Jodphur (06/01/10 pm)
Today, visited the Mehrangarh fort in Jodphur. It’s a wonderful place, excellent restored and with quality audio guide and signs. Apparently, when they started to restore it in 1972 one source of income was from selling the bat guano that have accumulated, which is an unusual start to a museum. Finished off the tour with an excellent veggie thali that went down very well.
Then moved onto a lightening tour of the outside of the palace — the tuk-tuk man expected to clean up on the return journey, but we already knew it would be shut by the time we got there. It was good, though, from the outside, and lovely at sunset. The tuk-tuk man on the way back tried to take us for 150 rupees back to the hotel; in the end we settled on 60 to the clock tower (5 minutes away).
Now in the train station waiting for a sleeper to Jaisalmer — I’m slightly nervous as we are travelling sleeper rather than AC2 — which is the first class — as there were no tickets. An aussie at the hotel mentioned that his sister lost her bags in the sleeper after someone gassed the entire carriage. The train station is not good; there are people everywhere, spread across the floor, sleeping on the stone while waiting. We’ve gone for the AC2 lounge (which technically we shouldn’t, I guess), which has seats at least.
We still don’t have reservations from Jaisalmer — we’re front of the reservations list, waiting for a drop out — apparently, we have a good chance, but I don’t want a good chance, I want tickets.