Agra to Ranthambore

Sorry for being so behind with the entry, the computers over here are awful, slow, and half of the time crash when you are half-way through writing!

Anyway, after leaving Agra we travelled many hours through bumpy country lanes and had a very unpleasant journey. I am sure some may have heard already, but on the way to Ranthambore we came across an accident in the road. I won't lower the tone too much, and just tell you that we saw a man killed on the road after a bus full of people collided head-on with his tuk tuk. This was so awful I cannot even begin to describe in words, so I will just say that it hit us hard, and made us very aware of how very dangerous the roads were; it also made us feel so unbelievably lucky that we were not involved! There was no ambulance or anything anyone could do; the town was just too far from any city.

Anyway, on a lighter and more positive note, when we arrived our hotel had a swimming pool which we made full use of, and the hotel next door had amazing food! We chilled out after a stressful day and had a meal in the gardens surrounded by lanterns and the sound of traditional Indian music which filtered through the trees of the hotel opposite where there was a wedding taking place.

The next morning, we woke at 5am, which was not pleasant as neither of us are morning people, however it was worth it to see the sun rise over the mountains, as we set off to the national park. We were greeted by dozens of monkeys swinging from the trees above us before driving round the park, situated around a huge lake, full of crocodiles, wild boars eating what looked to be dirt in the reeds and wild deer drinking from the lake. It was a beautiful place; however, we both felt that it had been spoiled by tourism. After several false alarms of tiger sightings, which pardon my cynicism -seemed more like a ploy to entertain us for longer and drag out the safari ride, we left the park feeling rather guilty for having been tourists ourselves.

That evening we had dinner again in the gardens and prepared for the day ahead of us - our journey back down the rough tracks and across to Jaipur.