I can't believe its been 9 days since we last blogged! I know, I know, you've all missed our thrilling adventures, so I wont keep you waiting too much longer, lol. We've seen and done tons in the last 9 days, including 2 fort stays, a 2 hour camel trek to a desert camp, a meal with a local family and experiencing Indian style extortion....by kids!!!
27/03/08 - On our drive to Jodhpur (Rajesthan’s second largest city), we visited a few Jain temples along the way around the town of Ranakpur. These lush, intricate, marble temples were beautiful. In particular the Chaumukha temple which dated back to the 15th century had stunning architecture and 1400 hand carved pillars in marble! Very impressive indeed. Took some piccies here!
Extorting (and semi-entrepreneurial) little sh*ts!!
After seeing the temples we headed towards Jodhpur in the ever intensifying heat of Rajesthan only to discover that in this part of the country they were still celebrating the Holi festival (a festival of colours where everyone throws industrial paint powder over each other for some reason, somewhere in the state somebody decided to concoct a new powder, silver in colour and put 3 people in hospital with facial burns!). This continuation of celebration meant only one thing of course in the villages....extortion! Yep, extortion. Every 100 feet we were met by sometimes angry groups of either girls or boys (never mixed) who had placed massive rocks across the road to prevent any drivers from passing in the hope that they would pay 10-20 rupees as a kind of road tax! What the hell!?! And our driver would literally have to pay it as well or risk having rocks thrown at the bus. Craziness! So, 200 rupees lighter (at least) and 7 hours later, we got through all the road blocks and made it to Jodhpur. I think I would've killed at least 10 people if that had happened in the UK! Everyone concurred on the Oz-Belg-Uk bus!
I’m blue, da ba dee ba
28/03/08 - Jodhpur, also known as the 'blue city' was a pretty impressive city for one main reason, the huge Meherangarh Fort in its middle dating back to 1459. Surrounding this massive complex were houses painted in blue, which was an awesome sight. They were painted like this traditionally as indigo acts as a good insect repellant and keeps the house cool in the summer. Good thinking batman!
An audio-tape-fort-tour and a few turban trials later and we were ready to head to Jaisalmer.
We didn’t really like Jaisalmer as it smelt pretty bad here, probably the worst we’ve experienced in India in our whole 5 weeks here, so many ‘holy’ cows everywhere along with their smelly poop but nevertheless it was still a cool fort town from the 12th century. We also had a pretty lame hotel this time which was 2kms out of town as well…just cant catch a break can we, lol.
I stand firm on un-necessarily paying 50p!
Jaisalmer is surrounded by the Thar Desert which makes it friggin hot. People actually live in the fort as well which made for some pretty cool piccies. A very touristic city, we had some time to explore its medieval qualities. I even had to trek for 4kms in the blistering heat into town and back to the hotel to change an 80p bag that we’d brought for our photo albums just because I refused to pay the 50p tuk-tuk drive into town! We saw our first camels here too!!
30/03/08 – Very exciting day to come as we were heading into the desert to meet our camels ready for the trek to desert camp tonight!
Don’t ‘go loco’ and eat local: said the posh boy
Yet again our guide informed us that there would be ‘no choice’ but to eat at a crazy expensive desert hotel where the food was a shocking 300 rupees (7.50)…but we bucked the trend! Oh yeah! After being advised not to eat at a local place along the way by our guide (posh tw*t), we took a chance and had a great Dum Aloo! (Potato curry) 1-0 to the student posh boy!…although we’re not students anymore…got to get used to that!
Once we arrived at our desert destination it was kind of a crazy sight to see 5 camels chilling there waiting for our fat asses to get on, but we did it! Note to self: camels are not comfortable to ride and friggin hell they’re bigger than I thought!
Buckaroo me up Camel
The damn thing buckaroo’d on me! What the hell! I could’ve died! Probably not, but it did freak out for some reason and go off by itself for what seemed like ages but actually was about 5 seconds. Jen thought it was hilarious!
Two hours later and we arrived at a beautiful tented desert camp. Great buffet-food (included in the price of accommodation…love it), less the ladybird in jens Capsicum dish and we finished off the evening with a game of cards.
Killer Bees
We got back to our tent and readied for bed but decided to watch the stars for a few minutes. Whilst sitting at two seats outside our tent we heard the sound of the killer bees and they happened to be nested in the side of Jen’s chair, there must have been 20 huge bee’s inside!! It took me about an hour to kick them all away!
There was no way we were getting any sleep though! The aussie on our tour saw a scorpion in her tent next to us so scared the crap out of Jen. We decided to play it safe and sleep in all our clothes….friggin hell it was hot! I reckon I lost 5 pounds just that night! We made sure we were wrapped tightly in the covers to stop any poisonous insects from crawling in and getting us!!
Theres’a’ marmite in these desert dunes there is
31/03/08 - So, sleepless night in the desert later and Jen jokingly said the only thing that could make it all better was marmite on toast for brekkie…but no, not here in the desert, surely……YES INDEED IT WAS!!!!! Not even kidding, there was marmite on toast for breakfast in the friggin desert!!!! What the hell!!! Im totally emailing the piccy I took of the jar on a sand dune to marmite.co.uk….and they’d better reward me for it too!!! GOD WE WERE HAPPY!
Too expensive for my taste thanks dude!
Chandelao was our destination today. Here, we stayed in a 300 year old converted dining room that was seriously beautiful once more. I have to say, this trip has certainly taken us to some places we would never have stayed due mainly to their cost. In this case, Chandelao being a tiny little remote village, would’ve meant theres no way we’d go here. One downside to the posh accommodation though being the posh food…or rather, expensive-and-actually-not-so-posh food! The dude was charging 300 rupees for dinner…er, no thanks, we’ll go hungry! But we wont though will we as we’ve come prepared! Yep, we had snacks and so were defs not going to die of starvation.
Lizards and catch
In Chandelao I took a tour of the village myself and got some great pics. Especially the kids as they love having their pic taken! I also saw a friggin huge lizard chilling in his bush. That evening Jen and I played catch with some local kids. There was one boy in particular, aged about 12, could speak fluent English and was a seriously cool kid! He took us around the town to meet all of his friends, we were hand held by tons of kids fighting to be next to us and it was a really nice night.
01/04/08 – 1st of April….you’re kidding, its not April already is it!!! Fraid so. That means not long till back to the UK. After declining a half day, 500 crazy rupee price jeep tour of a few other villages, we had a nice lie in and were heading to Khejarla.
Vodafone me up baby!
Only 40kms from Chandelao and we arrived at Khejarla where we were to stay in a fort once more. A massive complex. For some reason we were also given the biggest room in the place overlooking a swimming pool courtyard. Bering a couple we always seem to get the nicest rooms! Once we arrived in the fort we saw this huge balcony with stain glassed windows and it happened to turn out to be our room, we were so shocked! Unfortunately the pool was gross, but our room was spectacular. I found out from a guy working there that it costs 4500 rupees a night!! WHAT? That’s 100 dollars basically. But to be fair, in the UK you’d be lucky to get a basic hotel for 50 smackeroonies! This place was truly magnificent, it had a four poster bed, a lounger, a separate room with a pink lounger, a separate shower room and a separate room for the toilet. We thought we had died and gone to heaven it was so superior!
But…big but, they were also charging a crazy, yes a crazy 350 rupees for a basic buffet! Er, I don’t think so. And no we wont be going hungry tonight…im off to find some local family to feed me for a better price! Our guide informed us quite firmly once more that there were ‘no other options’ than to eat here….WRONG! I managed to smooth talk my way into a local traders house that evening.
Seven pm came around and Jen and I left our group to pay their extortionate dinner fee and headed out of the fort back to the stall where I’d met the dude. After some masala chai (spicy tea), some locally produced sweets and Jen being stared at by around 30 men, we were escorted by the local English teacher to the guys house where we were greeted by at least 5 million people!!! We love the fact that Indian households are all so together. Everyone in the family lived next door to each other. There were at least 30 kids and 20 adults all amazed by the two Westerners that wanted to eat with them. And we were also the first to do it…pioneers baby! For some reason we were the only ones that ate and Jen wasn’t really given any airtime for speaking by the men all night. We were served chapattis and the local vegetable with a very very spicy sauce, was really good until the man decided to show us how to really eat Indian food and chushed all the Chipati in his unwashed, used to wipe his butt hands!! So we slowly finished some of the untouched bits and left the rest, damn ruined that one! And yes, India people do not use toilet roll, the use their left hand, and yes there is never ever any soap let alone water to use afterwards!! Yuk at the thought!
Vodafone and the saree
After dinner they decided to show us the massive Vodafone phone tower in their back garden. It was 170 foot and had a small air conditioned room for the equipment attached. They told me that when it gets too hot they all go and chill in there, lol.
There was also another surprise…Jen in a lush red sari. We’d told them we’d recently got married as its easier than saying boyfriend/girlfriend and so they put Jen (the ladies did) in a gorgeous red sari which ladies wore once married. Hilarious it was as she had to sit in the air con room with the WHOLE family watching whilst I took some pics. They loved it, one man kept arranging her in all these different poses to take pictures! Very strange dynamics though because only the men were allowed to watch the photos being taken, the women didn’t dare to come over and see.
She’s gonna blow……agghhh
We said our goodbyes and went back to the fort where we were most definitely not getting any sleep as there was a storm brewing! Mental winds, and I mean mental winds, shook all the doors and fittings in our room all night. No sleep once more, lol. It felt like someone was in the room with us trying to get out..or in…
02/04/08 – Pushkar, the lakeside, hippy town was our next town. Blimey we were hitting quite a few places weren’t we! So 3 hours of driving got us to this mountainous town. I was loving the scenery and wanted to climb every mountain. And we’d seen at least three Italian restaurants on the way, so plenty of choice. Pushkar was pretty small but very touristic. The streets around the lake were filled with everything a tourist could wish to buy. When its holy time here, October/November, thousands of pilgrims attend a Camel Fair which is one of India’s most famous festivals. We just found that it was full of flies, but had tons of character.
Another storm’s a brewin!
After eating in local restaurant for 100 rupees (not bad Biryani) we were looking forward to a night of TV only to discover that this place was also blemin stormy and would have at least 20 power cuts!! No TV for us then! The storm was mental and defs not a lame UK one we’re used to! This time we decided to eat dinner in the hotel as it was reasonably priced! First time for everything.
03/04/08 – Another 3 hours of driving and we arrived in Rajesthans biggest city, Jaipur! This place is called the pink city as the Hindu colour for welcoming is pink. A huge but well planned city, Jaipur provided us with a really nice hotel to stay in. The afternoon here consisted of a tour of the cities huge Amber fort at the top of a hill. Very impressive indeed.
Pizza Hut me up baby!
That evening we had…..Pizza Hut!!! Oh yeah baby!! But to be honest, it was pretty lame in my opinion. So not worth the money at all. Pizza Hut over here costs about 600 rupees (I know, I know, I wont pay 350 in one place but will in others…this is Pizza Hut though). A great nights sleep and a successful clothes hand washing mission later and we were ready for the 4th April.
A free day today so not much going on as Jen isn’t feeling too well, her eye is the size of an elephants butt as she got bitten by a mossie. Tonight we eat cheap again..make up some of the deficit from last night. Tomorrow we head to Agra where the Taj Mahal is….OH YEAH!!!!
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