The scenery in Rajasthan was absolutely amazing, but the hassle factor is pretty bad. I gather it's one of the more traditional states in India - certainly not a good place to be a single female traveller. I didn't feel comfortable waving my camera about either, which is why there are only a few photos up.
In Ajmer, I visited a "golden temple" - not the famous one in Amritsar, this is an old, very peaceful Hindu temple with a side attraction: a huge gold (coloured) model of an old Rajah's palace. It's a beautiful sight - alas, photography not allowed. It didn't glitter quite enough to be real gold, I think, although it was not very well lit so I might be mistaken.
However, the good news is that I finally found some fellow travellers! I hooked up with two friendly couples in Pushkar, American and Canadian, and travelled with them to Bundi (by hired car). Unfortunately the Americans were heading back to Delhi and the Canadians had a flight booked to Goa: at this time of year, the flights and Goa hotels are heavily booked so I couldn't join them.
From Bundi it's only 45 minutes by bus to mainline train station Kota, so I did that instead. Hmmm, it turns out that there's a disadvantage to decent roads: the drivers are able to achieve serious speed. With a would-be Schumacher at the wheel I'm glad the journey wasn't any longer! I'll stick to trains :-) I didn't have a train ticket pre-booked, and my Bundi checkout was 9am, so I ended up with a spare day in Kota before my night train, picked a random well-reviewed hotel from Lonely Planet, and went to spend the afternoon there.
It was a lucky choice, I ran into Elizabeth, an English lady who is staying in the area for a couple of month (she's interested in the local tradition of mud hut painting). She has travelled in India since the 60s, and drove out a couple of times in the 60s and 70s, once on her own (!) so her stories were fascinating!
Even better, Elizabeth has made friends in the area and introduced me to Chantal, a Belgian who has just lost her travelling companion. We had slightly different schedules yesterday but have swapped mobile numbers and are planning to meet up again in Jalgaon.
For the moment, I'm slumming it (not) in the "best 5* hotel in Gujurat". My original budget was almost enough to stay in mid-class hotels. I underspent by loads in Gangtok, there's nothing to spend money on there, so my budget has increased enough to be pretty comfortable. However, although I can afford mid class hotels, it turns out that they aren't a good choice: I've tried 3 now and they are almost empty. You get the occasional friendly Indian couple, but there doesn't seem to be any regular trade and I don't feel at all comfortable being the only guest in a hotel. So instead, I'm yoyoing between friendly budget hotels in touristy places where there are crowds for me to join, and top end hotels when I'm in transit towns where you don't get many visitors at all.
Incidently, I gather it's a bad year for India tourism - I've found both hotels and trains pretty empty, except for the best-reviewed entries Lonely Planet, and even then only in the popular sightseeing areas. This means I'm modifying my original off the beaten track to the popular sightseeing trails. I'm also trying not to book tickets too far in advance so that I can be flexible about joining others. (Chantal and I had both only booked our tickets in the last hour or so when we met, grrr!)
The interesting thing is that although my current hotel is extremely comfortable, I'd actually prefer to move on to my next budget location - it's the people you meet that make a trip, not the deluxe bathrooms. The trains tonight are fully booked so I'll stay one more night here, then I've got a day train to Jalgaon where I have heard rave reviews about the friendly owner of my next budget hotel.
So in summary, I'm spending Christmas day on a train!
Here's my current indulgence. Incidently, the pool is beautiful but it's not quite swimming weather here, although it's getting close. Also I have yet to replace my swimsuit. Can't wait for the South! http://www.itcwelcomgroup.in/hotels/Whotels.aspx?hotel=317
24 Dec 2007
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