Blogs from Rajasthan, India, Asia - page 345

Happy New Year!! It is 3:15 and lunch has been eaten at a Lebonese Bakery. Breakfast has been a lovely buffet at the Ibis Hotel, a known chain from Europe and no disappointment as far as value, service and cleanliness goes. I am presently in a Surf'n'Eat in Style C@fe net. The whole enterprise consisting of twenty glasstop tables with a rolling keyboard tray and a computer under each glass sheet. One hour costs 5dirhams; 2hrs 8dirhams. We get 4 dirhams per $. Not a bad deal! The plane was so delayed that we did not arrive at the hotel until 02:30. It was already Dec29. The plane ride from Frankfurt was especially luxurious as compared to the dirty conditions and sad food presenttions of Air Canada. On the first day we took the Big Bus ... read more

STOP PRESS: We'll we are about two weeks in, but we are moving so fast that there's not much time for blogging (and a lot of places are slooooow...bring back Bolivia !!!). We are in Kerala now...so may have some time to catch up on a few blogs....Sorry about that folks.... Well..here we are again...it's blog time. So, we ended up back in the UK for a whirlwind Christmas after a fantastic trip around South America. How privileged we are to have experienced all the things we did....it won't be forgotten in a hurry. Great time at Xmas with everyone at the 'Wortham' friends xmas and equally with our Mum's and Dad's at the 3rd Ockendon Road Christmas celebrations. But...it was a quick and brief visit...and just as we'd started to settle into the way of ... read more

My birthday was a very full day, in the way that only travel can make it. We began in Jhunjhunum, skipping the western breakfast our hotel offered, and drove to Mandawa. Here,we saw so many crumbling havelis and we asked our driver to stop so that we could take pictures. We did not go into these because he did not know the owners. I suspect that we could have knocked, but I am ever polite. In Fatehpur, we did stop to visit an old haveli in the process of restoration. A wizened old man in a green shawn with a white turban allowed us into the enclosure. The first coutyard has beautiful paintings of elephants. One goes through an elaborately carved wooden door into another courtyard. Traditionally, visitors would have to wait in the outer courtyard, ... read more

I arrived in Jaipur after an interesting 7 hour bus ride on Tuesday night. The bus turned out to be a fairly standard Indian bus. It cost 140 rupees ($3.50) for the 250km trip from Agra to Jaipur. The bus was crowded - all the seats were taken, plus the bench around the driver. People stood in the aisles, and I suspect that there were people on the roof. I sat in the front, which is a rather thrilling place to be on an Indian bus. It is slightly more comfortable, because of the bumps being lessened at the front, BUT you can see everything that is happening, which is SCARY. We took awhile to get out of Agra, and then took a "highway" west. The highway was mostly paved, sometimes had a 'center' line (though ... read more

All things required for the nine week journey are now strewn upon the dining table; sleeping bag, water pills, quick drying clothes, safety pins, needles, thread, waterbottle, purification tablets, dental hygiene products, first aid stuff, books to read and hand sanitizer, etc, etc, etc. With great anticipation and holding my breath, I hope it all fits with room to spare. Things will be left behind ... but what ... oh the decisions, the decisions, the decisions .... once on the plane the trip will be in motion, worries will be left behind and new ones will be confronted. At this writing Christmas dinner is on top of the to-do-list; M&M ordurvees, cheeseballs covered in nuts, liver dumpling soup, duck not goose, red cabbage, basmati rice, a myriad of home baked cookies, Viennese coffee, eggnog spiked ... read more