Sorry for the delay but due to both the fact we lacked some serious internet connection for a while and, probably more important, we've been very very busy lying on Diu beach beneath a palm tree with some cheap beer. Diu must be among the cheapest places in India for a nice cold beer (rs 30 for a large 650ml kingfisher instead of the 80rs we har to pay in Uttaranchal) so we decided to take our time.
My last post ended with our trip out of the mountains so let's continue from there..
Although we did not plan on going to Rajastan we soon discovered our trip had to go through there if we wanted to reach Gujarat and we didn't want to pass through Delhi again (we have seen some Delhi bound trains leaving the mountains and decided to avoid them if remotely possible) so off we went into the tourist trap called Rajastan..
First place to visit was Bikaner, not very touristic and also a good place to arrange a few days in the desert accompanied by a camel. It turned out there were indeed some very good options for a safari but noone wanted/dared to take us since the hotel we stayed at was involved in what we have since been calling the camel-maffia. At first people were eager to take us on a safari for about rs500 a day but when they found their neighbour had seen us entering the shop and already called our hotel about it it (who wanted to sell us the same sdafari for rs 700 a day) we were no longer welcome. So we decided to take our loss and try someplace else. We had however one other other item on our itenary while in Bikaner: The rat temple in Deshnok 30 km south of Bikaner. Unfortunately we were not allowed in the inner temple but we still had a chance to see loads of rats (no white one though so much for good luck) and it turned out the guy selling camera permits also sold camel safaris. So the next day we checked out and headed to Deshnok again.
We spent 2 days/one night in the desert in the company of 3 camels (one with a cart), their owners and the friends we met on the festival. The safari itself was great, the Thar desert is very green for a desert and is heavily populated. Though I had trouble sitting for the 2 following weeks.
After Bikaner we went on to Jodhpur (the blue city though we couldn't really find much blue around). This turned out to be a horrible city so after spending 2 days seeing the highlights of the city we took off to Udaipur our last stop before Gujarat. And what a stop it was...
It turned out we were lucky because for the first time in 6 years there had been a decent monsoon season so the lakes who had been totally dried up for 6 years were totally filled with water. And we were also very lucky to encounter a very friendly guesthouse owner at 5am wandering te streets looking for guests while we were looking for accomodation. This turned out tho be our best, and cheapest, room yet with a great rooftop view of the lakes and accompanying palaces/7star hotels. This included the lake palace hotel starring in the James bond movie Octopussy, a fact of course which every friendly udaipurian was eager to remind us off and it was hard to find a restaurant that was NOT showing the movie at 7 pm.
I also had my first expirience as a participant in indian traffic here, we decided to rent a motorcycle and scout the countryside. This is actually great once you figure out how to drive here: Just pick a lane, sound the horn continuously and only move out of the way for things bigger than you (basically everthing with more wheels)
Udaipur was so good we stayed there for a along week and we then decided to hike straight to the coast since winter nights are getting seriously cold in the plains. I know you now all think I'm not that serious, cold??? Yuo're in india south of the tropic of cancer..., but let me remind I came prepared for the temperatures we have during the day and not for temperatures below 10 (it might have even hit 0 on occasion) so when my whole wardrobe is in use and I'm still cold it's time for action. I could think of 2 options:
A) Buy more clothes. This would mean extra weight in my pack.
B) Head for the coast. This would mean my first decent fish meal for quite some time.
The choice was simple....
So we pretty much skipped all Gujarat on the way in to head straight to Diu (officially not part of Gujarat but governed directly from Delhi) for some serious relaxation. Cheap beer, good seafood and greaqt beaches it was enough to keep us occupied for 9 days before we started hiking back into Gujarat. First we went to Sasan Gir wildlife santuary to try and spot some lions, no lion in sight but the trip alone was more than worth it (~12 hrs for a 40km trip) with the bus breaking down, ppl repairing it, breaking down agian, repairing it and so on and so on until the bus was finally given up (it was a minimum of 2 year past expiry date anyway) and we were hoisted on top of a truck for the remainder of the journey (which turned out to not be completely true since we had to change 2 more times to get to our destination).
After a day on wildlife safaris we went to Veraval to catch ongoing transport to Rajkot for a one day visit to what has been Gandhi's hometown. He actually moved here when he was 6 years old but that's still considered hometown....
And now we're totally on track again since I'm currently inside a Rajkot cyber cafe punching a keyboard.... next stop Bhopal to slowly work our way back to Delhi where we're expected at Christmas....
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