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hello to the 5 or so people who actually read our blog! and sorry for the lack of news!
we are now in Ahmedabad, our final destination before we travel to Mumbai tomorrow morning bright and early by train. It is supposed to be an 8 hour trip, so we are departing at 4, but as Indian railways are prone to powercuts I'm not sure if we will get there before the summer holidays; our train from Delhi to Agra at the start of this trip was supposed to take 3 hours - we did this no problem on our first India tour - but ended up taking 9, so we're all expecting various delays! Unfortunately, tomorrow is a Holy Day in India, and Mumbai will be totally crazy, so once we arrive there we will be limited as to what we can do - the ladies on this trip have been told to stay in the hotel, as it will be dangerous for them to go out. Us lads on the other hand are 'allowed' to stray from the hotel premises, at the risk of having chemicals thrown in our eyes, or paint, or whatever it is they chuck at people on Holy Days. So I may well just stay in and watch some cricket or something!
Our last few days haven't been all that eventful, just lots of travelling really. We did however - and you'll struggle to believe this - visit our first really interesting fort and, dare I say it, we actually enjoyed it! This was the Meherangarh Fort, which was absolutely vast inside, and had an impressive array of weapons on display (photos will follow when possible). It was also better organised than many of the palaces and forts we have visited before; we were able to have an audio guide and follow a map, rather than have to strain to understand what a personal guide would be saying, which is quite wearing after a while! So, as you can imagine, we were quite pleasantly surprised, and got back on the bus feeling relatively content!
Right, i guess i should try to think back to what we have actually done since the last blog. Other than numerous forts, palaces and temples, we had our camel trek. After a 4 hour bus journey, we met our camels - an interesting bunch. As an experienced camel rider, having had the pleasure in Lanzarote, i was able to conclude that these camels were probably not the creme de la creme of the camel kingdom - some of them had definitely seen better days - but then again this is India, you can't expect all that much! We mounted our camels, some members of the group rather more nervously than others, due to some unique and other-worldly noises emitted from certain camels; this was coupled with a disgusting display of froth and football sized tongues slopping out of their mouths, but unfortunately i failed to get a decent photo of this. So we set off. The ride itself was two hours, which was about an hour and 45 minutes too long considering the width of the straddle involved, and the 35 degree heat. The camp itself - as well as the desert - was very beautiful, with tents similar to those we stayed in at Orchha. The food was also great. Fe on the other hand was feeling worse for wear, and eventually threw up in the evening. So the experience as a whole was an interesting one!
Other than that, it's mainly been sitting on the bus, eating food at some nice restaurants - but far more expensive ones than on our first trip - and reading! We've stayed in a couple of heritage hotels, which were nice but rather remote so there hasn't been an awful lot to do. We've also wondered round a few more markets, the best being in Jodhpur by far, but we were only there for one night which was a bit disappointing.
So it's on to new zealand on sunday, i will update as soon as possible.
xxx
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