Udaipur

We arranged to meet Marcus at 9am and visit the Monsoon Palace together so we set off to have breakfast at the same rooftop restaurant where we had dinner the previous night at around 7.30am. We tried to order brewed coffee and mueslie which were both on the menu. They didn't have either so we ended back at our hotel for breakfast. Marcus ended up joining us for breakfast and then we set off at around 9.30am. We agreed on 200 rupees for a tuk-tuk to the monsoon palace but once we got to the gate at the bottom the driver said he could not go any further as tuk-tuks were not allowed. We had been duped! We paid our entrance fee which was only 160 rupees each and could have paid an extra 100 each to be driven to the top but decided to walk. It was good to do some walking without the traffic whizzing by. It took us 45 minutes to get from the entry gate to the monsoon palace. It was very smoggy so the view from the top was not clear but we did manage to see both lake Pichola and Fateh Sagar Lake.

We wandered around for a while then walked back down to the gate and caught a tuk-tuk back into town where we had lunch at the Jheel guesthouse restaurant. We had a bit of trouble ordering but in the end when the food came it was very good. After lunch we walked up to Jagdish Mandir a 17th century Vishnu temple which has a black statue of Vishnu.

There were many beggars around the temple and we were happy to leave the area. We found a coffee whop where David had a piece of chocolate cake and Catriona had a cappuccino. In the evening we met up with the group for dinner and then set off for the train to Jaipur at 9.15pm.

Udaipur - Venice of the East

After breakfast we headed out to the road to wait for the 9am bus which didn't come. The 10am bus was very crowded and we just managed to squeeze on with our bags. We all had to stand and even passed through one town where there were about 8 people waiting to get on the bus but there was no room for them all. We did stop in other towns to pick up the odd passenger and we were jammed in like sardines. Eventually a few people got off and Catriona managed to get a seat. David did not get a seat for most of the journey and when he did finally get a seat he was harassed by a lady with a baby who wanted him to touch it.

Once in Udaipur (the most romantic city in India) we headed to the hotel in the auto rickshaws and had lunch on the rooftop terrace of the hotel with spectacular views over Pichola lake and the lake palace.

After lunch Badam took us on an orientation tour of the area around the hotel through the narrow streets and down to the Gangori Ghat where men and women were bathing and washing their clothes.

We then walked around by ourselves and Catriona bought a skirt. We met up with the group again in the evening and walked to the Bangore Ki Haveli where we all watched a cultural program of music and dancing from across Rajasthan. It was an enjoyable show with dances by both men and women and a very funny puppeteer. We had dinner in a rooftop restaurant overlooking the lake.

After dinner David and Marcus went up to the rooftop and watched the Brazilian Grand Prix on Marcus' iphone and Catriona went to bed.

28th November, We had a huge breakfast in the rooftop restaurant with the view over the lake. We had a guided tour around the city palace with a local guide. The city palace is the second largest in India, the largest being somewhere in the south of India. This palace was built over a 300 year period being added onto by  by 29 rulers who can trace their ancestry back to around 500AD. We entered through the tripola, the triple arched gate into an area where they kept their elephants and had an elephant tug of war that was last done in 1951. We entered first into the oldest part of the palace which is now a museum, and on through passage ways, courtyards and many rooms. The palace is split into 4 sections, 2 are hotels, 1 is where the royal family still live and the last is the museum. From the top of the palace we had magnificent views of Udaipur and the lake.

The two of us had lunch at a heritage hotel called Jagat Niwas hotel which was on the lakes edge. We sat on cushions at a small table overlooking the lake, it reminded us of Turkey.

 

At 4pm we went for a boat ride around the lake where we enjoyed great views of the city palace, lake palace and Jag Mandir (where part of Octopussy was filmed) which is another island that and has a restaurant on it.

 

It was very peaceful to be on the lake away from the hustle and bustle of Udaipur. We watched the sunset with the group in the rooftop restaurant then went out to have dinner with Marcus while watching the 007 James Bond movie Octopussy.

Nimaj and Ranakpur

Our drive from Jodhpur to Nimaj was very interesting. We passed trucks piled high with goods and tractors pulling trailers so big they took up more than their lane of traffic. In the countryside there were many farms with their crops tied in bundles that were drying in the fields.We also passed many stone mills with their huge saw blades for cutting the stone from surrounding quarries. There were also many goods trucks and army trucks on the road.

Once in Nimaj we had difficulty locating the property we were staying in as there were 3 properties all owned by the same family and we visited all 3 of them. We were welcomed at the door by two elderly ladies who were singing and one painted a red dot on our foreheads.

We were then given a drink of cola while we waited to be allocated or rooms. The property has lovely grounds and our room was very large. We had lunch at their restaurant and then set off on a walk through the village. The walk started out to be pleasant but along the way Catriona was constantly harassed by young children asking for "one pen" or money. They had obviously been given pens by tourists in the past so now expected all tourists to give them pens. It made us think that in the past when we have given pencils to kids in South America that maybe we did the wrong thing. David managed to buy 2 inner tubes and 4 brake pads for his Chinese bike so he was very happy with the walk. We retreated back to the hotel where we relaxed until 4pm then headed out in a couple of jeeps for a ride through the countryside. We visited a Jain temple which was over 1000 years old, it had been destroyed by the invading Mughal army in the 15th century and some of it had been restored. It was full of intricate carvings.

We stopped in a village and were shown how they spin their wool which they use to weave their rugs. We also were shown through someone's house and shown where they keep their animals. One pen had a smal number of lambs and kids which were very cute. We then drove out to a lake where we had a cup of chai while watching the birds. It was dark as we drove back to the hotel. David had a drink with the rest of the group on the lawn while Catriona had a massage. Then it was dinner and off to bed.

We set off after breakfast in the minivan we had taken to get to Nimaj. We passed a colourful Jain temple on our way out of Nimaj and further down the road saw a large procession of people heading in our direction. The group were Jain devotees and among them were a group of about a dozen naked monks. We ended up on a very busy highway 14, which is a major road from Delhi to a port city and so had many large trucks on it. As the trucks can only do 40km/hr our driver was passing many trucks and having to dodge other cars, busses, cows, goats and dogs. We had other trucks coming towards us that were passing each other. It was quite a nerve racking experience. The bus in this picture coming towards us just made it into the gap in time which was a thing that happened many times on our journey. We were stuck in a traffic jam because of an overturned truck. It was unbelievable the way cars would not wait in line but drive right up to the front. A police officer had to try to get the cars out of the way to allow a truck coming in the opposite direction to get through.

We finally made it to Ranakpur to visit the Jain temple dedicated to Adinath. It has 1444 columns and is made of marble.  It was a lovely temple with thousands of carvings of animals and humans.

 

After the temple visit it was on to our hotel up a steep winding road. The hotel is near a wildlife park and our room again was huge. We met at 4pm for a walk and were advised it would cost us 100 rupee each. This put a bit of a dampener on our mood as we were not advised of a cost previously. The walk was not anything special and our guide could not speak English! It is something we will be mentioning in our feedback to intrepid.

Jodhpur

Day 10 of our trip already and we had a 5am start to the day for our morning bus ride to Jodhpur. The layout of the bus was the same as from Bikiner to Jaisalmer with two seats on one side of the aisle and one on the other and sleeping compartments above. We sat in single seats one behind the other as the group were allocated seats 2 - 9. It was a chilly start to the day so we both had our jackets on, a couple of others from the group had forgotten that the temperatures had started to decrease and were quite cold on the bus. Our itinerary told us it was a 6 hour bus trip but we made good time and arrived in 5 hours. We drove through the desert landscape with small farms along the side of the road. The driver blasted his air horns at any cattle or goats on or near the road. We also saw groups of peacocks and many other types of birds along the journey. As we neared Jodhpur we saw many large quarries which supply the stones for the buildings in Jodhpur. Once at the hotel we checked in then had lunch before setting off to the Mehrangarh fort in auto rickshaws or tuk-tuks. The hotel is the same one they use on the comfort trips, it has beautiful green lawns and a swimming pool.

When we arrived at the fort there was a wedding party exiting and they stopped and allowed people to take their picture.

We had an audio tour of the fort and it was very interesting as we heard audio of the prince and his grandmother who had come to live in the fort when she was married at 16. She had seen many changes and they now live in the palace of which we had a view from the fort. We walked through a howdah gallery (Howdahs are the platforms they put on the elephants to carry the people) and a palanquin gallery (a palanquin is carried by people). Open  howdahs and palanquins are for men and the curtained ones for females.

We wandered through the many rooms of the palace viewing the armoury, jewelry, miniature paintings, bedrooms, state rooms and a cradle gallery.

The tour ended at the Mehrangarh museum shop which was full of beautiful jewelry and handicrafts. The group then met back up with our leader and we walked the ramparts of the fort where they have a collection of cannons and fantastic views over the blue city of Jodhpur.

We watched the sun set from the ramparts before walking down into the city. It was quite a steep walk passing people in their homes and out in the narrow laneways. We walked to the clocktower and took a few pictures before having one of the best lassis we have had, reputedly the best in India. Then we walked down the street and back before setting off to a rooftop restaurant with magnificent views of the fort.

After dinner we shared an auto rickshaw back to the hotel with Badam and Marcus. We played Uno with Marcus for an hour before heading off to bed with the sounds of a wedding in the background again.

Day 11 and we had a huge breakfast of omelette, toast, cornflakes, fruit salad, juice and tea/coffee before heading off for a jeep safari to the Bishnoi villages. We managed to see a couple of groups of black bucks, with their huge horns and many birds at a small lake.

Each of the villages we visited had a different industry they specialised in. One was known for the weaving, another for making pots. The children of one of the villages asked to have their photo taken so David was happy to oblige.

We also stopped and had masala chai in one of the homes of one village and the patriarch came to join us. He lived there with 2 sons and his grandchildren and great grandchildren. After making the chai the lady wanted us to take a picture of her making buttermilk.

The driver dropped us back in town near the clocktower so we decided to try another lassi which was just as good as the ones we had the night before. We headed back to the hotel which is in a quiet part of Jodhpur to relax by the pool and catch up on our blog/ journal writing. We met back up at 7pm and headed back in to the hustle and bustle of Jodhpur for dinner.

Jaisalmer

Surprisingly we both managed to get a good nights sleep even with the loud music. The interrupted sleep and early wake up probably had something to do with it. We walked back up to the fort and had breakfast at the 8th July restaurant where they had vegemite on toast on the menu. We shared a hot lemon, honey and ginger drink with our breakfast overlooking the square. There was a local lady who had a small child in a sling and a young girl with her face painted posing for photos for money. It was interesting to watch as the tour groups came in to see her get up and pose then try to extract the money from the tourists.

After breakfast we visited the Palace Museum for 300 rupees plus 100 for the camera. We only had a 500 rupee note and they didn't have change to give us, so the ticket man wrote 100 in a circle on the back of the camera ticket and told us to come back when we had finished our tour. An audio tour was included in the entry price and we enjoyed our walk through the palace. Seeing the coronation throne and spectacular views over Jaisalmer.

Once we finished our tour we stopped off at a German bakery where David had a piece of chocolate and banana cake and Catriona had a masala chai. It was nice to relax and watch the passing parade of people up into the fort. We then headed back to the hotel where we managed to "chat" with Chris and Sheldon over Skype, we could not manage to get any sound so we ended up just writing to each other. We then headed off to lunch at the 7 spices restaurant across the road from our hotel, the meal was a thali and it was lovely and very cheap.

We went for a walk along the busy streets of Jaisalmer to try to get a picture of the whole fort and looking for an ATM. David climbed a wall to take some good pictures. Because of the heat we decided to head back to the room for an afternoon siesta. We met everyone for dinner at 7pm and went out to Trio restaurant. Because we had such a large lunch we only had soup for dinner. Then off to bed ready for our 5am wake up.