Many carpet , marble, jewelry and carving shops later we have arrived back in deli and our phone is working again!
Bye for now, next stop london.
Saturday 18 April 2009
Homeward bound
Many carpet , marble, jewelry and carving shops later we have arrived back in deli and our phone is working again!
Bye for now, next stop london.
Tuesday 14 April 2009
Whacky Races
Sunday 12 April 2009
Journey to Udaipur
Left at 8am for long days drive to Udaipur. Stopped en route to see embroidery workshop (spend money), to eat snacks (nice gulab jambal - round ball things coated in honey - yum) and to see a Jain temple and Ranakpur (I think that is the right place name). Beautiful carvings. There are two sects to the Jain religion - naked and clothed (did I mention that before somewhere?) Fortunately this one was a clothed temple. Although one of the praying young men was wearing a 'fully air conditioned' sarong thing that I have forgotten the name of. Lets just say it was a little too fully air conditioned for my liking! Martyn is worried now as I had not told him this bit!
Drove through a wildlife park on the way through the Araveli mountain range and saw lots of cute black faced langur monkeys. This resulted in lots of monkey jokes from the group but just to make Claire feel better I had to correct the group when they mentioned Orang Utans in the same sentence as monkey!
Arrived in Udaipur and had best nights sleep of holiday!
Next day was spent in Udaipur. Had a lie in, didn't have to go anywhere until 9am but was awake early so went for a swim in the pool with the local lads. Fortunately their swim trunks were jersey Y fronts and not the thin cotton that other clothing out here is made of. So far today we have seen the Lake Palace Hotel that Udaipur is famous for only due to lack of rain it was more a Mud Flat Palace Hotel. Still, you could see the potential once the rains come! Also visited the Royal Palace and, a very interesting Crystal Gallery which we paid extra for. The crystal was made in Birmingham and ordered by a Maharaja who died before it was delivered so his son unpacked it. We both agreed we were glad we went to see it but the crystal four poster bed and three piece suite were truly revolting!
Tonight off to miniature painting school (I think we are supposed to spend more money but we'll see) and then tomorrow is a long travelling day to Jodphur - the pink city. Getting closer to tigers (excited!)
If anyone is reading this we hope you are all well and will see you soon. Not doing well with postcard sending but will try harder tomorrow as have just realised we haven't yet sent any- oops.
Drove through a wildlife park on the way through the Araveli mountain range and saw lots of cute black faced langur monkeys. This resulted in lots of monkey jokes from the group but just to make Claire feel better I had to correct the group when they mentioned Orang Utans in the same sentence as monkey!
Arrived in Udaipur and had best nights sleep of holiday!
Next day was spent in Udaipur. Had a lie in, didn't have to go anywhere until 9am but was awake early so went for a swim in the pool with the local lads. Fortunately their swim trunks were jersey Y fronts and not the thin cotton that other clothing out here is made of. So far today we have seen the Lake Palace Hotel that Udaipur is famous for only due to lack of rain it was more a Mud Flat Palace Hotel. Still, you could see the potential once the rains come! Also visited the Royal Palace and, a very interesting Crystal Gallery which we paid extra for. The crystal was made in Birmingham and ordered by a Maharaja who died before it was delivered so his son unpacked it. We both agreed we were glad we went to see it but the crystal four poster bed and three piece suite were truly revolting!
Tonight off to miniature painting school (I think we are supposed to spend more money but we'll see) and then tomorrow is a long travelling day to Jodphur - the pink city. Getting closer to tigers (excited!)
If anyone is reading this we hope you are all well and will see you soon. Not doing well with postcard sending but will try harder tomorrow as have just realised we haven't yet sent any- oops.
the day the earth moved
well, martyn is not at all sure about camels! at least he likes them when he is on the ground but the getting up and getting down bit he wasn't sure about and he has found some parts of his body he didn't know existed. Tandem camel riding is great fun, especially when martyn nearly falls off the back.
Desert was lovely, very peaceful but more green than we were expecting, little bits of brush etc but at least the ground was quite hard so we could keep up with the camels. Everyone in the group was very impressed with our walking in the heat and gave us a round of applause when we finished our little trek. We think we got the best bargain - 4 hours walking and one hour on camels. Everyone else seemed to be in much pain the next day.
Earthquake happened at 8am on second day of camel trek, just after breakfast. Apparently it was 5.7 on richter scale. At least we were in the desert because the newspaper shows that bits of the fort we visited at jasailmer a day or two ago have fallen down!
First night of trek was spent in tents with ant infestation for company. Thats what you get for snacking on pringles in your tent. Although it was not so funny when the ants started trying to eat me at 4.30 am. Martyn thought this was hilarious because there were no ants in his bed at all! I must just be very tasty.
Trek finished at nice desert lodge style place with thatched huts and we got to see a local dance and music troupe. Martyn was more impressed by the rustic air conditioning unit consisting of a bale of straw, some water and a fan. Very clever.
That was it for the desert, off to Udaipur now.
Desert was lovely, very peaceful but more green than we were expecting, little bits of brush etc but at least the ground was quite hard so we could keep up with the camels. Everyone in the group was very impressed with our walking in the heat and gave us a round of applause when we finished our little trek. We think we got the best bargain - 4 hours walking and one hour on camels. Everyone else seemed to be in much pain the next day.
Earthquake happened at 8am on second day of camel trek, just after breakfast. Apparently it was 5.7 on richter scale. At least we were in the desert because the newspaper shows that bits of the fort we visited at jasailmer a day or two ago have fallen down!
First night of trek was spent in tents with ant infestation for company. Thats what you get for snacking on pringles in your tent. Although it was not so funny when the ants started trying to eat me at 4.30 am. Martyn thought this was hilarious because there were no ants in his bed at all! I must just be very tasty.
Trek finished at nice desert lodge style place with thatched huts and we got to see a local dance and music troupe. Martyn was more impressed by the rustic air conditioning unit consisting of a bale of straw, some water and a fan. Very clever.
That was it for the desert, off to Udaipur now.
Wednesday 8 April 2009
sandstorm!
Just our lcuk - poor tour guide very concerned - were promised wonderful view of Jasailmer fort in the sunset and a dust storm blew in. We could see in front of our faces - just. Hey Ho - we were laughing!
Hotel here is very posh. Have spent the night in a turret! beautiful round tower like chalet thing. Very smart, felt very under dressed in my natty old travelling clothes! They have a pool and request that you wear a 'proper' swimming costume. Not quite sure what this is but mine seemed fine.
Have visited the fort this morning and going on camel ride into the desert tonight so thought we would post this as likely nothing for two days now.
Considered an Ayurdvic massage for my bum which is sore after lots of travelling in our mini bus. Decided against on the basis the masseuse would be horrified and apparently for a bunch of people who like you to completely cover up the massage is done completely naked - definately not for me! Learnt today there is a branch of the Jain religion that walk around completely naked apparently - they are banned from tourist areas (this seems a shame!) and their prophet statues have their eyes closed (understandable I think!).
Have decided to try and get some exercise to walk off too much yummy food som am skipping camel ride and will walk in desert. I have been allocated the job of leading the camels so I hope they know where they are going otherwise we'll just go round in circles. Haven't told the rest of the group about our navigational skills, they seem quite trusting but they've only known us 4 days.
Better go - Martyn needs to look up the settings for his GPRS SIM card which he still hasn't got working. Bless him, I think he's feeling the pressure! :-)
More after desert.
K
Hotel here is very posh. Have spent the night in a turret! beautiful round tower like chalet thing. Very smart, felt very under dressed in my natty old travelling clothes! They have a pool and request that you wear a 'proper' swimming costume. Not quite sure what this is but mine seemed fine.
Have visited the fort this morning and going on camel ride into the desert tonight so thought we would post this as likely nothing for two days now.
Considered an Ayurdvic massage for my bum which is sore after lots of travelling in our mini bus. Decided against on the basis the masseuse would be horrified and apparently for a bunch of people who like you to completely cover up the massage is done completely naked - definately not for me! Learnt today there is a branch of the Jain religion that walk around completely naked apparently - they are banned from tourist areas (this seems a shame!) and their prophet statues have their eyes closed (understandable I think!).
Have decided to try and get some exercise to walk off too much yummy food som am skipping camel ride and will walk in desert. I have been allocated the job of leading the camels so I hope they know where they are going otherwise we'll just go round in circles. Haven't told the rest of the group about our navigational skills, they seem quite trusting but they've only known us 4 days.
Better go - Martyn needs to look up the settings for his GPRS SIM card which he still hasn't got working. Bless him, I think he's feeling the pressure! :-)
More after desert.
K
Monday 6 April 2009
Singles Afternoon...
dhal in a bucket
a note to our local curry establishment - here your dhal comes in a bucket (a very nice brass one - photo to follow maybe!). That was yesterday - having trouble getting the blogging phone techology to work out here. Martyn has spent 1 hour in the vodafone shop -this was inevitable I suppose. I have given up and come to use the hotel internet with a keyboard that doesn't work so please excus an tyops.
Lots of travelling so far. Cycle ride this morning around some painted havelis and into a fruit and veg market. Got to Bikaner fo 4pm and went to see big Fort where a fesitval was on so lots of people dancing - bit of an Indian street fair thing, hard to describe. Lots of colour and sound. Smells not too bad so far - well apart from Martyn but lets not go there.
May have to invest in cushion, bus is very nice and actually very comfortable but after 12 hours on it in two days and, 7 hours tomorrow my bum is hurting! Roads are interesting. Hit a smooth patch today and we all started to feel travel sick having got into the rhythm of the bumps!
Am going to have to start trying to eat less. Food is great, no idea what any of it is though, just trying everything on the menu! Still, out into the heat of the desert day after tomorrow so maybe we'll sweat lentil and chick pea weight off!
Anyway, have to go = Martyn is trying to work out settings for his blogging phone but apparently has just managd to piggy back off hotel wireless so photo of dhal bucket arriving soon!
Hope you are all well, we're off to sweat in our sleep - its hot here!
Love K&M
PS Posts may vary due to issues and off to desert for two days so nothing for a bit anyway, well apart from camel spit but I don't think that will get as far as you lot. Maybe we can bottle some for you.....yuck, thats gross even for me. sorry.
Saturday 4 April 2009
Juice Explosion
Well we are sat in the airport and this is my first blog on new gadget with predictive text. What fun.martyn doesnt have twenty pairs of socks. Being as he went out for a party while i packed he only has one sock. Hee hee.
Anyways having realised we left bottle of juice in the sun in the kitchen we are hoping kind neighbours will rescue us from a juice explosion.
Terminal five is very posh but we are reserving final judgement until our bags turn up at the other end (hopefully). Better go flight called. K.
Anyways having realised we left bottle of juice in the sun in the kitchen we are hoping kind neighbours will rescue us from a juice explosion.
Terminal five is very posh but we are reserving final judgement until our bags turn up at the other end (hopefully). Better go flight called. K.
Friday 3 April 2009
All Packed! Do we have enough socks?
This starts by tipping all our stuff all over the floor then adding to a large pile; all the stuff we want to take.
When you do this over several days you end up forgetting what you packed. Perhaps i will have one shoe this year, and 20 socks!
Monday 30 March 2009
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