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Hi Everyone,
Sorry about the gap from the first update but while were on the tour it was quite difficult to spend a few hours on the "steam powered" internet connections trying to write an update. Anyway here is the next one... hope it's been worth the wait.
As Jemma put, the first blog was written in Jaiselmer. What she didn't put is that apart from upsetting some grumpy scottish bloke sitting next to us by asking him to move his bag (how dare we), we were constantly being asked to translate (from English into Hindi??!), a smudged photocopy of the most recent edition of the Rough Guide which the Internet cafe owner had got that morning. He was struggling with a few words such as 'variety'. At this point Jemma launched into explaining that if you had toast everyday for a week then had some soup, the soup would be a "variety". I am still not sure that he understood why the Rough Guide was interested in the food at an internet cafe but there you go. We did get a discount on the rate though so we think it was worth it.
We did get the jeeps back into the desert that night and got droppped off quite close to road. When we first got there it was the 'Piccadilly Circus' of deserts with about 25 camal safaris and the odd heard of goats all milling about on the dunes around us. Also a persistant guy on his own camel followed us for about half an hour offering a trip to the desert. It seemed unkind to tell him he was already there, so we left him to it and eventually he got the message and 'camelled' away.
From there we watched the sun go down over the dunes and the other safaris drifted away, leaving us sitting on top of a dune with a coolbox of coke and beer watching the stars appear. Sometimes you get stars back home but even in quiet places you don't see that many. This was an amazing view of stars and the milky way (looks a bit like a cloud but the sky was clear. Jemma found it amusing that me and the other Dave from our group talked about Star Wars most of the time we were looking up. Seemed thoroughly appropriate to me? [NB. this included a fascinating in depth discussion about Leia's best outfit... - Jemma]
The next day we moved on to Jodhpur
This took about 5 hours I think. It was different to the bus rides we had been on previously, mainty for the reason that I could now see out of the front windscreen. To most of you this may seem like a positive thing, but for us it brought a realisation of how near to death we seemed to be about every 15 minutes. As you can probably work out over a 5 hour period this is ...well.. quite a few times.
To put this in perspective here is the full priority list of the traffic on the India roads. Starting at the bottom:
10. Dogs
9. Goats
8. Pedestrians
7. Bikes/cycle rickshaws/carts (these can be pulled by anything from people to elephants and including camels, they're big over here!!!)
6. Auto Ricksaws
5. Cars
4. Jeeps
3. Buses
2. Lorries
And, above all else....
1. Cows.
Cows having the highest priority, and not being in a fixed location provided a few interesting situations. Especially when they decide to sit in the middle of a road while we go round a corner (overtaking a lorry at the time), to be faced with the afore mentioned cow, being overtaken by a lorry which is in turn being overtaken by another bus... Other similar events followed but I am not going to recall each one (bad for the nerves). You probably get the message by now. Needless to say it was a fun journey but we all got there in one piece.
Jodhpur is the city of the trousers (yes those trousers), and was developed in 1459 by the Rao Jodha. (I know that because it says so on my fact sheet). It again is famous for an imposing fort and the blue city. This is the old part of the city where most of the houses are painted blue. Apparently the blue paint repells mosquitos. It looked pretty good as well.
After the joys of the journey we had a few hours rest, then we went to a place called Mandore Gardens. This was like a park but with a series of disused temples inside. All slighty overgrown and (much to the excitment of Jemma), containing a large population of monkeys. We wondered round for a while but it appears that a group of 8 white westerners was quite an event in this place. Apart from the two kids that followed us around all of the way, by the time we were back round to the main gates there were around 25 or so people following us. A few random photo calls later (the first of a few as it turns out), we dived for auto rickshaws back to the hotel and spent the evening getting beaten by Anton at Poker. (Keith - Don't worry mate, I sized him up and beat him later on in the trip).
The next day we went to the Jodhpur fort. Again, an amazing fort with more amazing views over the old blue city. I could go into detail about the age and origin and stuff but basically it looked good and was worth seeing. I have a guide sheet so if anyone is actully that interested let me know.
Dinner was a real treat that night as we got to got to Rocktails...
This appeared to be a place where slightly more well off locals went to drink. We are still not sure if the guides really wanted to take us here or if it was the only place the cricket was being shown (this being India, the land of cricket and all). Loads of smartly dressed men and bad euro(indian?)pop. I can't think of a better way of describing it so you will just have to make your own mind up.. for those of you who have been to the Bel Air, just add about 20 degrees to the temperature and you're about there. Dinner was nice and apart from a slight disagreement between Sheilandra, our guide, and the restaurant regarding a lack of change it was a good night.
The next day was again jeeps and the fun of Indian roads. But this time we arrived in Benshwara. This appeared to be a small village and we stayed in an amazing restored Haveli style house. This was more like a small castle with loads of very decorative rooms. We stayed in a room with a sitting room and a bedroom. It was known as the wedding room as that's where important people from the area stayed on the night before getting married. This didn't rub off on me and Jemma, the important or the marriage bit... one of the best rooms we have stayed in though.
A few hours in the pool (yes THE POOL), this really was luxury, and then a jeep ride to some local village that was still run in the same way it had for years apparently. It was affectionatly know as the "People Safari" by all of us on the tour. The village was nice but i was a bit suprised by the satelite dish. It appears that Sky TV had reached here despite the fact that the houses are made of mud bricks, and water was only delivered two days a week. The locals were friendly and the kids chased us around wanting to see pictures of themselves on the digital camera screens.
Apparently one of the big problems in India is the population. There are currently around 1 billion people in India and this is growing. The reason I mentioned this at this point is that there are some large scale birth control schemes going on in India, and there were some signs that this had reached the villages. Unfortunately, this evidence was the kids that were blowing condoms up and running around with strange shaped balloons. Still, you have to start somewhere I suppose. We then saw the sunset over the hills and drunk sweet chai.
The next stop was Ranakpur. Again by jeeps, but this time the scenery took away from the overtaking... suddenly from dry and flat we were in lush green mountains. A complete contrast to anything we has seen so far on the trip. We arraived at the hotel which was just next to a large lake and were taken to our rooms. Basic is the best word to describe them, basically a small room with a bed in just about sums it up. Jemma used the word "bugtastic" so as you can probably guess we had a few guests with us that evening. The most prominent being the small lizard which we think lived in the wall light (that didn't work).
We again had a pool so a quick swim (with frogs) and a realisation that the waitors wouldn't bring drinks to the pool because it was too far (about 50 metres), they were not the friendliest people, and then went to an amazingly intricate Jain temple about 10 minutes away.
Its getting late here now and the hotel staff are wanting to call it a night. Incidentally this means that they will set beds up in the lobby and sleep there.
Next installment to follow...
Dave and Jemma
xx
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