We took our last Indian train to the holy city of Varanasi. It was about a 14 hour journey but we were able to get a bit of sleep which was good. We checked into our hotel, had a shower and some breakfast and then caught an auto rikshaw to go to the ghats...or so we thought. Our driver proceeded to take us on a sightseeing tour which ended with us in a "Muhgal village" where we got to see them weaving silk fabrics. The end of this "tour" had us sitting on the...

As our time in the state of Rajasthan comes to a close we had 3 long driving days, two on a public bus and one in a private car. The first day of travel we stopped in the city of Bikaner...this is where the rat temple is located, yes I said rats! For some reason they have decided rats are sacred here. People come and feed them. After the rat temple we then stopped for ice cream at the Baskin Robbins. It was nice to see something familiar. The next stop wa...

We left Jodphur on a public sleeper bus. Again transportation in India is quite the sport!! We made it to Jaisalmer slightly jostled but safe! Jaisalmer is a desert city with modern windmills all around and old fashioned houses. Actually people still live in the fort in the city. This is the only one of it's kind in India. The city is great to wander around while only getting slightly hassled to buy goods! We were lucky enough to go out to the Thar desert...

Our next stop was Jodhpur, also known as the blue city, for the blue colour a lot of the buildings in the old city are painted. The highlight of Jodhpur is the impressive hilltop Megrangarh Fort which has some spectacular views of the city. We did an audio-guided tour of the fort which was actually pretty interesting. Afterward, our tour guide took us to a place for some really good lassis (almost like a milkshake, but without ice cream) and kuchuris (kind of ...

We left the craziness of Jaipur and took a public bus to the relatively quiet small city of Pushkar. After the noise and traffic on Jaipur it was a nice change. Pushkar is "famous" for having the one and only (in the world) temple dedicated to the Hindu god Brahma. There is also a small lake in town with a number of ghats (steps down to the water) for puja (worship) and bathing. We walked around the lake and sat on a couple of the ghats to watch the world go...