Blogs from Sawai Madhopur, Rajasthan, India, Asia

Leo originally agreed to write the blog for today and yesterday, but then he wigged out. So here I am again. I write to you from Jaipur, in the state of Rajasthan. We arrived here this afternoon on our drive from Sawai Madhopur, where we spent two nights in a safari lodge just outside of Rathambore National Park. During our stay we had the opportunity to go on three separate safaris. Our 12 hours of riding in the back of a jeep, yielded a wonderful adventure, but no tiger sightings. We did get to see beautiful wildlife, a beautiful jungle (I would call it a forest) and experience a really amazing jeep ride. We saw: spotted deer, samba dear, antelope, lizards, peacocks (many, many, many), a large variety of beautiful birds, wild boar, monkeys and a ... read more

Geo: 26.0202, 76.3452Left the City of Agra in the morning to escape the pollution and be able to take a deep breath for once at the Ranthambhore National Park and Tiger Sanctuary. The ride took us all day due to the poor road conditions, insane traffic and apocalyptic towns we had to drive through. Seriously, I think most people here are living in deeper poverty than rural areas in Cambodia or Indonesia. I saw utterly neglected naked kids playing with fire on landfills which once were riverbeds, men defecating on the sidewalk and women with burkas! urinating in a way that everyone can see their butts... Dignity must be rare in this country. The reason why I write those details is because no one ever does in the guide books. Even though I have seen those ... read more

Hey all!!! Thank you so much for all the lovely comments and messages you have been sending us. Its great signing in and reading them all! This week has been really busy as you can see from the title, we have been to all of those places and we are now in Agra. So today is a relaxing day to allow us to catch up on sleep and water! Jodhpur We stayed in a lovely place ran by an Indian family - we actually stayed up one night with them watching a Bollywood film all in Hindi, it was surprisingly gripping and good fun. We went up to see Mehragarah fort, which was beautiful. The view was incredible and the rooms were beautifully decorated. There was also a good audio tour included in the price which ... read more

The city: Ranthambore is a road lined with hotels and shops and the main attraction is the Ranthambore Tiger Reserve. The only subject of conversation here is the tiger, How many safaris have you had so far? Have you seen a tiger so far? Which tiger was it?.... The Ultimate Advice: If you're on a budget(like I was) stay in the nearby town of Sawai Madhopur, its a lot cheaper and you can spend the remainder of the money on safaris! The Adventure: This one was stupid on my part, it was in the evening and I decided to walk from my hotel to the Safari reservation office to confirm my safaris for the following day(a 3 km walk). About 15 minutes into my walk, the sun had set and I was walking down a completely ... read more

Michelle decided to head to a bird sanctuary, while Kristen and I headed to Ranthambore to see Tigers. We stayed there for a while as I nursed Kristen back to health, and then we went into the park and saw a Tiger very close up many times and also a Leopard - which I had forgotton existed in that park! It was excellent fun. ... read more