Advertisement
Published: December 18th 2009
Lake
First lake we've seen with water!!The taxi rides between towns offered us just as much of the Indian experience we had been hoping for. Mr Rau soon understood we were on a budget so stopping at tourist restaurants where a tea was Rs. 50 (Rs. 10 in most towns) wasn’t what we wanted or were willing to pay! Instead he started stopping for tea at local tea stands where a masala tea was only Rs. 5 and eat at the local restaurants where a hearty curry was less than the expensive coffee of the tourist restaurants. The local places were always much more interesting to stop at, we were an interest to the locals and it also gave us an opportunity to speak to some locals. Although the hygiene of some places was questionable, they were all busy places and we have been in India long enough for our stomachs to get accustomed to a bit of dirt!
When arriving in town we learnt to walk away from hotels if the price wasn’t within our budget and every time, bar once, we paid what we wanted. Sometimes this left us feeling
we could have got an even lower price but we can’t complain when the rooms are around £7 a night!
When we arrive in Mt Abu we had an experience that made us even more sceptical about people who are supposed to be helping you. We arrived and our driver picked up a ‘friend’ who appeared to know the Mt Abu area and was going to show us a few hotels. The first hotel he was going to take us was Rs. 1500, three times our budget, even though our driver knew our budget by then. So we re-explained to this new bloke that we were looking for something cheap and cheerful. Once he understood, he said there wasn’t much available in this place so he took us to somewhere he know. Surprisingly we returned to where we picked him up... a local hotel which he appeared to be involved with. Even more surprising was that his rooms were just above our budget, but he could do us a special deal which brought it down to our budget... what a crock!! The rooms were terrible and this was obviously another scam. We immediately declined, walked two minutes down the
View
Highest point in Rajasthan....not as high as Nepal road and found a much nicer place for less... Frustrating and disappointing as that has made us question everyone who is trying to ‘help us’ or give us the best deal.
Anyway, we finally found a hotel and set about exploring the place. Mt Abu is a small town high in the hills, reached by a narrow winding road; there were a few hairy moments as the taxi honked and pushed his way past coaches and trucks. The town had a holiday feeling with ice cream stalls lining the road along the lake front; it is a popular holiday destination for Indians. We spent the day walking the lake and hiking into the hills in the hope of seeing a mountain leopard or a sloth bear - they must have been sleeping but the scenery was great as we were so high above the desert plateau below.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.375s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 16; qc: 80; dbt: 0.2816s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
nama
non-member comment
Info!
Hello, very interesting blog, could you please tell me where is the nice and cheap hotel in Mount Abu because I'll be there next week, thank you very much, nama