Hello all my lovely people!

At the moment we are in Jodphur, Rajastan and are nicely fresh and showered after our 5 day camel trek! What an experience we've had since last time I wrote...

From Amritsar we took an overnight train from Amritsar to Jaipur; a 17 hour journey that cost us the grand sum of around 3 pounds! It was comfortable enough but we were glad to leave our seats and the stares of a rather smelly couple sitting opposite.

We took our rickshaw to a mediocre guest house and began to look around. We went to the Amber Fort which was absolutely mind blowing although they were charging tourists 250 rupees rather than the 50 rupee local price! (which enraged us for a little while!) The Fort itself was once home to the Mughal ruler of Jaipur and is so beautiful. Inside it's like a maze of annexes and Marble walls. In the center is a rather magnificent mosaic courtyard.

We stayed two days in Jaipur (which was enough as it is rather a lot of hustle and bustle) and headed on a little bus down to Pushkar (see the picture above). Pushkar is beautiful if not slightly on the touristic side. The streets are lined with clothes shops and incense burns from every street corner (Pushkar is one of the holiest places for Hindus in Rajastan). However, we found a lot of the people to be rather pushy and it literally is rip-off central (Joe had to endure foced Henna in order to find that out first-hand! excuse the pun). It was in Pushkar that John found his new calling - a drummer! He bought a Jamba drum and has been lovingly cradling it throughout the duration of our journey! He likes to entertain us all with a few beats every now and then!

It was also in Pushkar that we got conned into a 'desert safari' on Camel. We wanted to go on a camel trek at some point anyway but as the third day came and went we realised that we would just be riding through wheatfields and tarmac roads. However, we slept under the stars for 4 nights and got to see some pretty amazing wildlife. Plus, we learnt to ride a camel! (We were even getting cocky and overtaking the camel carts after a while! Joe got pretty badly sunburnt, but that was inevitable! We went with two girls named Birgit (from Germany) and Nina (from Austria). They made the trip so fun for me as I had lots of female company and we ended up having such a lovely time (when we weren't complaining about dodgy camel men or sore behinds).

We finished our trek today and hopped on a short bus ride to Jodhpur which, although it's night time and we can't see much, seems lovely. Our guest house is nice and the people seem friendly. From here we plan to head on to Mount Abu and take part in a meditation course (yes that's right!)and then on to Diu Island in Gujurat for some beach relaxation!

Anyhow, I will keep you posted and please let me know how you are all doing at some point!

Lots of Indian love,

El x