Agra to Jaisalmer

Steve and the kids enjoy 1st of sure to be many elelphant rides in Jaipur

A rare picture of all of us at the top of a tower in Jaipur

Jantar Mantar in Jaipur, an observatory built in the early 1700's

More astronomical stuff

A nice Palace on a lake in Jaipur

Steve's new elelphant friend

Udaipur is a very different place to previous Indian cities, set by the side of Lake Pichola it is a beautiful setting and the old town where we stayed has very narrow streets and is relatively clean, ‘You like rickshaw?’ was still a part of any walk around town and the danger of being run over by bikes and rickshaws was there but a bit more bearable then previous places.

Bob gets to drive a rickshaw!

Lovely Sarah and the lovely lake Pichola from the bridge in Udaipur

 It was also the location that the 007 film ‘Octopussy’ was filmed in and of course every hotel was showing the film and of course we had to watch it one evening, sitting on a rooftop terrace at a hotel eating curry and drinking beer, just like being at home really!

Some nice poo people!!

On from Udaipur we headed north west by taxi for a 6 hour journey  to Jodpur. The main attraction of Jodpur is the Mehrangarh Fort which sits high on a massive rock at the centre of the city. Our hotel balcony was slap bang in front of the fort with wonderful views at night of it all lit up.  Sarah was delighted to find our hotel room had a bath! Bobby enjoyed playing with the owners’ son whose main toys unfortunately were a box of matches and a box of fireworks! Boys eh?  Our room also came with a very large locust in situe, Sarah wore it on her back like a small pet one morning until Amber brought it to her attention…very calmly to avoid a panic.

Unfortunately on waking on our first morning, Steve had come down with a serious case of food poisoning, so was confined to the bedroom (and the close proximity of the bathroom) for that day.

Poor boy not well

Fortunately however Steve recovered enough the next day to venture to the fort which was pretty amazing and not only for the excellent views of the blue-painted buildings that make up the old town of Jodpur below.

Kids enjoying the audio guide at the fort

Lots of canons at the fort

the blue city below the fort

So we had an unscheduled extra day there and then headed west by bus to Jaisalmer.

Sarah and I enjoying a roof top beer in the old fort, Jaisalmer

The main gate of the old fort

Jaisalmer is a remote desert city at the western border of Rajastan and is known as the golden city due to its sandstone buildings. The first few days we stayed in the old city which is a 500 year old living fort and then escaped to the desert proper on an overnight camel safari. This involved an hour jeep ride out to a fairly remote location followed by an hour camel ride to the sand dunes where we would eat and sleep under the stars.

A couple of the camel boys were Bob’s size although probably twice his age and he enjoyed playing with them, particularly with the small dung beetles which roamed everywhere.

The camel safari

Steve and Bob's ride

Evening meal desert style

Morning after a night under the stars

Bob's camel boy

Amber loved her camel

We all enjoyed the remoteness and sleeping out in the open. Watching the sun set, the brightness of  the moon until it set and the stars become  bright as can be,  was a memorable experience. The camel ride , yes well neither Steve nor Sarah would have wanted to much longer, those saddles and the motion are worse than any bike saddle.

Returning to Jaisalmer, we then stayed for a few days at a really cool hotel with a swimming pool just outside the old fort, before heading back to Delhi for a 18 hour journey by sleeper train.

Pedal boat ride on the Gadi Sagar lake just outside Jaisalmer

The lake is crowded full of catfish which the kids loved feeding 

A one night stay in Delhi including a quick trip to the post office to pick up a new Kindle since Steve sat on the last one and broke it (thanks Nick and Tony for organising that!) and then a short flight south to Cochin in Kerala on India’s ‘Indigo’ airlines, which was absolutely great except they served no booze in flight, Sarah was disappointed.  Quite a long taxi journey brought us to Fort Cochin which was a lovely calm place – only a handful of traffic ambling about and no cow poo to tread in at all! We headed out to dinner and enjoyed beef and fish for the first time since in India – delicious!

Bobby gets an awful lot of attention in India, more so than the rest of us put together although we probably get our photo taken at least three times a day and probably more than we know about. It seems that a lot of Indians still have not seen a blonde white boy before, they are always wanting his photo or touching his head, asking his name and shaking hands. He is now getting fed up. Today he said ‘I hate this country and I hate the people’. He says now he doesn’t really mean it! Poor lad.