Road Trip!

Out of the city, and we seem to be crossing what they refer to as desert. Trees and dirt, but not much else. Certainly not much green.

Occasionally, a road crosses the track, and occasionally goes under it.
I noticed a few odd structures near the track. Like a square goalpost from a soccer field, but without the net. Made from heavy timber maybe 12" square, they are brightly painted in stripes, like the old fashioned barbers pole. It took me a minute to figur out what they were. They were on the road, maybe 50 yards before the road went under the track. Of course!
A measuring gauge. If the vehicle could fit through this gate, it could fit under the train.
Clever buggers.

After arriving in Jodhpur, we set off in a bus to see the sights.

Our first stop was the Mehrangarh Fort. Somewhat imposing. Made out of the sandstone milled on site, it appears to grow out of the rock face like some set piece from Lord of the Rings.

Luckily, a lift was installed a few years ago, otherwise the mother-in-law would have been stuck at the bottom. The alternative was a sweeping ramp, that gets steep in parts. Sarah and I used this to get down, but it would have given me a bit of a glow on to walk all the way up.

After this, we visited the royal cremation sight, just a little down the hill. I think we can call this the creme-de-la-crem.

Next stop was a Taj Hotel for lunch. Beautiful. The hotel as well as the lunch.













On our way there, the passengers inadvertently got a taste of driving in this country.
We were coming down a steep, narrow street, with people hanging out of windows to see the white folks drive past. So it's not just the train windows that give them unlimited channels of entertainment. There was just enough room beside us for a baby taxi to get past. In Thailand, this is called a tuk tuk.
As we come around the last bend, followed impatiently by a stream of cars, trucks, baby taxis and scooters, we come windscreen to windscreen with another bus.
These guys are clever at fitting five lanes of traffic into three lanes of road, but two busses into one narrow road just won't go. This is where the drivers assistant becomes invaluable. I thought he was just there to hand out bottled water and help the doddery types into and out of the bus. Not so much.

At this Robin Hood/ Little John moment, I'm not sure what the protocol is, but we were forced to reverse up the hill. This guy was running around the bus, shooing the parade behind us back up the hill, and guiding the driver where to put the bus without breaking anything. Every foot we reversed, the bus below us moved to fill the gap. No opportunity for a second shot at this.

We reached a point that didn't seem any wider than where we just were, but our guide had planted us hard to the left, and the other bus started moving to our right. I could have shaken hands with the guy from the other bus as they inched past us without having to reach. Another couple of coats of paint and this might have been close.

While all of this was going on, the parade behind that bus still blindly followed them up the hill. So our guide then had to negotiate all of them past before we could start moving forward again. Why nobody went to the bottom of the hill to stop the vehicles turning into this street I have no idea. These guys are very good at solving the problem in front of them. Forward planning, not so much.

They did very well, none the less.

After lunch, we had a look at the current Maharaja's palace.
About 70% of it has been taken over as a hotel by the Taj Group. The Maharaja will have to make do with the 80 rooms he kept in his wing.












We were then taken to a small bazaar, for some shopping.
Sarah was very impressed by the embroidered fabrics and pashmina scarves and duvet covers. If she wasn't on a timetable she would have singlehandedly doubled the regions GDP.
As it was, she bought some outfits for her niece, and a couple of tops for herself.

Back to the train for dinner.
Which was great, by the way.