very hot and spicy sauce which made David very ill the following day.
Pushkar was a fantastic place, full of travellers, homesick food restaurants, hippy shops and spiritual gubbins.
Bikaner Fort
This is one of the many beautiful rooms we saw. We learned to play the sitar here which Louise found very difficult but I thought it was great fun. David (yes, again) also had an amusing and horrific incident with the roadside sewers after having consumed a bhang-lassi (look it up). We'll save this particular story for when we get back! We would have stayed even longer than the 2 nights if time had allowed it because it was a really cool place - recommended!
The last stop in Rajasthan was the capital, Jaipur. It was a huge, busy city and reminded us a lot of Delhi. Although having gone on an elephant 'safari', our highlight had to be seeing a bollywood movie in the top cinema in India (the Raj Mandir). We started the evening with a Maharaja mac and fries and then went into the cultural explosion which is Indian cinema. Didn't understand a bloody word! However, we got the general plot (thin) and our driver helped us out with some of the jokes (hammy). Louise also had her birthday in Jaipur. She was treated to an Ayurvedic massage (odd but nice) but the disco we had planned to go to was shut (..ahh).
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Jen
non-member comment
yay!
I love that photo of you both on the elephant! That's awesome! :-)