Madeinnz

This mornings government bus was still as difficult as the first one we took. The heat of Rajasthan was oppressive in the open windowed tin cans. Arriving to the blue city of Jodhpur at lunch we eventually got to the Blue Guesthouse and took the top floor room with windows looking out to the Mehrangarh Fort. The remainder of the day was left for eating and relaxing into the town. The following morning we hired a tuk tuk up to the fort which overlooks the blue city. The Mehrangarh Fort is still run by the current maharaja of Jodhpur, and armed with our audio guides we surveyed the fort and its grandeur. It overlooks the old city which is largely painted in light blue, as it’s said that the colour keeps things cool and scares off ... read more

After a week of enjoying Goa we plied ourselves away and travelled to Goa Airport for our flight to Udaipur. Travelling for most of the morning we made it to Goa airport for our 2pm flight to Delhi where we had a 2 hr stopover and then a connecting flight to Udaipur. Arriving at Udaipur at 7pm we found an empty airport, no people, and no public transport for the 30km journey to the city, so we begrudgingly paid the overpriced airport taxi fee. Once in the tourist area we went straight to a rooftop restaurant for some food and it had a lovely view of the Lake palaces. It was very clear we were no longer in the tropical southern state of Karnataka, but in the arid, desert land of Rajasthan, and Udaipur was very ... read more

If the roads weren’t so crap the sleeper bus would be the way to travel. It was cheaper and more private than the 2AC class train, the double bed very comfortable, it’s just a shame that every now and then you would be woken as you were temporary suspended in midair as the driver hit a bump, pothole, or possibly a fealess tuk tuk that had no lights working, which there are many. With little sleep, we arrived into Hospet at 7am and were straight onto a tuk-tuk for a 10km journey to Hampi and straight into Venu Guesthouse. It’s the low season at the moment so accommodation was easy picking, as usual . A small rest and we were off to explore Hampi, I picked up a tourist map and commentary of Hampi from one ... read more

We had a leisurely morning of food and checking out then were on the 5hr midday govt bus to Madurai. It was amazing how quickly we dropped out of the mountains and this had a direct correlation to the increase in temperature. Soon we were racing along the plains of Tamil Nadu in our solar heated oven on wheels, passing tropical crops of banana and coconut. The landscape was littered with large brick kilns/drying houses – large pyramid structures covered with palm fronds where hand made bricks were stored to dry. At one point a pyramid shaped mountain (due to aggregate mining I think) stood alone on the plains with the ‘mini-me’s’ in the foreground and it felt like some alien/ lost civilisation landscape. Madurai, one of south India’s oldest cities, was a dirty, dirty hole. ... read more