How to Comment

Hi, a few people have been unable to comment. I'm still learning this stuff too but I found a setting that said you could only comment if you had a Google Account or similar. I have removed this so now if you comment yo can select 'anonymous' or 'name' from the drop list "Comment As" below where you type your glowing praise. Have a go why don't you.
Also changed the blog layout abit but can't get the title to show up well. stay tuned
love G&C

Udaipur day 2 – a Salwar Kameez & banana skin

30^th July – This afternoon Carol didn't bang her head so we went out to try some shopping, potential for disaster very high.

We walked away from the backpacker area down towards the clocktower where the sari shops & silversmiths start. We'd bought some bananas for lunch & munched away as we walked. Carol popped into a silversmiths to asked about some silver bottles inlaid with blue & green stones & tiles. I was left holding the skins & met a calf wandering down the street who seemed interested. 3 banana skins later she was my new best friend & when I retreated into the silver shop she was keen to follow. Silver shop customers here are all sit on the floor at low glass cabinets, customers remove shoes & are invited to rest on white mattresses to discuss weights & prices. The front half of a besotted calf mad for fruit was less welcome & there was a minor scene as the shopkeeper shouted at me shouting at (cute) beast.

After hours of fruitless searching & the occasional lark with the ladies we ended up buying a made to measure salwah kameez for C in a shade of mid-olive with deep-turquoise embroidered flowers with tiny mirrors in the middle. The pants are the opposite (for the guys = deep-turquoise with mid-olive embroidered flowers with tiny mirrors in the middle) the chiffon scarf that goes with it is a riot of all the above, but see-through. Carol says it's dark olive green & a deep teal blue but what does she know.. WE had at least 7 guys 'helping' the purchase along plus the tailor from a few doors down who clearly thought he'd licked out having to take C's measurements.

We pick it up tomorrow, wonder if she'll let me post a photo..

After all that we wandered home & as C went up for a shower I walked off to the beer wallah about 500m along the lake shore. All bottle shops I've seen, in Rajastan at least, are called "English Beer & Wine Shops" (que?) & have an enormous "8pm" painted on their shutters which I guess is self-explanatory. Jaki in Jaisalmer had already proved this was only the closing time for those not in the know but a clear curfew for tourists. Most look like prison cells & money & liquor are exchanged through a gap in the bars that would do Spokane jail proud. Staff must be grumpy to get the job.

Walking back from beer wallah with my bottle of Bullet (not less than 8%) beer, along the lake side of the wall rather than the road side, saw a circle of elderly men in western clothes sitting on the dry bed of this narrow arm of the lake listening intently to what looked like a sadhu on sabbatical. He had the long hair & air of other worldliness of a holy man but was wearing the standard slacks & shirt of his friends, odd.

Mystery possibly solved as 50m further on a café on the opposite bank wafted some Bob Marley at me (at last! Where 2 or 3 backpackers are gathered together there will be the Bob). Maybe the sadhu was a café owner & his smoke was not bindi.

Udaipur day 1 – Elephants & Octopussy

29^th July - Lovely mountain drive from Ranakpur 2hrs to Udaipur, the "Venice of India". The room is stunning we look straight out across one arm of the lake. At some altitude we are in much cooler country with hills all round the city & a chance of a second aircon-free night (it's hell on my skin daahling). There are eagles & kites soaring above & heron & cormorants flying past our room, 200m away across the water an elephant saddles up for an afternoon stroll.

We've windows along 2 sides of the room & these fold open to allow us to feel the breeze & hear the sounds wafting from all around. There are 2 ghats down below through the trees where women & men come to bathe & launder, separately, in the early ,morning.

Feroz has done us proud booking this, there's a view of the main lake as well as the Lake Palace hotel. The latter is famed not only for a)taking up a complete island b)costing upwards of US$500 a night in high season but c)for hosting Roger Moore & babes for several eyebrow-arching scenes in Octopussy. Quite beautiful, can't wait to explore & will try & avoid the many cheap cafes that still show the Cubby Broccoli masterpiece every night.

Carol banged her head on the ornate (spiked, basically) archway from the room up onto the marble floored daybed area & had to lie down for a couple of hours. After fetching Aspirin from the local medicine wallah I set out to smile my way solo around town..

“I’m on the Camel!” - night in the dunes #1

We left Jaiselmer & all our new friends on 25^th July & drove an hour out to Khuri

Khuri is a dusty village of about 500 noble Rajput families & the same again of Pakistani Muslim refugees from the '71 war. The latter live in cowdung adobe huts – kitchen hut, courtyard, sleeping hut – while the Rajputs have stone & brick 2 room houses. There's a school for the locals but the refugee kids attend a hut school set up by a local charity.


We were there, as all tourists are, to have a short camel ride in the spectacular sand dunes 1km outside town. The whole area is in the National Desert Park aka the Great Thar Desert but is mostly arid saltbush scrub populated by camels, dogs, goats & peacocks. The sahara-like dunes only occur in a couple of accessible areas, here & at Sam the other side of Jaisalmer. Cashed up whiteys can do anything from a 12day Jodhpur - Jaisalmer trek to a simple joyride of a couple of hours. As I managed an Olympic botty rash record after only an hour on board I'm clear we made the appropriate choice.

Riding a camel as it lopes along & the cameleer whispers encouragement from the back seat is a dreamy experience, when he speeds it up to a canter it's a bone jarring, spine compressing advert for chiropractry. Not to mention the, ahem, testicular trauma & risk of disembowelment from the wooden pommel. It was wonderful, the dunes are dramatic & from 20m up above the surrounds the view of the flat plains & huge sky is inspiring. There were a few other people about & a couple of lads trying to get us to buy warm v expensive beer but nothing could ruin the atmosphere.

Hijacked in Connaught Place – riding with Ramesh #1

Blimey, we have a car & driver for our 21 day tour of Rajastan. Not exactly roughing it & nothing like any traveling we've done before. A bit like the way we bought a house (went out for a quiche & bought a 3 bedroom bungalow) we went into a travel agent to get a free map of Delhi & came out with a full itinerary, hotels, driver & a lovely old Ambassador car. Long story, here's the dot points:

• 1^st day Delhi went to city centre Connaught Place well aware that numerous touts pick up tourists on behalf of dodgy travel agents
  
• Were picked up by a tout for a dodgy travel agent. Well he was very smooth, middle aged &, wow, when I told him we were from Australia he was, like, a sports journalist & wanted to help us AND talk about cricket, amazing!
  
• He put us in an autorickshaw which was only the Indian price of Rp10 because he liked us & we were kidnapped to a travel agent with "Indian Govt" on the window.
  
• Asked for a map of Delhi
  
• Had cold water, had chai, spent 2hrs listening to Mr Ashok explain all about Rajastan & how we could do it all with him at an amazing price.
  
• Ashok gave us a car & driver for 24hrs to see Delhi before we left town, no agreement to buy anything as yet but Rp1000 deposit left
  
• Saw Delhi, worried about all the above. Quite liked Mr Singh our driver but car was small Tata about 'new Mini' size & Rajastan is very big.
  
• Met our good friend Emily for dinner & worried about all the above
  
• Went to actual Indian Govt Tourist Office, got free map, & v strong recommendation to return to Mr Ashok & get deposit back.
  
• With some trepidation we asked if our friend Brad's Delhi agent was approved. Much relief to find he was & nipped around corner to see Feroz Baktoo at Indian Travel Consultant (App. By Ministry of Govt. India).
  
• Hurrah! Both Brad Young of Katoomba & India Govt recommend this guy.
  
• Booked a huge tour of Rajastan with Feroz, retrieved Mr Ashok's deposit (he dropped price by 15% but we stood firm, which surprised him & us)
  
• Met Ramesh our new driver who took us all over town to meet Emily for drinks & dinner, worried we 'd somehow reorganized our entire Indian experience over a map….
  
  

Having a car & driver in India has much to recommend it & we're really enjoying the gilded-cage freedom it gives us. In a way it is the gentle intro to travelling here that we'd promised ourselves. We had always said we'd take our time to get the hang of things, maybe stay in a quiet town before setting out on a grand tour. Having now seen Delhi & having heard how hard train tickets can be to get (many Indians travel in July for holidays & pilgrimages) this has proved to be even better. We have an itinerary through 10 towns* & back to Delhi with air-con/ensuite hotel rooms pre-booked. Can reject rooms/hotels we don't like (have), can alter the number of days at each place(have) & decide where we want to go each day. Africa on a Shoestring (my 1987 epic) it ain't. Despite not meeting people on the way we get much more time at each destination to get out & about, alone or with Ramesh.

Tool a while to get the hang of all the "sirs" & "ma'ams" & waving at the hoi polloi from the back of what looks like a 1960s Morris but, hey, we're adaptable.

Mandawa     3 nights
Bikaner        1
Jaisalmer    3
Jodhpur    2
Ranakpur    1
Udaipur    3
Bundi        4
Pushkar        2
Jaipur        3
Agra        1

If you want an idea of price, names of agents etc contact us.

How to start , what a dumb title & other guff

Hi, thankyou so much for passing by, I'm really glad to have finally get this going.

It's now about 7 weeks into our trip & I've finally had time to start to write. I've written a couple of things today at the hotel & posted them here at the internet café near the clocktower in Jodhpur central market. I've a bellyful of Makhatani Special Lassi & a head full of ideas but lilited time as we've a rooftop bar to visit around sunset.

We both hope you enjoy what follows, we don't intend to run a chronological diary or the trip as we've already done so much but will post bits & pieces as we write. There's a rough Rajastani schedule in one post & I'll try & include days where I can.

We'll write about the UK as & when & intersperse those posts whenever, like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get.

Photos & maybe video will be slotted in when I work out how to do that.

Feel free to comment, it'd be great to see what you think

Love, Guy & Carol & Rajastan

Oh yeah, the title, couldn't think of anything better for a UK/India trip so there…. Also despite living dangerously on dodgy real ale & Indian street food I'm getting bigger not smaller…& there was me hoping to catch a dose of something explosive & lose a ¼ of my body weight like people used to in the good old days…Larry you were right!