The hotel was a little different to Claridges but it was ok and full to capacity with the other over-landers on the same tour as me, or at least part of it. I was sharing in a twin room with a Canadian guy, Jeff, and we get along really well. After the introductory meeting / briefing from Dragoman, we ventured out into the busy streets of Delhi to try and find a working ATM. A lot of the ATMs are only for locals and do not often accept international cards. After several failed attempts we succeeded and then returned to the hotel and had a few beers with dinner.
Next morning was quite an early start, on the road by 06.00, which meant getting up about an hour earlier. Unfortunately it was raining hard and where the truck, Daisy, was parked was muddy. There was a tarpaulin down to put bags on but where some locals helped to load, the bottom of my my bag was dropped into a muddy puddle. Luckily everything inside is packed in vacuum bags so was kept dry. But as it dried out, it became quite dusty. The truck, built by Tata, used to be a South African safari truck and seats 20 passengers, has two tables and a fridge on board. Underneath the main cabin are various cubby holes which contain everything for life on the road; a drinking water tank, chairs, cooking equipment, maintenance equipment, luggage storage, and also camping equipment which is stored on the roof. All passengers are assigned a job to do on the truck and mine is ‘stairs out’. This doesn’t mean my job is to stare out of the window, but every time we stop, I have to pull out the stairs from underneath the truck to allow everyone to be able to get out. They weigh an absolute ton and are heavily greased but the good news is, it’s someone else’s job to put the stairs back. I share the ‘stairs out’ job with an Australian fireman as it takes two people to do it safely.
It was a ‘drive day’ to Bikaner, 460 km from Delhi. It was estimated to take between 8-9 hours but it ended up being close to 14 hours, excluding stops because of the Indian roads and traffic. By now the rain had stopped and it became dry and hot as you would expect in India. The hotel (Harasar Haveli) was quite nice and there was an excellent buffet dinner laid on for us of mostly familiar Indian food. The paneer (cheese) tikka masala was especially good.
Next day we stopped off at Karni Mata – the rat temple where thousands of sacred rats are worshipped. The legend goes that Karni Mata’s stepson, Laxman, drowned after falling into a pond when trying to take a drink, and Karni Mata convinced Yama, the god of death, to allow him and all of her other male children and descendants to be reincarnated as rats. We had to hand our shoes in and wear foot covers, but the smell in the temple wasn’t great as you may imagine.
After that visit it was back on the road again, driving almost 400km to Jaisalmer – the ‘Golden City’ as it is built from yellow sandstone, dodging cows, tuk tuks, on-coming vehicles and people along the way. The scenery so far looked more African than Indian, quite desert like despite the huge amounts of litter strewn on the sides of the road.
Once at Jaisalmer we checked into a really nice hotel (Golden Haveli) which served great food, cold beer and had a lovely pool in which we cooled off in, just the job after a long day on the road. Shortly after, we got tuk tuks to the main town, although it was less than a mile away, it was really too hot to walk and as the tuk tuks were dirt cheap, it seemed the obvious choice. Explored the markets and found a decent bottle of gin for only 650 rupees (about £6.50), some tins of tonic water for 60 rupees each and some oranges too as nowhere seemed to sell lemons or limes.
The reason for buying the gin is that night would be a bush camp in the Thar desert after a 1-2 hour camel trek. Am not a huge fan of camels and have ridden them before so elected to skip the camel safari and go in a 4×4 instead. Watching the sun go down over the dunes was very similar to the Sahara experience.
There was no need for tents as it was too hot. Just as the sun had set, with no light pollution, you could clearly see the Milky Way and millions of stars and a few planets. However as the moon rose, it shone so bright it was virtually impossible to see the stars. At one stage I though I was going to get a ‘moon tan’ instead. Quite difficult to sleep as it was so bright and various noises from the camels. It was fun watching the dung beetles do what they do all night. In the morning, after sun rise and breakfast it was back to Jaisalmer to the same hotel and back to the same pool 🙂
After a wash and clean up, we took tuk tuks into town again and explored the old fort.
Just as we found our way to witness sunset, a sandstorm blew in from the desert and obscured all vision. We held up in a small bar waiting for it pass before getting back to the hotel. Fortunately it didn’t take too long to pass.
Leaving Jaisalmer the following morning, we drove to Jodhpur which is roughly 300km, and on the way stopped at a local charity (Sambhali Trust) which teaches life skills to girls and young women of Rajasthan in a safe environment. It was quite nice to see all the crafts they make and that it gives them a good opportunity to work in the future.
Up until arriving in Jodhpur, I didn’t feel as if I was in India. Difficult to describe why, but what I had seen so far is more similar to North Africa except maybe the food. But when we turned down this one street it was pandemonium, huge volume of traffic, cows, litter, shops and stalls, people, heat, smells, and here it felt more like the India I imagined. The truk went down another small side streets, where cows were eating plastic rubbish, and took out an overhead cable – apparently the locals are used to it and it was back up in under 5 mins.
We stopped immediately outside the Mandore Guesthouse which was a real garden oasis where we stayed for two nights. Once again there was a great buffet dinner laid on, cold drinks and a great pool with a waterfall fountain.
In the morning we visited the Mehrangarh Fort and Palace which was really nice. We had an audio guide so could wonder around at your own pace and was there for about 3-4 hours. It was good we got there when it opened as by the time we left it was really busy with big queues of people outside.
Then it was about a 30min walk down the hill to the town centre clock tower. The square was busy and quite an intense experience so quickly moved on and found the Omelette Man, recommended in Lonely Planet, who has been selling omelettes in the same place for over 18 years from a single frying pan / burner so had a quick snack, and it was really nice and then found a cafe for a decent cup of coffee – something have been craving for a while.
I was disappointed not to have found a pair of Jodhpurs in Jodhpur as thought they would be quite prolific due to its namesake. As it was, it was time to load up the truck and hit the road again, this time driving about 260km to Udaipur. On the way, stopped off at Ranakpur and visited a Jain temple. It looked like something out of Kipling’s Jungle Book, especially with all the monkeys around.
I had a bit of an argument with security here as you must be covered up to go in and although I was wearing shorts and had ‘hired’ a pair of over-trousers, they didn’t fit. So they weren’t going to let me in. So I went back and forth to various huts to try and find a pair that would fit me, eventually they produced a pair of khaki trousers that vaguely fitted so I was able to go in. Seems silly to me.
I was really looking forward to Udaipur mainly because it was where the Bond film, Octopussy, was shot. There was a couple of days of free time here and found roof top restaurants to have a drink, something to eat and enjoy the views.
We had a boat ride on Lake Pichola around the floating palace and our hotel, The Tiger Hotel, was literally minutes from where most of it was filmed including Jagdish Temple where the tuk tuk jump was done.
Obviously there were a few places showing the movie, so took the opportunity to watch it again with a beer and was surprised by how much of the immediate surrounding streets were used in the film.
In the evening we caught tuk tuks up to the Monsoon Palace on the hill. The drive up there on very steep and tight, twisting roads was more interesting than the Palace itself as it had fallen into a lot of disrepair with most of it boarded up for renovation. However, it did offer a uninterrupted views over Udaipur, even with large crowds gathering for sunset.
