We had an amazing couple of days and nights, trekking through desert, stopping off at the odd village for water, or chatting to any random farmers that crossed our path, and sleeping under the stars with Kamal snuggled up beside us. After a few days of this we had to say an emotional goodbye to our new friends, and got picked up by jeep to take us back to Jasialmer.

We hung around for another day as we waited for our bus to Jaipur, and among other things had tea with an Indian family who offered to paint Sarah's toes for her, and saw a large crowd forming around what turned out to be a man trying to free a pigeon from an overhead wire. He failed.

Our next stop (and our last in Rajasthan) was Jaipur, known as 'the pink city', since it was painted that colour in honour of Prince Albert's visit. We visited the Hawa Mahal (wind palace, built for the king's ladies), the Raj Mandir cinema where we watched 'Gunday', and the Jantar Mantar, an outdoor observatory with instruments used for determining horoscopes before the days of telescopes. This last would have made an excellent level on Tony Hawk Pro Skater.  

Hawa Mahal

Raj Mandir

Jantar Mantar

We also spent an afternoon at the nearby Amber Fort, a short bus ride from Jaipur followed by a steep climb. We were rewarded by getting the chance to see THE WORLD'S LARGEST CANNON!

We saw these two guys enjoying each other's company on the way back down.

Our original plan when leaving Goa was to head north to Rishikesh and do a bit more yoga before we (sob) went back to England. We were within reach of Rishikesh in Jaipur but we had one more stop to make before that, so our next destination was Agra to see the Taj Mahal. 

It was, well, a massive marble gravestone which we paid 750 rupees each for the pleasure of seeing. We got there early but there was a big queue already. We got in and got out, checked out of the hotel then hung around in the noisy street directly outside the Taj for most of the day watching Slumdog Millionaire before taking a 'nature walk'. There was other stuff to do in Agra but we took the easy option and waited for our bus to Haridwar in comfort. We arrived in Haridwar the next morning then took the 1 hour bus ride to Rishikesh. We couldn't believe our eyes. After the noisy cities we have travelled through we weren't expecting the serene sight of the Ganga weaving its way through the hills around. We decided to set up camp until it was time to go home and spent just under two weeks in this blissful surrounding.

We were delighted to be joined by an old friend for the Holi festival.

Kathryn!

We also tried out a few different yoga classes, had a few walks in the mountains and fought off the monkeys from our balcony. From Rishikesh we came to Delhi where I am writing this now.

The train ride from Ajmer to Jodhpur was about 6 hours, and we enjoyed hanging out of the train as the countryside zipped by.

We were only in town on a short stopover en route to Jaisalmer, but we had time to check out the Mehrwar fort, which offered some good views of the city.

From Jodhpur it was 6 hours by bus to Jaisalmer, on the edge of the Thar desert and not (that) far from the Pakistan border. We arrived in the evening and set off early the next morning for three day of camel safari.

Diu turned out to be a welcome break from the hectic Indian city life we had been living. The streets were almost deserted  and we easily found accommodation in a converted church. We had a pretty lazy couple of days, but did find time to rent some bicycles and take a leisurely ride around the small town.

My first attempt at hiring a bicycle resulted in me riding off in a delightful pink number that lost its chain after 1 km and left me walking back to the shop with greasy hands, but the next place I tried offered a more reliable product, and we had a pleasant afternoon's cycling before catching the bus to Udaipur. I think I have actually managed to lose all my photos from Udaipur, so I will upload some if they turn up, otherwise I will just have to describe what was an incredible visit to the 'city of lakes'. This really was like no other place we have been in India, and as our first taste of Rajasthan provided all the colour we had been promised. We took time to visit the Shilpgram cultural exhibit and saw the dancing show at Bakore e Haveli, both of which I can recommend, especially the Rajasthani puppet-shows which revealed the inspiration for Sooty's annoying squeaky voice. After Udaipur we took a 5 hour bus journey to Mt Abu, a holiday resort near a nature reserve in the hills of Southern Rajasthan.

The air was a lot cleaner (and colder) here.

We took the opportunity to do a bit of hiking, with the chance of seeing bears and cheetahs in the wild. We had no such luck, but did see crocodiles and mongoose, and had a good day with our guide Ashok from the Shri Ganesh hotel.

From Mt Abu we took a (queasy) bus ride down to the nearby train station, then it was a 6 hour journey to Ajmer. 

From here we were just a short bus ride from Pushkar, where we offered our own Puja in the bathing Ghats, and fondly recalled our time in Arambol surrounded by tourist stalls selling T-Shirts, Ali-Baba pants etc.

Post-Puja

Ajmer train station

We also visited the Dargah, one of the most important Muslim pilgrimage places in India, and heard the qawwali there.

Next stop: Jodphur

We arrived in Ahmedabad in a similair manner to our arrival in Pune i.e. kicked out of the bus on the outskirts of town at about 6 am. We managed to find a hotel pretty easily though (don't want to tempt fate but I think we're getting better at this). After we had dropped our stuff off and got something to eat we headed off to Ghandi's ashram.

This is where Bapu spent th first 15 years of his struggle against the British and the march toward Indian independence. It was a real eye-opener as well as being a lovely way to spend an afternoon. The next day we checked out an old fort in the middle of the old town before taking a guided tour of the old mosques and temples in the area.

Our guide Jagdish even took us for a spot of lunch at his place. The next morning we just had time for a spot of breakfast before we had to catch a bus to Junagadh, our next chosen destination. The restaurant had a tree growing up through the middle of the floor, as well as mausoleums everywhere you looked.

We arrived in Junagadh just as the sun was going down. In front of us we saw Mount Girnar rising in the distance, a challenge if ever we saw one. 

 So we rose early the next morning and tackled the 10,000 steps to the top. It was actually more of a challenge getting back down, due to the amount of people stopping us and asking if they could take a picture. 

Later on we looked around Uperkot Fort in Junagadh town, and our tour guide Vinod asked us to dinner (bit of a theme emerging here), so we got to feast on some authentic Gujrati fare for the second time in three days.

The well at Uperkot fort

Vinod and his friend Uday

That was it for our Junagadh adventure, it was a lively little place but we had found the last week or so pretty hectic, so we headed off for the island enclave of Diu, another ex-Portuguese colony like Goa, but much smaller and without the hippies.

Its been a couple of weeks since I arrived back in India and there's been a lot happening since then, elections went ahead in Bangkok in the end but I'm glad to be out of that particular fracas. Today in the Indian parliament a brawl ensued over the creation of a new state called Telengana, which ended up with one MP pepper-spraying another! Democracy is clearly thriving across South Asia.

After meeting up with Sarah again we spent a few days in Arambol before deciding enough was enough. We waved goodbye to the farm and started our travelling adventure for real. The cows were sad to see us leave.

We started off with a couple of days in Ajuna, which is only about half an hour down the Goan coast. We had a night out at Shiva Valley, but neither of are big trance fans so we decided not to stick around. We got the bus down to Panjim and booked a coach to Pune, which is in Maharashstra just a few hours outisde Mumbai. We had a bit of time to kill so hung around outside the church for the afternoon. I had my guitar and a few wannabe rock stars asked if they could pose for a photo. I was happy to oblige.

Meanwhile Sarah was busy making friends.

And then our time in Goa was up, we boarded the overnight coach to Pune and settled in to our sleeper bunk. After being dumped on the outskirts of town in the small hours we negotiated our way to a hotel in the centre, then headed out for a day trip to Sinhgad, a mountain just a short bus trip away. We got there OK but the bus needed a bit of help making the return journey.

Sinhgad boasts a fort at the top of a mountain, so we hiked our way up in the midday sun. A couple of hours later we were rewarded with a panoramic view of the Maharashstra countryside.

We met plenty of tourists on the way up and if Pune hadn't been enough of a wakeup call it began to dawn on us that Arambol isn't really representative of the rest of India. English isn't as widely spoken everywhere as it is in Goa for a start. European tourists are also a lot rarer so we are getting used to the disbelieving looks. 

We hung out in Pune for another day then took the advice of a bloke we met in a park and boarded a bus to Shirdi the next morning.

Pune station at sundown.

Shirdi is a major pilgrimage town as it is the home of Sai Baba, a major figure in Hinduism. He lived here in the early 20th century and is regarded as a saint or even a living God. We queued for an hour with the thousands of pilgrims that pass through this town every day for a glimpse of the holy idol. We British love a good queue after all (sorry no cameras in the temple). We only stayed one night in Shirdi before boarding a tour bus that would take us to a few more sites of pilgrimage for Hindus, the main one being the Ellora caves, which were cut down vertically into a mountain side and fully deserve their status as a UNESCO world heritage site. There are both Hindu and Buddhist caves here, but our group only had time for the Hindu ones.

Kailisya Temple at Ellora

Indian selfie

Sarah making friends again

After Ellora our tour finished in Aurangabad, a small town that acted as a base for another spot of cave dwelling the next day, this time the Ajanta caves which lie about two hours further North.

These Buddhist caves are cut horizontally into the mountainside, used for shelter during the monsoons. They lay undiscovered for centuries after the civilisation that built (cut?) created them suddenly collapsed. There are paintings inside some of them that date back to the second century BC (this one isn't that old though, it dates from the 5th century AD so is comparatively recent)

The caves are supported by intricately carved pillars, I thought I saw one slipping so stepped in until they could arrange a more permanent support.

After a troglodicious couple of days it was time to wave goodbye to Aurangabad, but we had a day to kill before our bus to Ahmedabad was leaving, so we grabbed a spot of breakfast for heading off to - the Aurangabad caves!

This is a smaller set of Buddhist caves just outside Aurangabad, nowhere near as exciting as Ajanta or Ellora, but at least we had them to ourselves.

It was almost time to board our bus, but Sarah found time to make a few more friends so hailed a passing auto-rickshaw.

And with that we were off to Ahmedabad in the state of Gujarat.