Roasting in Rajasthan

We left Mumbai, luckily for Aisling, we took a plane this time instead of another bus. We arrived in Udaipur to a cooking 44 degrees, but little did we know it was only going to get hotter from here. Udaipur is called the Venice of the east but it was almost more like Lake Como with the town built up on a cliff overlooking the lake. We only had one day to see the city so we rented a tuk-tuk (autorickshaw) for the day. In just a few short hours we had seen the tombs for all the kings of queens of Udaipur for the last few hundred years, a wedding parade complete with a 10 year old groom mounted on horseback, an elephant walk through streets that were barely wide enough to fit a car, and some kind of celebration involving women in brightly coloured saris carrying similarly decorated vessels on their head.
We then headed off to eat at a lakeside restaurant with a beautiful view of the Pond Pal....sorry I mean LAKE Palace. Due the time of year, and a less than wet monsoon last year, the city of lakes was more like a city of large puddles, but nevermind, the dry lakebed made for a great cricket ground for the locals.


Next we were off on a night train to Jaipur, the Pink City. We had one day of sightseeing the hectic bazaar that surrounded the Pink Palace, before a dodgy papaya shake ensured that Shling didn’t see much but the inside of our hotel room for the next two days, the slightly healthier Noah was relegated to fetching fresh drinking water duty. Feeling much better a few days later, we then made tracks to Jaisalmer...the hottest yet.


Topping out at 50 degrees, the idea of doing a camel safari in the desert sounded more like torture than a treat, so we opted to stay around town knowing that we had a nice air conditioned room to come home to at night. Having made a quick stop at the Bhang shop for some special cookies (recommended by Lonely Planet), we then made our way to the only restaurant crazy enough to be open at the hottest time of the day ...Little Italy. A veggie pizza and 2 litres of water later we braved the heat to wander through 1 of only 2 lived in forts in all of India. The stunning fort was at its best at night, the view from the top extended all the way into Pakistan. After a dinner that was definitely overpriced (£2.50 for chicken tikka ... seriously??) we decided to follow the light. From our vantage point on the rooftop restaurant we could see a bright glowing light off in the distance and the unmistakeable sound of bhangra music. Like moths to a flame we were off, only to discover that since it is the off season, the locals take the opportunity to play cricket every night, with games kicking off at 6:30pm, 9:30pm, and 11:30pm. There we met a friend, who despite promising not to sell us anything, the following day tried his hardest to sell us a giant wall hanging and a duvet cover despite our insistence that travelling another 5months with it on our backs was near to impossible. But still, after a few beers we left amiably, ordered a pizza to go, and headed off for our overnight train to Delhi. All in all Rajasthan had undeniable beauty, however everyone who told us that it was a place not to be missed has obviously not visited in 49 degree weather. We will have to re-visit it in the future, when there is water in the lake and we don’t have to take a break every 20min to recover from the heat. Next Agra and the Taj Mahal.