National Lampoon's Indian Vacation

Short post today, as not much has happened. Well apart from leaving the plane tickets for Udaipur to Mumbai and Mumbai to Goa in a safe in Jaipur that is!!! I put them in the safe to make sure they were, erm, safe! I can't quite believe it really, but it wouldn't be a Mouseburger blog if it all went smoothly. Anyway, I have spoken to the hotel we were staying at in Jaipur, and they have sent me faxed copies on email, which my current hotel has kindly printed out for me, so I am hoping that covers us really, as they are just e-tickets.

We have had a bit of a lay in this morning, which was a welcome relief from the early starts, although that said, my body clock woke me up at 5:30am as I could hear all the birds singing. I haven't got much to write about as we have done little today apart from being in the car for about 4 hours driving from Bijaynagar to Jodhpur.

The journey is long and there were the usual cow obstacles to contend with and the occasional herd of goats, but otherwise it was a drive through the Rajasthani countryside. Some things have changed though, there are more hills to negotiate and drive over and there is a strong wind blowing across the open expanses.

For a while I worried that the wind meant we would be greeted with a Gambia weather scenario (see the Gambia blog) when we got to Jodhpur, but these fears were soon allayed when we stopped off for a comfort break and I opened the car door to be blasted with a wind which could have come from the fires of hell!! It was scorching out there, and I had been lulled into a false sense of security, even thinking it a bit chilly in the air conditioned car we were driving around in!!

 To help pass the time when driving (Sarah was having an in car snooze) I started looking at the shop signage as we were driving along, and I noticed a curious thing. Cement is big business in India. I guess when we want cement, we just pop to B&Q or Homebase, but in India there is a whole gamut of choice. I then started doing an Eye-Spy of cement brands I could see advertised to help pass the time on the journey. There is Wonder Cement, UltraTech cement, Bangur cement, Rockstrong cement, Jaypee cement, ACC cement, Lakshmi cement and Ambuja cement. There is a hell of a lot of building and development going on around India from what I have seen, so I guess cement is big business here!

Finally, we approached Jodhpur where we met up with our local contact (Singh), who had a most impressive handlebar moustache! He was very enthusiastic about Jodhpur and welcomed us to the city and explained what we were going to get up to in our time here.

We are staying in the old part of Jodhpur at a boutique hotel called the Raas Haveli which has views of the fort. I have to say this place is spectacular, we have a balcony overlooking the fort, and the room is superbly cool, which is a relief as the days here are just getting hotter and hotter (42 degrees)!! This is definitely one of those hotels rooms which you will always remember, it is that plush (we even have a bath which has views of the Fort!). Anyway other than settling in, we have done very little after getting to Jodhpur apart from dipping in the pool and drinking beer!

I will however give you a couple of snaps, to whet your appetite. 

View of the Fort from our room

The Fort at night from the Roof bar! I will never forget this view!

Tomorrow we do a proper tour of the city, so we will need be mindful and pack plenty of water as it is supposed to be even hotter again!