Another train, another car, and we arrive in Pushkar where, it is said, a petal fell from the lotus blossom used by Lord Brahma to defeat the demon Vajra Nabh. That petal created the lake, and pilgrims have been coming here to cleanse their sins ever since. For tourists, the big scam is fake priests trying to charge a fortune to say a puja at the water's edge. But with the ever-useful Raj to hand, we had our own guy already waiting for us to do it. In theory,...

It was the same no-hasstle story for the bus to Udaipur, apart from the fact that they were still laying the road we were driving on. This gave us extra time to spot the monkeys hanging out by the side of the road. Udaipur is a hilly town. So hilly, in fact, that the tuk-tuk drivers spend as much time pushing their woefully underpowered two-strokes up the hills as they do free-wheeling down the other side. Most importantly, for those James Bond fans out there...

So it turns out the bus was not the packed, standing-room only, glorified truck of legend. Instead it had reclining seats and slepper cabins which doubled up as 4-berths durig the day time. The ride was smooth, although the driver seemed quite prepared to overtake trucks while approaching a corner on the crest of a hill, relying on the all-purpose 'beep the horn' method to avert catastrophe. All in all, we were in Jodhpur by 5pm, almost bang on time, meaning t...

We left Jaisalmer bound for Pakistan. Well not quite. While that is the direction we were headed we were only going into the desert to enjy the delights of camel trekking. The land was looking pretty arid by the time we stopped but there were still a lot of trees and shrubs, albeit sparse ones, and even signs of irrigation (but no water). But what does remain ever-present, even in the desert, is the fashion of having an awesome moustache. The fact is, the ca...

19 hours is a rough estimate, but in fairness we were only a couple of hours late (I've had worse of First Great Western). At the station - touts, touts, touts! From the word go you can see why Jaisalmer is the 'golden city' - almost everything is made from yellow sandstone, and it stands out above its arid surroudnings. Only about a quarter of the population still live inside the fort - the rest are outside, partly for space and partly because so many places ha...