Western Rajasthan

From Mount Abu to Udaipur was a nine hour drive on good dual-carriageway toll-roads. The central reservations of bright flowering bushes put the dreary old M1 to shame, although they probably would'nt be much good stopping an out-of-control truck from heading into the oncoming traffic. After the usual mission of negotiating the narrow lanes with the landcruiser we eventually agreed a price for a great hotel room with courtyard parking within the old town walls, right near the palace. The rooftop restaurant had expensive beer but great views over the city.

Udaipur is where the James Bond film 'Octopussy' was filmed, particularly noted for the lake Palace hotel which was somewhat out of our budget. Roger Moore had shopped in virtually every shop we visted so God knows how he fitted in the time for filming. Unfortunately the lake around the palace was pretty much dried up over the summer period so it did'nt look all that picturesque, but on the plus side it looked like you could 4wd around it. I set out to test how soft some of the grassy areas were but didnt get far due to suspicion that i might be walking through a local latrine-area. So unfortunately that, along with the Amelia's unfounded reluctance to risk getting bogged in front of 1000 tourists and 10,000 locals, was the end of that idea.

Dissapointed I agreed to visit the City Palace instead. This is a spectacular conglomeration of various palaces from the Rajput warriors and the Mughals dating before 1559.

The highlight has to be a horse with a trunk - the Mughals fought on elephants and the Mewars on horses, so cunningly the the Mewars came up with the idea to put false elephant trunks on their horses to fool the enemy elephants into thinking they were baby elephants, and so not be attacked - genius!

There were also paintings of elephants holding massive swords in their trunks and chopping up the enemy which was pretty cool. We were planning to buy some of the great minature paintings sold in Udaipur but I had a Kingfisher Strong hangover and wasnt in the mood for the heat and relentless hassle from the bloody sellers trying to rip you off, so we set off on a ten hour drive to Mount Abu.

Mount Abu is Rajasthan's only hillstation and is unfortunately a bit rubbish compared to the hillstations of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. However its altitude makes it relatively cool, and thus a favourite holiday destination to escape the summer heat of Gujarat. Our GPS said about 1200m and a local said 1700m, so not really sure exactly how high it was. The town consists of hundreds of hotels and restaurants around a lake busy with peddle-boats. Groups of very smart and brightly dressed Indians meander through the music and evening lights, while hawkers of colourful plastic novelties draw interested crowds to their rugs laid on the warm ground.
It was a ten hour drive north west to Jaisalmer, but the dusty desert roads of Rajasthan are great, new tarmac, wide and smooth. Apparently this is so military equipment can be transported quickly to and from the Pakistan border areas. The main hazards are the damn goats wandering all over the place.
Jaisalmer is a medieval walled town in the Thar desert, dominated by a huge golden coloured fort, and famous for camels and embroided rugs.

Given the lack of tourists due to the summer heat, it seemed a good opportunity to get a good price on a rug from one of the many (hopefuly brassic and desperate) devilish rip-off merchants in town. It is quite difficult to enter a shop, look at rugs, not buy anything, and get out within half an hour.

They are all in league with each other, smooth-talking the same weasely lies over a weasley chai, surrounded by rugs being hoisted up by weasley little assistants. Noone will ever tell you what a reasonable price actually is. The good quality rugs made from hand-embroided pieces of old dresses collected from villages always start at a massive RP25000, but really you should pay no more than RP7000. Over four hours later we knew enough about the different rugs, and more importantly what a reasonable prices is, to make a decision and actually strike a deal with one of the snakes.
That evening we drove out to the desert to camp for the night and to meet some camels the next morning.
It was very peaceful and quiet until, in true Indian fashion, three cars of very polite locals turned up to cook on a fire and drink whisky. They were all very friendly and gave us some japati and mutton they cooked, and it was interesting to hear about smuggling alcohol with camels over the Pakistani border.

The camels turned up soon after sunrise and we went for a walk around for a few hours. Amelia's camel had a really manky mouth, mine was faster but probably did'nt get a good nights sleep as it flopped on the ground, knackered at the end of it. We on the other hand were suprisingly not sore at all!