Hi chaps, Jenny here. Bundi was a while ago now but i'll try and remember what happened..

We wanted to get to Ranthamborne National Park, so we had to stop at Bundi to get there. I wanted to go anywhere though as i'd heard it was lovely. It really was, a palace and fort built into the side of a cliff- at night it looked exactly like Edinburgh castle.

We arrived quite late at night and none of the places we wanted to go to seemed to be open, so we randomely went with a guy we met in the street to have a look at his guesthouse.. it was by far the oddest place we've stayed so far. Old elephant stables actually built into the palace- its where the maharaje kept his elephants! The business card said 'hot water in every room, bathroom in every room, air con...'.. it was pretty much in the same condition it was when the elephants lived there, no door on the bathroom, cold water shower ("but hot water is available for 50 rupees in a bucket if you need it"), squat toilet.. lovely. It was funny anyway.

We befriended the owners daughter who was quite cute, whilst watching her dad shoot monkeys out of a tree with a pellet gun........ hmm..

Anyway, Bundi was lovely but we just spent the majority of the time arsing about and sleeping. We tried to leave on the second day to catch the 'direct' bus to the national park. I knew it was about a 5 hour journey and was disappointed to see I couldnt use the bus station toilets because there was a cow in them, but i thought I could probably wait.. but after we got settled on the bus, managed to find a space for our massive bags and set off (with about 4 times the allowed number on people on the bus)the conductor told us we were on the wrong bus and would have to connect to another bus in about 3 hours. We werent too concerned because he'd told us we could connect to another bus but we would have prefered to get out and get the right one (we were jammed right in the very back corner of the bus and did actually consider jumping out the window).

Anyway, it was a lovely journey with red monkeys and peacocks, but the longer it went on, the stranger looks we were getting from the locals and it was getting more and more rural until someone finally asked us where the hell we were going.. it transpired that we were in the MIDDLE of the countryside and the connecting bus that the conductor had so kindly told us about, wasnt till the next morning. AAAAAAAHHHHH. About 50 people were crowded round the bus trying to see us and they all came onto the bus and were trying to talk to us and touch us, they were all totally cool though so there was no problems. As it was already about 6pm and the sun had gone down I thought it was probably a good idea to stay where we were or get back to Bundi if possible, LUCKILY our bus was making a round trip so to the amusement of our fan club, we were able to make the journey back. It was like coming home again seeing Edinburgh castle on the cliff... heaven. (By this time, we'd been travelling for about 7 hours and I still hadnt found a toilet. And there was still a cow in the station toilets....)

We chose a random guesthouse which was by far the best place we've stayed yet. It was run by a family and all the meals were homecooked by the lovely mother. They were so kind and interested in us and it was an old havelli so the guesthouse was really stunning. Lovely place, would recommend it to anyone.

Anyway, we had such a nice time with Chintu's family that we ignored Bundi for a few days and just sat about in their house! His cousin was the owner of a guesthouse at the National Park and managed to organise for us to stay there. We wouldnt normally do that but we'd had such a nice stay with Chintu that we thought his cousin's house would be fine..... ha. ha. ha. Read the Ranthambourne blog for that! Bloody weird, I tell you!

Lots of love xxxxxxxx