18th July - Arrived at the local train station after a short 2.5-hour journey, picked up a tuk-tuk to our hotel - looked like we were the only ones staying in the quite large hotel. Ranthambore National Park is a nature reserve famous for potential tiger spotting and we were not in season. Most of the park is closed during monsoon with just a few buffer zones open. Tigers don't come out to drink water when it's raining as there is plenty in the forest. So, ...

The train station was manic, people everywhere but the train was in so we made our way to the carriage and started to settle in but we felt that the standard of the carriage was a lot less than we had expected …….We re-checked and found that the carriage was split in two and we had gone to the wrong half. Moving to the correct carriage with 4 rucksacks and the bulk of people trying to board the train as we disembarked wasn't easy but finally we made it with...

11th July - Arrived in to Jaisalmer train station at 11.15pm where we had a free pick up from our accommodation, checked in and straight to bed. No, we are not in the Himalayas, but this is a setting on our air conditioning and boy do we need it. Thought Jodphur was hot but this is hotter - considering we are in the Thar desert bordering Pakistan I suppose we shouldn't be surprised. Jaisalmer is also called the gold city as all the buildings are constructe...

8th July - 9.30am our driver was waiting to continue our journey on to Jodhpur. Better roads with dual carriage ways but these were still shared with cows (who seemed to have priority) and the occasional car driving the wrong way i.e. against the flow of traffic on the dual carriageway. Our driver stopped at a popular roadside "café" - lots of cars just stopping on the side of the dual carriageway to buy tea flavoured with cinnamon served in a small pottery ...

left at 09.30 with a driver we had arranged through our hotel on the way to Narlai and we stopped en-route at the 15th century Kumbhalgarh Fort which was hugely impressive with great views of the Aravalli countryside. Then on to the marble Ranakpur Jain Temple, equally impressive. The roads were narrow, only one car width, and drove through some hilly countryside. Arrived at Rawla Narlai hotel around 6.00pm - lovely hotel with touches of the Best Exotic Mari...