Those that have spoken to me about catching the overnight train will know that it's something I was anxious about. Being a Dad just means that you get to carry all the luggage and with a suitcase/rucsack each plus a backpack I've got a lot of carrying to do. Train stations in India are very busy and apparently you're likely to get your wallet lifted - although I'd fancy my chances here more than at night in Fareham, Southampton or Portsmouth.

We arrive at the station and I check our tickets are okay and which carriage we're on and which first class cabins we've got allocated. Looks like we're split up but never mind, we'll cope.

So we find out where our carriage will stop and we wait. I notice a family of 11 waiting too and I guess they're on First Class too. The train pulls in and our carriage has a cross between two-tier air con class and first class which means there's only about 10 first class berths. The doors open and the French family rush on board and claim all 10 first class berths! We get on and have nowhere to go. Great, I think, but I've got confirmed tickets and my name is on chart on the outside of the train. I check their e-ticket, they booked after me and only have 5 confirmed tickets, the other 6 are waitlisted (see other train booking article for info). They're in trouble, I'm not.

The daughter speaks fluent English so I explain their situation. They're not best pleased and I get the feeling that the Dad is going to get an ear-battering if they ever get to their destination, Agra.

The Train Ticket Examiner arrives, explains the situation as I did but they argue. So I tell them that he's offered them a way out with 6 berths in three-tier AC class. Either that or 6 passengers are staying in Udaipur.

Eventually they vacate our rooms and we go to sleep...and I haven't even mentioned Agincourt! (Emilie, Caro and Nico: sorry, it's an English joke, hope you're not offended.)

We arrive an hour late at 7am at Jaipur and eventually find our driver to take us to Ranthambhore, home of the tigers, and I'm relieved on three counts: we survived the train; we've got a taxi; this means that our reservation at the Raj Palace is good too as they sent the taxi to Jaipur.

So all my worries were unfounded and I'm really glad that I'd read (IndiaMike's) Steven_ber's brilliant article about wait listed train tickets before I got to India. Shame those French people didn't.

We're staying in the first hotel booked by ourselves, since Namaste India Tours dropped us here a couple of days ago. 

The hotel is lovely, right on the bank of Lake Pichola (which doesn't have much water in it at the moment, not till after the monsoon) and has bay windows which overhang the lake.  

 We've got a room that is at the back of the hotel but has a view, through the windows of the restaurant, of the lake. It's really nice; our best hotel yet. 

So there's been no updates for the last couple of days and I think the title of this page explains the reason why: I've been pretty darn poorly.

It's laughable really: I spent ages making sure we had enough medication for the girls and we kept an eye on what they wanted to eat, keeping it safe etc, whilst good old me went hell for leather and ate every type of curry going. What a mistake. What a BIG mistake.

The moment we left Jodhpur on our 7 hour road trip to Udaipur I knew I was in trouble. I was really looking forward to seeing the Jain temple at Ranakpur and managed to pull myself together and enjoy it. After that it was all downhill. Even the complimentary trip by Namaste India Tours to the wonderful (so I've heard) Kumbhalgarh Fort couldn't awaken any interest from me. I spent the next three hours on windy country roads with my head stuck out of the car window.

After arriving at our wonderful hotel, the Jagat Niwas Palace Hotel, I holed up in the room and didn't come out for 2 whole days. I hadn't eaten anything for 60 hours and you'll understand that for me is a big thing. At least I might get some weight loss out of this!

Hopefully, I'm on the mend now, I've eaten a little and I'm starting to enjoy Udaipur.

BTW, you can all stop laughing now.

Here's a picture from our hotel:

Well we found Bollygood and went to eat there last night, all expectant of a good time, maybe LCD's would be playing Bollywood music videos, or maybe just some music, maybe waiters and waitresses (do they exist in India?) dressed in a Bollywood-stylee.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

It wasn't air-conned, although it had fans, but they didn't really work very well. It had large pictures of a few Bollywood stars in between the eating tables but other than that it was very plain indeed.

We ordered our meal with Jane and the girls going for spag bol and chicken maryland so they could avoid the spice. Me on the other hand, still not feeling great, launched into a Chicken Dopiaza. Mine arrived and I tucked in before it went cold; very tasty, bit spicy but not too bad; I'd eaten it all before theirs arrived. Theirs arrived, they tucked in and I watched their faces turn from pink to red in a few uneasy mouthfuls. Amy's spag bol turned out to have the heat of a Madras, if not a Vindaloo, back home but she's really a Korma girl so she did well to even managed eating a third of it. The same thing happened with Jane and Emilia. I couldn't help but laugh at the irony of it.

So for us Bollygood turned out to be Bollybad. That's just for us mind, everyone's different.

To cap it all I couldn't find a tuk-tuk for 5 minutes outside and although our hotel is only 10 minutes walk away I didn't fancy it, so dark, so late. A tuk-tuk was finally flagged down, he spoke a little English but couldn't understand 'Ratan Vilas please'. A couple of passers-by tried to help to no avail. I thought I knew where the hotel was so I directed him. Thankfully we arrived to sounds of 'Ah Ratan Vilas. Yes I know Ratan Vilas'. Really.I paid him 50 rupees anyway as I was just glad to get back to the hotel; it was probably 5 times the actual rate.

I keep waking up at 5am but today I'm not bothered as I'm excited to see possibly the best fort in Rajasthan, if not India, Mehrangarh in Jodhpur.

A lazy breakfast later and at 10am Kamal is ready to take us to Mehrangarh, it's already very hot. Mehrangarh dominates the skyline here and the closer you get the more impressive it gets

We toured the fort for 3.5 hours, which is a record for me as I normally get bored after 1.5 or 2 hours. I've come to the conclusion that this will always be one of my favourite places to visit, surpassing perhaps even the Taj Mahal.

The sheer size of the thing is impressive from far or near, but the real beauty, just like that Taj Mahal, can only be seen close up.

I don't think I've read how long the fort took to build but it must have been years and years as the carving in virtually every sandstone wall is exquisite.

The coloured glass work was very beautiful within the dark rooms with the sunlight flooding through the glass.

We hadn't even realised that there wasn't a hawker or seller in sight, no hassle, whatsoever: are we still in India?

After a very hot journey yesterday we arrived in Jodhpur our final hotel with Namaste India Tours. (The car is air conditioned by the way but it just can't cope with the heat).

Our hotel, Ratan Vilas is an old heritage building and we've got a suite room here, it's about the size of the downstairs of my house!

It's a really beautiful hotel and the courtyard where we had dinner last night is lovely; food was good too and only cost £10 for three of us as Jane wasn't eating. 

The computer here in our Jodhpur hotel, Ratan Vilas, is clean of viruses and seems to have a fairly fast connection so I've uploaded 35 photos from the whole tour so far into the gallery at http://www.winchcombe.org/gallery.aspx?gallery=2009 India

Awake at 5am, not my choice let's just blame Hotel Saket's restaurant, I waited an hour before I ventured out of the room onto Green Park Resort's open airy corridors and did 30 minutes of peafowl spotting, viewing 5 of them on the roof of a nearby hotel.

I spent one hour of removing Bharatpur's cyber cafe trojan horses - thanks a lot :-( - some blog updating and email stuff before the router died a horrible death I took the kids for breakfast. Jane and I weren't eating (refer back to Hotel Saket comment) but the kids as usual were unstoppable in consumption of banana, and this time nutella, pancakes.

So we leave for Jodhpur with a very poorly Jane in the back seat wondering how she'll cope with 5 hours in a hot car. She got through it though.

It seemed that Kamal was either lost or taking a shortcut unknown to anyone else - I suspect the latter -but we had to stop to wait for the train to pass at Pipar Road Junction, in the middle of nowhere. Got out of the car and I spoke to some of the local men while Emiled smiled with some local girls. I suspect that they'd rarely seen, or maybe even never seen, western children as young as ours as they seemed very inquisitive although somewhat shy. 

As the train pulls out from the nearby station it seemed that everyone aboard wanted their photo taken. I oblige and realise that frames per second is worth worrying about when buying a new SLR: I hadn't done. I really enjoyed this experience. Real India, real people.

Five very hot travellers arrive in Jodhpur, 240 kms and 4.5 hours travel; it's time for lunch as it's already 2:15pm.

A rest (and a sleep for the older ones) later and we go out for a walk in Ratanada, the area surrounding our hotel. We're on the look out for the restaurant named Bollygood which sounds fun. Rough Guide's map is hopelessly inaccurate so we return and ask the hotel where the restaurant is. The point out the location on the map and second the recommendations I'd got from Rough Guide and people from IndiaMike.

Tonight we dined in the hotels' courtyard. Feeling slightly poorly didn't dissuade me from try their mixed tandoori platter which was served with a sublime mint sauce. Internet connection seems good so some more blogging has to be done to appease those critical of the recent lack of updates - although I can't image they're that bothered.

Pushkar was included in my itinerary for only one reason: to split up the journey from Jaipur to Jodhpur. I was interested to see the tiny lake surrounded by 500 temples but really I should have known it wouldn't be my kind of place: there's something about deeply religious cities or towns that does me in, probably because it's not my religion, if indeed I actually have one (sorry Dad, you know what I mean I'm sure!).

We made our way to the ghats via the Jaipur Ghat - each Maharajah had his own bathing ghat into the lake - after buying four lovely cushion covers (for Jane obviously; men don't do soft furnishings right?) for Rs350 (about £5) for the conservatory. We were immediately accosted by Bramin priest, authentic or not I'm not sure.

"Take these petals and throw them into the lake" he said, followed by words like "everyone pays us a fortune for these petals and if you don't the market sellers will shun you". We walked on thinking that the last market seller seemed more than happy to take our money at 5pm; apparently we were his first customer of the day, yeah right!

At this point I thought, "I'll push this car out of Pushkar if I have to" (hey, no groaning, it wasn't meant to be a joke).

After buying another pair of Kameez trousers for Amy from another happy-to-see-the-non-worshipping-foreigners we returned to our hotel, the Green Park resort for dinner. On the way we got stopped by an old man selling hand made shoes. "Oh no" I thought, here we go again, what is he going to try and sell me, hasn't he heard about The Downfall Of Ali Baba?  It turned out that his granddaughter was a few hundred yards away, would love to meet the girls and could he phone her to come quickly. I agreed and a mobile phone call and a puffed out 10 year old Indian girl arrived at the stall, not being able to talk, but happy to see two western children. A couple of photos later and a nice chat, we bid them farewell.

This chance meeting, followed by seeing a peacock up really close made Pushkar slightly more bearable.

I know some of you have spotted them already but some of the photos have been uploaded to the gallery: http://www.winchcombe.org/gallery.aspx?gallery=India%202009

The gallery for each place is also linked into the Where In The World map.