Singhvi Haveli Jodhpur

The rest of India by Abi We got in to Udaipur after a long, hard day of travelling. We stayed in an actual palace, where the Maharaja still lives. The swimming pool was stunning, made out of white marble and the view from our balcony was Udaipur's beautiful Lake Pichola. We went to the crystal exhibition; hundreds of years ago one of the Mahrajas ordered loads of crystal objects such as chairs, tables and even beds. But before they arrived the Maharaja died and only 10 years ago did they open...

Plan is made, new plan is now in the blog so now you know where I'll be and when. I have managed to arrange a driver thru the haveli for the Jaisalmer-Udaipur-Pushkar leg so no messing around with trains (if there are any!) and buses. Also I have a car on hand if I want to go anywhere.

By the way if anyone wants a place to stay in Jodhpur I would recommend Singhvi Haveli without hesitation. Thanks to C&B for the recomendation in the first place!!

The fort, the view from the haveli, in the street.....

On the way back to Jodhpur my driver suggested we stop off in Pokaran. The place has several claims to fame....the Indians detonated their first atomic bomb underground 20km or so from the town a few years back, quite a few Islamic radicals come from the mosque there and oh yes there is a fort. This fort is somewhat different. It along with Delhi are the only ones in India made from red sandstone.

Visited the fort, most of which has been left so a few top storeys of the main building a...

Try and make from the rain in Shimla but train's a no go because of the landslides. No more buses that day so we check out those running the next day. A rare stroke of luck - accosted by a jovial little man who's taking his taxi back to Delhi that day and wants to fill it. We jump at the chance and are soon winging our way 350km South. Goes so well until 50km outside Delhi on Highway 1. A flat tyre. Great he has a spare...which is also flat. Our man disappears for an hour. We stand by the cab...

Joel: We arrived at 6am this morning on an overnight sleeper train. Saw a rat running underneath one of the beds in our carriage just as we were making up our beds for the night. Cozy. Needless to say, combined with uncomfortable beds we didn't get much sleep that night. Luckily, our guesthouse kindly allowed us to check in at 630am so we were able to get some much needed sleep before tackling a new city. Jodhpur is known as the Blue City, an apt name as most houses in the old city are shades...

Paul writing:
After a rather grueling train ride from Jaipur that was 2 hours late departing Delhi and 4 hours late arriving we finally got to our beautiful Singh Haveli in the 'Blue City' of Jodhpur at 10:00 pm. That is 11 hours of train travel to go 300km (about 180 miles). (China does seem to have a leg up on India in infrastructure.) Unbelievably we fit all of the luggage and our entire family in the back of a small moto-rickshaw (basically a motorcycle pulling a half cab behind it. Lu...

Here are the kids' journal entries:
Henry:

Today at our hotel which used to be an old manchine (mansion). We went to a fort. The fort was very big! Except it was mostly a museum. In India you cannot kill cows because they are consitterd (considered) religens. It is agenst (against) the law to kill a cow! There was so much poop and the roads were so windey and skinny! I found so many cows!! We could see the fort from our window. The stores that we saw on the road had some clothes, sh...

Hey, let's do some numbers, we’ve been on the road now for 5 months!

We’ve been to 9 countries: Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Korea, China, Cambodia, Thailand, India.

These have been our modes of transport: 21 airline flights, 2 cruise ship, bamboo rafts, sampons, rowboats, many skiffs, catamaran’s, canoes, many trains – high-speed bullet train in Japan, 1970-type train in China, 1950-ish train in India, mini-trains, funiculars, innumerable buses,...