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Published: October 12th 2007
Pushkar - Udaipur - Jodhpur - Jaselmer.
The midnight sleeper bus from Pushkar to Udaipur left at one in the morning and we thought at first our seats had been double booked but somehow we all managed to squeeze in. It's also amazing when you are tired enough what conditions you can sleep in as our seats were above the wheel, the roads we may have mentioned before are quite bumpy and for some unknown reason they insisted on playing music all night (possibly explaining how Indians can sleep in the central reservation on main roads or on a roundabout etc.)
Anyhow we arrived safely at about 8am and have sampled the delights Udaipur has to offer - City Palace, Floating Palace, Monsoon Palace - lots of palaces! For any of you who have seen Octopussy will know all about Udaiper as all the main tourist sights appear in the film. For anyone who ventures here who has not seen the film fear not, as there are nightly screenings at every hotel! (which of course we had no other option than to watch one night)
Udaipur we found to be a very nice and relaxing place to visit,
you only have to say 'no' once to deter salesmen, rickshaw drivers, etc! Not too much else to say about Udaiper really, as we had a pleasant stay and no funny or bad tales to tell!
Moving on from Udaiper to Jodhpur by another bus surprisingly taking 8 hours instead of 6 (due to another wheel change and an accident (not involving us).
Jodhpur has an amazing fort on top of a huge hill and the town surrounds it. It is nicknamed the blue city as so many of the houses are painted blue (apparently to keep cool and act as a mosquito repellent). We didn't visit any other place of interest in Jodhpur as apart from the fort we were really not that keen on the place (lots of con artists about again!) so just spent one night there.
Next stop was Jaselmer arriving late evening by bus again (can't seem to shake them - no pun intended). By now we had been on the go for nearly a month and pretty tired of long distance travelling. Having made all the effort to get here we actually saw very little of the town (it's not a
Random sleeping bat
Well we think it is sleeping and not dead - it was quite big!big place though) but just relaxed in our comfortable hotel. We did however go on a sunset camel ride across sand dunes as far as the eye could see (that's what we were sold but we've been here long enough now to know that it wasn't going to be quite like that). Grumblings aside it was a lot more enjoyable and impressive than either of us thought it would be and there were more sand dunes than expected. It was Claire's first time on a camel and she enjoyed the ride, bum sore though.
We then found ourselves in a bit of a dilemma. Originally the plan had been to go East towards Varanasi and eventally all the way across to the tea plantations of Darjeeling and up to Nepal. However Nepal was discounted some time ago due to recent bombings in Katmandu and the distance to get there and lack of rail network (therefore more buses). We had planned to still go to Varanasi but we have decided we have had enough of the constant battle of negotiating buses, trains, hotels, rickshaws, avoiding con artists etc etc. Therefore the beaches of Goa beckon but not before we squeeze
A puzzled looking Julian!
"I know it's not the biggest cannon in Asia but I should still be able to find it?" a cricket match in along the way.
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Tom
non-member comment
clothing
it seems a lot of places you visit are named after items that people wear - namely diapers (for the younger readers) and jodhpur (for the horsey folk), where's next? :o) looks like you're having a great time and had a good laugh at the titles to your pics - I'll refrain from commenting on Julian's cannon!!!