Jaisalmer to Jodhpur 31/5

Today we arrived in Jodhpur, a couple of hundred kilometres from Jaisalmer. A shorter drive on some better roads, so that’s been welcome. We are getting to know Pal better, he’s an excellent driver amongst some very unusual road conditions and unpredictable fellow road users. Yesterday in Jaisalmer I went out to have a look at the fort. It’s a very impressive structure made from honey coloured sandstone. Some parts have been affected by a recent earthquake, but there seems to be a fair amount of restoration work happening. I had a guide, Manu, an extremely knowledgeable, fourth generation resident of the fort. The entire city used to be housed within the fort’s walls and has expanded over time as the threat of invasion has decreased. We wandered uphill through three main gates, one of which served as a spot to cool down on the walk up the hill. The combination of the constant breeze and the heavy surrounding brickwork combined to make a cool section which was most welcome. In the fort I was taken to one of the many bastions (99 in total around the fort), for a great view out over the rest of the city. Jaisalmer isn’t a huge place, around 60,000 people, so you could pretty much see to the developed edges, quite impressive. There are numerous tradespeople trying to sell all manner of products within the fort’s walls. There was also a large amount of people there just doing their day to day thing. The fort’s other residents seemed to be a lot of cows, they really had the run of the place and in some narrow stretches you had to be quite careful trying to get past them or not slip in their manure. There were numerous paintings outside people’s houses of Ganesh (an Indian deity with the head of an elephant) and Manu explained that they were painted along with the date of an impending wedding for good luck by the family. I also visited two historic Jain temples, I think the photos will best explain them once they are up. Leaving the fort’s walls, Manu took me into the old town, the oldest settlement outside the fort. We travelled along very narrow and crowded streets in the back of a tuk-tuk driven by a real character, insisting on singing, cursing or sweet talking people as he went along at a decent pace - with lots of horn beeping. He took us to view the Havelis, a series of ornate carved buildings, again I think the photos will explain better. After that I was taken to a shop to view a multitude of wall hangings, bedspreads and pashmina scarves as part of the ‘tour’ experience. It’s in these situations where the pressure to buy something is quite real and insistent, despite all the assurances to the contrary. Anyway, to cut a long story short we didn’t end up buying anything and afterwards Pal advised us where we could get stuff cheaper anyway, he just couldn’t mention it in front of the guide. We’ve changed our tour at this point, we were meant to head out on a camel safari, something we were both not entirely happy with, so we’ve elected not to go and we’ve changed our itinerary to include a wildlife park down the track - we are looking forward to it. In the evening I headed out with Pal while Kirsten stayed at the hotel. As we couldn’t find a restaurant that would let us drink byo beer (and a lot of places are shut due to off season), Pal took me to a hostel where all the drivers stay. A pretty humble affair where they either sleep in a dorm or outside if the weather permits. I met the guy who owns it and he arranges food and lodging for the drivers. We spent the evening out in the carpark having a few beers, and something to eat (lots of onion - which I reeked of later). Then the beers started being mixed with gin and I was taken back to the hotel in a merrier state and I woke up in a less merrier state for our drive to Jodhpur. Pal reckons he doesn’t remember much after he got back to the driver’s hostel. Thankfully feeling much better after something to eat on the road.

Bikaner to Jaisalmer 29/5

This morning we went to the Bikaner Fort and Museum. The museum had some period costumes, furniture, photos of princes and princesses, it was quite well done. We went into the fort after that, we only had a look around rather than following the guide and the main group as I wasn’t feeling very well, the dreaded travel guts has struck. The heat wasn’t helping either so we left fairly quickly. After that was the car ride to Jaisalmer which took around six and a half hours so we were pretty tired when we arrived. The whole day we were travelling through bone dry desert with the odd bit of scrub, some flattened trees and the odd goat or sheep wandering about trying to find something to eat. We also saw a baby camel wandering about on the side of the road, as well as the usual sacred cows ruling everything. After a short rest our driver Pal took me to watch the sunset from a vantage point set up on a hill - a complex where members of the royal family are cremated. The structure was impressive and the sunset wasn’t bad, a bit marred by all the dust in the air. Kirsten didn't venture out as she needed some more rest.

Delhi to Bikaner 28/5

We were picked up by our driver at 9am and set of to Bikaner, in Rajasthan. It was a really long day today so this will be a short post - we rolled into our hotel at 6pm. On the way we saw some village life, a lot of very, very dry farmland - then desert, as well as all kinds of transport. The little tuk-tuks (three wheel motorbikes) are different outside of Delhi. They are more ornate with painted signs and some crazy chrome action all over them. We also saw a fair few animals today - camels (both out in the desert and pulling wagons), lots of dogs, donkeys, goats, an elephant and also a mongoose.

Delhi - 26/5 - 27/5

We spent pretty much all of the 26th in bed trying to catch up on sleep and beat jet lag, which seemed to work out okay. Our first meal in India was some room service. It turned out to be pretty nice - we had a vegetable curry, yellow dahl and mushroom mattar - a good way to kick off eating in India. We went to see a travel agent after that as we decided to get some travel within India organised for us rather than doing it ourselves like in Vietnam. The next day we had a driver to see some sights in Delhi, the first stop was the Jaima Masjid Mosque, the largest in India, where the locals gleefully took one look at us and took us for a ride. Not reading the guidebook before we went in meant that we paid to get into a free monument and that we also ended up paying for a ‘guide’ at the end as well as paying a guy too much for looking after our shoes. It was worth visiting though and the 'guide' shared some interesting historical information about the mosque. So, lesson one in India: trust no one! We headed over to the Red Fort after that but didn’t worry about going in as we’d been informed that Agra Fort is much more impressive so we’ll go there instead. After that the heat was beginning to take its toll on both of us so we went to the (air-conditioned) National Museum of India. It was well worth the visit as there are displays on the ancient cultures of India, coins, maritime exploits, some info on the East India Trading Company - loads of stuff. After that our driver took us to a restaurant for lunch - very yummy. In the evening we finalised our tour booking. At the travel agent we met Claudia, a lady from Brazil, who was telling us she’d just spent a month in Kashmir. She went for three days and ended up staying 30. She went on to say that she was returning to Brazil to wrap up her affairs over the next four months and was then going to live in Kashmir. It was back to the hotel and off to bed afterwards as we had an early start the next morning.

Leaving Hanoi - 25/5

We had a quiet night in on the 24th ready for a full day of travel on the 25th. We left the hotel and made it to the airport in plenty of time. I scored some duty free aftershave from Kirsten for my birthday which was nice. The flight was delayed out of Hanoi by about 20-30 minutes but then we were off. There was some serious turbulence on the way to Hong Kong, worse than anything we’d been through so far (or perhaps ever), a few people were ill on the flight. Thankfully there wasn't a chain reaction. When we landed we were met by Cathay Pacific staff who advised us that due to the delay we’d missed our connection. We had to wait eight hours for the flight at 10.55pm. We were given a couple of meal vouchers (which didn’t end up going very far as the HK dollar is about six to the Australian dollar) and were set loose in the shopping mayhem that is Hong Kong airport. We didn’t buy too much stuff, just magazines and crap to fill in the time. They had free wireless internet but it took ages so we’ve got a bit of a delay with uploading all the blog stuff. When we finally boarded, the next part of the trip was so crap I scarcely want to relive it! Suffice to say there was someone I was sure had black lung, or at the bare minimum swine flu, in front of us and someone who could snore for the whole of India's cricket team behind us. We finally made it out of customs and were met by our driver having booked some accommodation and a transfer to the hotel in advance (thanks Nick!). Once we checked into the hotel we collapsed into comas at about 3am.

Snakes on a Bus! - Leaving Sapa

I forgot to mention this in my earlier Sapa post but thought it was worth posting. We thought the title of this post would be a worthy sequel to Samuel L Jackson’s movie "Snakes On A Plane". We were heading down to Lao Cai train station from Sapa, along the hilly and winding roads. About half an hour into the journey the driver and the representative from Handspan Travel decided to stop, attracted by a roadside merchant. It turned out to be a snake... tied to a branch. Not a dead snake either! The guy was selling it as it’s a bit of a delicacy. They cut off the head and drain the blood to drink then cook the body in a stew. The snakes become more active during rainy weather conditions making them easier to catch. The merchants and our driver worked out a price while I took a few last photos of the local scenery. The driver and the rep attempted to tie the snake up with some vines to the base of a chair in the back of our van - next to our luggage. Despite assurances the snake was non venomous we elected to put our feet up off of the floor for the duration of the journey - no snake related mayhem ensued.