Umaid Bhawan Palace Jodhpur

... doesn't know where you want to go. Aaah we smile and say the clock tower, he says clock tower and off we go again (must have been our accent or something) So we go screeching down the road hitting every pothole and cow pat in the road. One thing you have to say about tuk tuk drivers is that they are to a man absolutely bonkers, I mean you are going to have to be riding around in a small two stroke engine pulling straight out into a line of traffic without a care in ...

... phones out for pictures of me with their mates and the families get us both in for a group shot its so funny I think we might start charging 20RS per shot that will cover our food for a day the amount they take of us! In Jodphur there was this young family and the mother brought her two little boys over to us to shake our hands and then we had to have several photos with them, the kids starting crying, I think we might have scared them, to them we must ...

so low and behold, im a month in and two weeks behind, HOW PREDICTABLE. however reliable internet in india is not too easy to find.
so lets backdate slightly.


so i arrived in Jodphur on friday june 19th...i think. and it is a pretty crazy city. massive and sprawling and most of the buildings painted brilliant blue, in the middle of the old city, built straight into the massive rock is the enormous cit fort, which is extremely ...

... some hand sanitizer gel. Then, we came to a traffic jam. There had been an accident on the road and there were trucks and cars all parked behind each other on the road. We were delayed by 1 hour. By this point I was starting to get quite fed up. The day's events were all adding up and I just wanted to get somewhere I could shower and sleep. My butt had gone numb from sitting so much and I think I was carrying an extra 5 kilos of dirt, grime and god knows what else. I ...

... possibly the only fort in Rajasthan never to be taken by force and it was not hard to see why. with something of a 40 wall surrounding the massive complex the fortwas situated on the top of a mountain with views for as far as the eye could see in all directions. From the bottom was a long and winding road to main gates into the palace complex. Very Lord of the Rings we decided altough smaller than Edoras i would imagine! the palace itself was small but in ...

... both rare but cereals are abundant. Typical meals include plenty of breads and dhals and curries of bati, baked balls of wholemeal flour that work like thick dumplings. After eating we walked along the shopping street, marvelling at the brightly coloured shawls and bangles as well as all manner of shops. From the STD phone booth to a man selling 20 foot lengths of bamboo. We organised transport for the next day, a bus to Jaisalmer and then left reasonably early the next morning.

... we realised how good this was!!!) and we had a bit of personal space.

We wanted to visited Jodhpur's fort this afternoon but with the bus arriving 2 hours after we were told it would (bloody dodgy travel agents) and only 2 hours before it closed it quickly become apparent this was impossible.

Still not to worry we soon turned our thoughts to bedding down for the night. This was easier said then done....this time the cost wasn't the problem....far from it ...

... get my camera fixed when I get back. Soooo Sunday we went through a quick ride through the desert and just before it my stomach started feeling a little queezy. As I baked in the sun thorughout the ride, the feeling got worse. And on the way back it all came out.... and then it all came out the other end. yes. quite glamorous. Soon after we got back my dad and I decided that it was best for me to get back to jodphur to spend ithe night in an air ...

... stood in the car park to the fort observing the beauty of it all and where we stood was a drop down to a grassy bank about 10 foot where a small boy stood reigning in his kite. However, he was standing on the edge of a drop of about 100 foot down to the villages!!! When his kite soared out of reach over towards the village roofs, he would just reign it in calmly oblivious of the fact that his toes were hanging over the edge towards certain death. My heart was ...

... smiling children. One of the villagers happily gave us a 'guided tour' of his village and Sanjeev translated for us as many of these folk don't speak English. The children were fascinated with our digital cameras and even more when they saw themselves in the view finder (particularly the second village) and wanted to be 'starring' in our photos, so they posed for us with big smiles. Also, we visited Madla Village School ...