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Published: March 8th 2020
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Udaipur to Jodhpur
We had about a 2 hour drive through interesting countryside this morning, through small villages, and busy people about their daily lives. Lots going on with animals and harvesting.
Also plenty of marble cutting factories and lorries piled high with all shapes and sizes of marble.A bit further was the sand stone cutting factories and mines, this is were all the Indian patio slabs come from. Stone is used for everything, even fence posts around animals. Wood is very scarce.
Set in the lush green valley of the Aravalli mountain is the Ranakpur Jain Temple, which is one of the biggest and most important Jain Temple complexes with 28 halls, 80 domes supported by the 1444 marble columns, no two alike. The carvings were beautiful. Unfortunately I didn’t pay for a camera permit as we were told that photos inside were not allowed...but that was only a small part of the temple that this applied to.. anyway I’ve screen shot a few!
This afternoon was back to an express road and I was just glad to be sitting in the back and not having too good a view.. David wasn’t so lucky. The driving is pretty manic
and the sound of horns is continuous. Cars weaving in and out, cars coming the wrong way on a single carriage road! Cows in the middle of fast roads... Needless to say, the road kill count was quite large.
We arrived at our hotel, to be greeted by all the staff wearing facemasks! Apparently they’ve had a few cancellations.
We decided to go for an exploratory walk and took ourselves off into the town. Quite hard work as no such thing as foot paths. We found the market area lots of narrow streets but together with all the people, motorcycles, and tuktuks competing .. everyone honking...it was mayhem but people were so nice and shouting out hello, kids coming up and saying hello before running off embarrassed. Old men wanting to shake hands ( I had to put hand gel right out of my mind!)
We felt that we’d survived a pretty tough challenge just by getting out un scathed...I can't understand why we don’t see more people on crutches...
Found somewhere for dinner with a rooftop terrace with a great view of the fort.
We could see some flashes of light but couldn’t decide if it was just camera
flashes...but no it was lightning, then a few rolls of thunder, then rain...lots of it...then it was like musical chairs trying to avoid any drips coming through the canvas roof, they had to get lots of buckets out. Then the lights went out!!.. luckily not for long. The waiters kindly phoned for a tuktuk, no taxis here as the roads are too narrow, that was another, hairy, slightly damp, journey. Today has been a bit of a day!!
I don't feel that I've mentioned the weather enough..
It's not been as hot as I thought it might be which has been quite nice, Delhi was quite cool 19-21C
Jaipur was lovely about 21/24
And the evenings were just perfect for going out without a cardi.
Udaipur and Jodhpur a little bit warmer but I don't think above about 25 ...not quite hot enough to kill that Corona virus...!
So really we've been quite lucky and the bit of rain we had in Jodhpur was nothing compared to the weather in other parts of the country. I saw photos of Jaipur with thick hail, so it looked like snow.
I also know that you'll be wanting to know about my
bowels!!...???
I'VE been fine...... David has had to take a couple of tablets....
I've mostly been eating vegetarian, which has been delicious....but will be glad to go down south for something a bit different.....
Next stop Jaisalmer...and camel riding...
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