Without a scheduled tuk tuk driver to get us out of bed we caught up with some much needed sleep. The disadvantage of this is that it gets really hot by 11am and most of the sights close at 5pm. Fortunately we still managed to fit in all our planned sights today, even if the afternoon ended up a little rushed. The order we have seen things in is rather odd if you look at a map. There is method to the madness though, as we bought a ‘composite’ ticket at the Amber fort yesterday. Valid for 2 days this ticket gets us into the sights we saw today (plus others we didn’t have time to visit). We have left the sights not included (most notably the city palace) until tomorrow when the ticket is no ... read more

We were on the train until 2pm today so there isn’t a lot to report. Given it was such a long journey we were lucky to have our 4 berthed cabin to ourselves. Unfortunately we didn’t discover this until the next morning. The door of the cabin wouldn’t stay shut without locking it. The ticket man thought other people were getting on at Jodhpur (approx 6am), so we couldn’t lock it. This meant that at 2am Stephen was desperately trying to make a paper device to hold the door shut (and thus block out the light and noise) whilst still enabling other passengers to get in. We were then rudely awoken by cleaners coming in and turning on all the lights at 7am. Fortunately by this point we realised the other passengers weren’t coming so we ... read more

Ignoring our hotels advice (and because we have so much time in Jaisalmer) this morning we decided to look around the fort palace. The hotels argument against it, and that of a number of guides, is that it’s expensive and no different to those we’ve seen in Udaipur & Jodhpur. I suspect without the audio guide provided we would have agreed with them as the rooms are fairly plain and the artefacts similar to those in the other palaces. With the guide though, we found it well worth a visit. We enjoyed learning about the history of the Jaisalmer royal family and the times when the fort fell, leading the women to commit suicide to avoid capture by the enemy (Jauhar) and the men to ride into battle and to their deaths. After an unexpectedly long ... read more

We travelled from Jodhpur last night by train which tuned out to be a more interesting journey than expected. Firstly on walking into the station there were people everywhere to the point where our tuk tuk couldn’t drive in due to congestion. There were people sleeping on the floor, on blankets and on camp beds. It looked like a refugee camp. Our first thought was that the trains were in disarray but we were pleasantly surprised to find all trains running on time. we were told there’s a religious festival somewhere which I presume they’re travelling tobut no one seemed to be able to tell us where or which festival! Picking our way across the bodies we found our platform and as by some miracle managed to get a seat. We ended up sitting next to ... read more

After yesterday’s beautiful sunny day we woke to clouds this morning. Despite this for the third day since arriving in India we have had no rain and the cloud provided welcome respite from the heat of the sun. Stephen has decided the rain is following us. To be fair given how poor the monsoon has been in Rajasthan this year, with many of the lakes we’ve seen looking rather empty, it would probably be a good thing if it did. We walked up to the fort museum via the Fateh Pol gate this morning. Despite our concerns after finding it difficult passing through the fort yesterday we entered without any problems. As we walked towards the museum we noticed the security guard by the entrance to the zip line and gardens wasn’t at his post. We ... read more