A very holy town but nothing to be excited about, admittedly it was one of the direst towns that I have been to and rather unexciting, except for one thing - shopping.

The multitude of shopping that is available in Pushkar is enough to fill one day, which is essentially what I did for the most of the day was shopping, I think that I did buy enough presents but then when trying to fit everything in I noticed that I had bought too much.

As with most places that attracts tourists there will be those that offer scams, two of which that I almost fell for where the gypsy girls who would come up to you and talk to you, I thought that they were friendly locals. I wasn’t going to be rude to them so I did talk but then something weird happened they tried to drag me off somewhere and buy them either drinks or clothes. That’s when I realised what was going on and walked away.

The second thing that happened was with beggar children as they usually do. I had one boy come up to me and beg for me to buy him something to eat, I thought that this would be a good idea and started to follow him and then I was watching him and realised that his clothes were fine and he didn’t look malnourished at all in fact he looked perfectly healthy.
I felt bad refusing him but then felt better when I saw him sitting and eating later that day with what seemed like friends.

Didn’t take any photos of in Pushkar, probably should have though.

While the bus ride to Udaipur was not without its dangers, travelling on a narrow country road with other vehicles while the bus you are on is consistantly trying to overtake trucks can be hair raising at times. But we got through and a short auto-rickshaw ride later we were in old Udaipur.

The town is great there is plenty to do and nothing to do as well, the people are relaxed and atmosphere is typically Indian. Every restaurant of course advertises that they have the best rooftop view of the lake and that they can play Octopussy if requested. The movie being the 007 film that was filmed there, which I might say is really really cheezy.

The town didn’t have too many tourist attractions but that didn’t matter too much as I just liked lazying about but anyway we went to the city place, a temple, the monsoon palace and for a boat ride on the lake.

The arrival in Jodhpur wasn’t that great, only because I was feeling terrible. In the end I was sick and suffered stomach trouble which left me in the room for the next day. Which is a shame because I wanted to see the fort and how it overlooks the blue city.

It was a rather boring day accompanied by a little bit of food, lots of water and rest. By the afternoon I was feeling much better and as a result was able to go out to the fort, I didn’t get to see the inside but I spent a bit of time on the outside and watched the sunset.

The view from the top of our accommodation was amazing we were somewhere inside the fort very high up and we had the fantastic view of the rest of Jaisalmer all the way to the border, so much so that we could hear the military plans every morning doing their rounds which became a consistent annoyance and a alarm clock at the same time.

From the first day that we got there I made it a point (well for some reason I couldn’t sleep past 7am anyway ) to get up early and watch the town slow come into full light. Walking around down was hard at first because it was different to Delhi but the same in someways, it has obviously been well travelled due to the amount of people that knew where we were staying and that we were the second or third intrepid group in town.

It was also my chance to start buying clothes, I didn’t do too badly in the style stakes it was the haggling that let me down. On our last day we were to head out on the camel safari, which I was quite excited about because I thought that it would be tons of fun to try to race a camel…well I was completely wrong.

The ride into our island of desert was quite fun and unique experience.
Having dinner & gypsy show in the desert was fun and different.
Sleeping out under the stars I won’t forget.
Waking up groggy, uncomfortable and sandy I could have done without.

The ride back was terrible and I couldn’t wait for it to stop, I did feel well and I knew that something was wrong and hoped that it would pass by the time we got to the next town

I was more careful about the hostel that I choose in Delhi, thinking about it later it was both a good and bad decision. I was still not interested in spending too much money so I found a place called hotel Vivek in Paharganj it cost 400 Rupee per night and right in the middle of the tourist district plus it had a great restaurant on the roof.

I started off in Delhi working out what I would see with the tour group on Sunday and what I could see by myself. After some fluffing about I eventually hired a car for the day and was able to see (1) India Gate, (2) Lotus Temple, (3) Humayun’s Tomb and (4) Lodi Garden I also saw the (5) Red Fort on my own.
(5) (3) (2) (4) (1)
By now it was Sunday and I had checked into the Hotel Grand President to meet the people would would become my travel companions for the next 22 days. I assumed that we were going to get to know each other fairly well because we had a 22 hour overnight train journey to look forward to.

On Monday of the train journey we went to see the Jama Masjid in Old Delhi, walk through the markets and enter the Gurudwara Sis Ganj (Sikh Temple) to learn a bit about them.

Despite the length of the train journey I quite enjoyed it, I think it was because I also got to know everyone a little more, I’m a sucker for travel stories and everyone at at least a few because they seemed to have travelled much more than I have. Plus a train journey like that offers so many good photo opportunities.

All the warning I got about how different India is still wouldn’t have prepared me for what I faced while I was there. I don’t know if it was the culture shock or just the sheer number of people, mess and traffic.

Admittly I didn’t enjoy Mumbai for the first few days, I would put it down to a combination of the city its self and being on my own for the first time, after I changed hostels to a better part of town I found that my time go better.

The first place that I stayed was near the Victoria Terminus train station, I booked it because the website looked great with nice clean rooms and a friendly atmosphere. It was anything but when I got there, a small dirty room on the noisy side of the hostel I could hear nothing but the consistant traffic.
The next hostel was better, the room was the same size, only slightly cleaner but the area was much better I was able to access tourist sites and shops that I needed without a 40 min walk.

The moment that Mumbai started to get better is when I went out the Elephant Island and the next day when I stumbled on to a Lord Krishna festival. As the story goes Krishna’s mother had put a jar (milk or cookies I can’t remember) high up so that he couldn’t reach it, so he got his friends around a built a human prymad to reach the jar.
So all these boys and men where creating human prymids to reach these jars of stuff that were secured high above their heads. I took heaps of photos and really enjoyed myself, I haven’t uploaded them as well, as I have fogotten to do so. But will try to do some later on.

My first flight on my own wasn’t all that bad, I did talk to a guy who loved Thailand and as a result had been going one or twice a year for the last 11 years.

Landing in the international airport is easy enough except for the 20 minutes walk to collect your baggage.

Bangkok is hot and hymid and it’s true about the taxi touts at the airport but people at home at warned me about this so I knew what to do. In the end I found a bus stand that would take me to Khao San Road for 150 Baht which was a good price I thought.

Bangkok seems very well travelled so much so that I’m sure that I saw more tourists than I saw locals, it was also the first time that I encountered the ‘tourist touts’, Having travelled in Europe before this was new to me and took some time to get used to.

As I wait for Chris to arrive I went around the tried to explore Khao San area took a few photos and when Chris did turn up went out for some dinner to find out what he has been up to and where he is off to next.

The next day was more sightseeing with a trip downtown to see if I could change my ticket to stay in Thailand longer, but it didn’t work out in the end. More beers and dinner with some friends of Chris who he knew from the south islands.

All in all I quite liked Bangkok even if it was a bit too much sometimes.
Next stop India.