The road from Mysore to Munnar was always going to be interesting, we were climbing from 770m to 1600m and travelling once again through the beautiful Western Ghats. All across India we have experienced roads which offer great promise for the future but are generally “work in progress”. The roads of Karnataka were no exception:

It wasn’t long before we were in the Ghats:

and very soon afterwards we saw the almost mandatory truck accident:

There are several wildlife reserves in southern India and we seemed to drive through all of them in quick succession:

The scenery was wonderful, it would have been easy to imagine we were in Africa:

 Thuvanam Falls

Eventually we reached tea country, we found the tea plantations to be far more attractive than the coffee plantations, something to do with the vivid green of the bushes:

More hills, more accidents:

Cars going off the road is not such a surprise once you start looking closely at the tyres many of them are sporting:

We arrived in Munnar early but by the time we had detoured around height restrictions and weight restrictions it wasn’t early anymore!

Next day we went off to ride an elephant (very touristy but irresistible!):

and do a little sight-seeing:

After lunch we decided a massage would make sense. If you have been following this blog you will know we haven’t had great success with Indian massages but we decided to persevere. Bad decision!

We went again for an Ayurvedic massage (everything is Ayurvedic here, I even have Ayurvedic toothpaste!). The technique seems to be to soak you in oil and then do long sweeps from the tip of the fingers up the arm, down the torso and all the way down the leg. And repeat. And repeat. And ….

It turned out to be ninety minutes of misery. The rooms were cold. The music – what music. My masseur seemed to forget all his training and started making up new (ineffectual) moves. At one point I looked at him, he seemed to be in a trance although I think he was actually just bored! The combination of cooking oil and a very strange massage technique just didn’t work. By the end I was resolved never to have another Ayurvedic massage – and I’ll probably throw away the toothpaste!

The final part of the treatment was a steam bath. This turned out to be a steam cabinet:

 Note small hole for head and neck!

Inside was a seat which was supposed to be adjustable. Even on the lowest setting I didn’t fit in the cabinet (and I’m not tall!). I spent the next twenty minutes twisted up like a contortionist trying frantically to keep my feet away from the steam source. At one point my contortions resulted in me banging my knee against the door which brought the masseur rushing into the room looking very concerned. Anyway it’s official – that was our last Ayurvedic massage!

One very interesting thing I noticed (or not depending on your point of view) was the steam generation system for the steam cabinet. This was it:

 A hotplate and a pressure cooker!

By now we really needed to be spoilt so we went for dinner at The High Range club just outside Munnar:

This place was a blast from the past. There was no alcohol (although we did succeed in procuring some), the staff would have graced Downton Abbey and the whole feel was truly eccentric – we loved it.

Before dinner Leishia and I snuck into the Men Only bar which was undoubtedly the best room in the place, here we are:

 Poor shot but it was rushed!

Dinner was variously said to be at 7pm, 8pm and 8.30pm. It turned out to be at 8pm and was typical Indian fare, enjoyable but served at a bit of a sprint! There were just two resident guests (Nathan, an economist and his girlfriend Vanessa, a lawyer both from London) so we sat together and set the world to rights.

We were minding our own business drinking a pot of tea in the lounge after dinner when, at 9.20pm precisely, the Club Manager appeared and announced that the club closed at 9.30! So that was an enjoyable evening cut somewhat short! Despite the early finish it was certainly a memorable few hours.

The next morning we were on the road early once again driving south through the beautiful Western Ghats towards Kanyakumari. There were some great sights along the way:

 A three storey Christian shrine, prolific in S. India

 Beautiful country

 A very common sight

 A shop on wheels

 Another accident

 And another wonderful elephant!

The drive from Munnar to Kanyakumari (at the very southern tip of India) is long and especially via the scenic route we chose. Nevertheless we managed to reach the tip with daylight to spare. The last 50km stretch was amazing, we were constantly passing windmills, there were thousands of them, this is a dusk shot showing just a few:

So 120 days after arriving in India we finally made it to the southern tip, the place where the Arabian sea, the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean meet. We were happy!

We left Panaji, travelled south along the coast, turned inland at Mangalore and headed back into the hills, we were on our way to the coffee plantations in Coorg. Having left a little late and driven all day we decided to stop overnight at a small roadside hotel and enjoy the climb into the hills in daylight. We stopped at a village just east of Mangalore. The rooms were nothing special but the food was great:

The climb the next morning passed all too quickly punctuated only by chai and an omelette at a roadside cafe, here’s Leishia sampling the delights:

and here is our cook:

We booked into a room on a coffee plantation and enjoyed some lovely walks and  spectacular scenery:

 Coffee, almost ready!

Just outside the plantation was the Nalkand Palace (so called). A local King “Doddaveerarajendra” built the palace in 1792 in what was, at the time, a very remote jungle location so that he could hide from the British. Seems he was quite successful, he finally surrendered in 1834.

Here is the palace:

Elephants at the steps leading to the verandah:

A beautiful structure in the garden:

The palace was locked when we arrived but the caretaker appeared from nowhere and gave us a quick guided tour. As interesting as the palace was we were more taken by the little school next to it:

After a couple of days relaxing we were off again this time heading for Mysore, this was a typically Indian sight along the way:

 Washing the laundry and the car!

Our route to Mysore took us past Bylakuppe home to thousands of Tibetans who were given refuge in India after the 1959 Chinese invasion of Tibet. The area is truly Tibetan from the food to the purple and saffron robes to the prayer flags and the monasteries.

The highlight is the Namdroling monastery and the Golden Temple, the statues are very impressive. Lord Buddha sits in the centre, he is 60 feet tall. He is flanked by Guru Padmasambhava and Buddha Amitayus, both 58 feet tall:

The wall paintings around the temple are intricate and some of the detail is really strange:

Well worth a stop and reminded us of our time in Tibet.

We reached Mysore in good time and trotted off to the railway museum! Run down as it is (apparently they are building a new one) there were some great exhibits:

 Sadly only a picture!

 I still want to be a train driver if I grow up.

 The Mysore Maharani’s railway carriage.

 Her bedroom on board.

 A rail crane which apparently still works.

That was enough for one day! The next day we went to see Mysore Palace. The palace is the pride of Mysore and justifiably so:

 The entrance and the palace behind.

 The entrance at night.

 The main palace building.

 Leishia courting danger (as usual!).

Unfortunately photography was banned inside the palace which is a shame because the rooms and decor were well worth seeing. You’ll just have to imagine it or have a look at the virtual tour here:

http://www.mysorepalace.gov.in

After the palace we went to the zoo, Mysore zoo prides itself on not taking any animals from the wild. All the animals in the zoo have been rescued in one way or another or born in captivity. We especially liked the elephants:

The giraffes:

The crocodiles:

The signs:

 Dead peacock included for effect

and this particular example of Homo Sapiens spotted escaping from the zebra enclosure after he had rescued his daughter’s purse:

Good day out!

The next morning we had an early breakfast where we met Wilson and his boss Ranjiv. Wilson is the factory manager of a clothing factory, Ranjiv has a stake in a private equity firm which owns the company (30,000 employees and over 20 factories, no small concern) and is the deputy CEO. Ranjiv was apparently the Indian equivalent of Barry Sheene in his day! Here they are:

 Ranjiv (on the left) and Wilson

After breakfast we left Mysore headed for Munnar and the tea plantations but more of that next time!

So here we are on the road again!

But first please indulge me for a few moments and let me share a couple of very special pictures. The first is of our brand new Grandchildren, Samuel and Roman, both are doing well now and Samuel is home from hospital:

and the second of Toby, a good friend of ours who, twenty eight months ago, suffered a serious head injury during a cycle race which left him paralysed and in a coma. Toby and his support team have worked really hard to get him to the point where he can enjoy a little rough and tumble with his children:

 Well done Toby!

Anyway leaving England wasn’t difficult given the stark choice between wind and rain in London and sun, sun, sun in India … easy.

I came back with my luggage full of brake discs, callipers, pads, glue guns, multimeters, etc. Incoming luggage is screened at Mumbai so I wasn’t too impressed when at 1am, after two flights and a stopover in Doha, an over-eager Customs inspector decided the vehicle spares should have been shipped cargo. He passed me on to a far less eager lady who couldn’t have cared less what I had in my luggage and waved me through – which was nice 🙂

I devoted the next few days to getting Elsie sorted. She is now in the best shape she has been since we left the UK in October. Leishia devoted her time to relaxing and being spoilt – she’s in pretty good shape too!

On our last evening in Mumbai we finally met Taruna (sister of Sumeet, a very good friend of ours) and her partner Anand. They took us to a wonderful Keralan restaurant, Trishna:

 Taruna and Anand

The company was terrific and the food was so good we’ve already planned a return trip!

In the morning we left Mumbai heading south and it wasn’t long before we saw a sight which we see every day in India:

We seem to see truck accidents all the time, most of them are vehicles running into ditches beside the road or turning over. This one was carrying a load of rolled sheet metal which worked out well because they had rolled right off the road!

Perhaps the drivers would do well to pay more attention to the road signs:

There are two main routes south from Mumbai towards Goa, the first is the route 4 motorway and the second National Highway 17 (NH17). We decided to ignore both of them and instead drive down the coast wherever we could. That choice took us to some very pretty places, this the Janjira island fortress offshore from Murud Janjira:

We spent our first night at Mahad, this was the view we woke up to:

The next day we were driving through beautiful scenery for the entire day – the Sayhadri or Western Ghats, yet another of India’s thirty UNESCO world heritage sites. We loved the orchards where every tree had a separate growing area marked out by a low stone wall:

We crossed several tidal rivers:

and arrived early at our second stop at Tarkarli beach:

Tarkarli beach is several miles long with beautiful sunsets:

We left Tarkarli soon after breakfast and drove the short distance to Goa and Panjim. Panjim is a coastal town with a beautiful church:

a colourful cow:

and not much else! That said our hotel served excellent food (Goan fish curry) and was blessed with a very creative waiter. We had finished dinner and retired to our room with a cocktail leaving instructions for them to bring the bill up when it was ready. The waiter arrived with the bill which somehow had a pot of tea added on.

Me: “We didn’t have a pot of tea”. Waiter: “I can’t change the bill now Sir and I have to close my accounts”. Me: “Do you expect me to sign for a pot of tea I haven’t had?” Waiter: “No Sir, may I bring you one?”!

The next day we went to Old Goa, once the capital of the state. The churches and convents of Old Goa are a UNESCO world heritage site and are very impressive.

Leishia seemed to think it very amusing to get me to pose for a picture next to this sign which reads “A world heritage monument”:

So, to matters more serious …

These are the remains of the Church of St Augustine, a huge convent built in 1572:

And this is Leishia imagining life as a nun:

This the view from the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary:

I could drown you in pictures of churches now, but I’ll resist. Suffice to say that there are several huge and imposing churches, you’ll get the idea from these two:

 Church of Se Cathderal Church of St. Cajetan

The fascinating thing about the whole complex is that it seems entirely out of place, it really is a little piece of Portuguese culture transplanted to Goa almost five hundred years ago.

So that’s it, we’re on the road again!

Or almost it, here’s one last picture for anyone missing Leishia and her sashaying!

For our last day in Gujarat we decided to go to the world heritage sites at Champaner and Pavagadh. These sites are entirely different to one another in character but have a shared history so were listed together by UNESCO in 2004.

Champaner is the site of a fort and imperial palace dating from around AD 1400. The city flourished during the reign of Mahmud Begada (AD 1459-1511) but was attacked by Humayun in 1534 which resulted in the capital being moved from Champaner to Ahmedabad. Champaner never recovered its former glory and is now mostly ruined. A new generation occupies the old town and the people live alongside the ancient ruins.

Above Champaner is the Pavagadh hill fort complex. Most of the structures are not easily accessible and Pavagadh is actually more famous for a Mahakali temple which sits on the summit. Mahakali is the Hindu goddess of time and death and the consort of Shiva consequently every day thousands of pilgrims climb the hill to the temple.

Champaner is fascinating for its buildings and also for the way people live today amongst them. This woman was living very close to one of the mosques, her front door is to the left of the picture:

Here is the most important structure in the city, Jami Masjid:

And here perhaps the second most important, Saher Ki Masjid:

In some places the old walls are still clearly visible:

Here is another well preserved structure:

 That was funny 🙂

The town is renowned for the water storage solutions it employed, here is a spherical step well, the first we have ever seen:

We went to one mosque to find it still in use even though the roof had long since gone:

 Panch-Mahuda Ki Masjid

There were three generations of the same family praying at the tombs. When they had finished they kindly let me photograph their very beautiful hands:

and we gave them a lift home!

We went to the top of Pavagadh to see the temple, here is the final climb:

Once you reach the top you are moved pretty smartly through the temple so the pilgrims only enjoy a few seconds in the presence of the deity. Despite that in the short time we were there several people seemed to go into some sort of rapture. No video allowed so you’ll just have to imagine it.

Lots of pilgrims were very colourfully adorned:

 Bangles all the way up her arms.

It wasn’t all pilgrims, this lady was doing her washing in a small lake just below the summit:

The walk back down is on a long winding path the top part of which is absolutely packed with stalls selling all kinds of things:

You can have a tattoo, have your picture taken with a stuffed tiger, buy some alcohol free beer, buy a coconut (for the temple), receive a blessing from one of the many “sages” along the way, and even feed a holy cow:

Everything is possible for a few rupees.

We settled for some peanut masala from this very nice lady:

So that was Champaner-Pavagadh we loved it, hopefully UNESCO will ensure it is protected for the future.

Now we are in Mumbai. It’s the Mumbai marathon this weekend and I’ve managed to get a place in the Old Man’s race (after three months on the road I’m certainly not in shape for anything more strenuous!). Hopefully I’ll be finished in time to watch the Elite marathon runners cross the line.

Our next destination is London! We’ve decided to fly back to England for a couple of weeks. Lots to do, family to see but the thing we’re most looking forward to is seeing two very tiny boys!

So that’s it folks. We’ll be back in Mumbai and on the road again in early February. Until then it’s radio silence!

Thanks for coming along for the ride so far,

Ian & Leishia xxx

We left Diu heading for Palitana but it wasn’t long before we realised we weren’t heading for Palitana at all. The only easy way to get back on track was to get a pass and drive through the Sasan Gir park, so that was it – two safaris in two days. This was the view through our windscreen for most of the morning:

We didn’t see any lions but just after we left the park we did see a camel being taken for a walk:

and a very unlucky driver sitting alongside his very unlucky truck:

We saw Palatina long before we reached it:

At first we didn’t realise what it was and turned off the main road down a side track which seemed to be going directly towards the hill. After a few minutes we came across a settlement and stopped to ask how we could get to the temple. A few games of charades later we came to understand that the temple was at Palitana and that we were being invited to stay for chai – result!

I went on a five minute tour of the village with our new host and arrived back to see Leishia surrounded by curious villagers:

Then came the inevitable photo-calls:

We had some very tasty chai and then we were on our way amazed, once again, at the hospitality of rural India.

Just along the road were more super sights:

  Nellie Sweet smile Jain nuns A common sight across India

We soon arrived at Palitana and booked into the only “hotel” in town (back to earth with a bump after the Lake Palace!) ready for an early start the next morning.

By 7am we were on the route up to the temples. The 3,800 step climb was fun mainly because we seemed to adopt the children of a family who were also on the way up the hill, here they are:

They were great kids and stayed with us the whole morning which proved to be very helpful in deciphering the practices and symbology of Jainism.

Everything is carried up the hill:

Including several of the pilgrims:

So what’s Jainism? Jainism is an ancient Indian religion far older than, for example,  Christianity. Jainism has been in decline for over 1,000 years mainly due to the rise of Hinduism and Islam. It has several core precepts including non-violence, spiritual independence and equality between all forms of life.

The latter was vividly demonstrated on the ascent; someone had taken the time to place a circle of rocks on the path to mark out an ants nest because a Jain would not want to accidentally step on an ant:

The climb was more than worthwhile, this is a shot of just a few of the 900 temples on the summit:

No more shots – photography was strictly forbidden.

As we were coming back down the hill the daily procession was making it’s way up placing a rose on every step:

The most interesting feature of the descent was the Jain nuns who descend at an amazing pace. I ran alongside one, she turned and said “Come with me but no touch” (apparently no man must ever touch a Jain nun). Anyway I ran down with her for a short stretch – she could run, and she was in full regalia!

Once we reached the bottom volunteers washed each pilgrim’s right foot with milk and water and gave us a bindi (the little dot on the forehead) and two rupees. They also gave us a meal voucher and we went off to the canteen for some Jain food.

A great day exploring a fascinating and ancient religion.

Our plan was to drive from Sasan Gir to Diu via the fishing port of Veraval and for a change that’s exactly what we did!

The fields in Gujarat are always full of people and this drive was no exception:

 Girls feeding sugarcane into a stripper

The stripping machine, open belts, ancient engine, external water tank. After the cane is stripped they leave the bark lying in the fields to dry. Oxen working

 A beautiful tree covered in seed pods

The drive to Veraval was short and when we arrived we were surprised by the size of the port. A local told us there are 7,000 fishing boats in Veraval, he also said it is the largest fishing port in Asia. I’m not sure if that is correct but there certainly were a lot of boats:

 Boats being refurbished More boats!

In the port area we met up with Mushtaq who ran a fish packing and export business;

He took me to an auction of a catch of ribbon fish which interestingly was destined for export to China:

That was enough smelly fish for one day so we made our way to Diu.

Diu is an old Portuguese port with ……. a fort! The fort was our first destination and was well worth the visit with lots of architectural features:

Probably the most interesting thing about the fort is that it has two moats the outer of which is tidal.

 The outer moat

The inner moat (now dry)  

This shot shows both moats, the inner moat in the foreground and the outer moat just beyond the castellations (and if you look really hard you can see Elsie in the background!):

Once again we seemed to be the main attraction, here’s Leishia being mobbed by a school party:

and both of us in a photocall with the teachers:

The next day we went exploring Nagoa beach near our hotel. There was a large workforce building a new track along the beach and we came across three of them having lunch which they kindly invited us to share:

 Spot the tiffin boxes.

The two girls were sporting some serious tattoos:

Further along the beach was a less than salubrious cafe but we stopped for a beer anyway. Fortunately they did at least have a dress code:

 No budgie smugglers!

And house rules, we were very comforted by number 11:

We enjoyed a couple of beers and watched the locals drowning themselves in cheap whisky (seems to be the local sport) then it was off to sleep!

Next stop – Palitana.

We left early and drove through some very fertile landscapes, biggest surprise was this crop which Leishia correctly identified as cotton:

A closer look:

We were making great time when, just a few kms before Sasan Gir, we saw this sign by a dusty side track and couldn’t resist:

We turned down the track and after a couple of hundred metres came upon a man carrying a 25 litre petrol can. We stopped and gave him a lift to the village. Here he is (on the right) with his son:

The village was small, just a few families, great little houses:

 Grain drying.

The local children all gathered around so we gave them a polo mint each and had friends for life! Then the photo calls started:

 The village boys

 Mummy Sisters?

Chai was produced which they poured directly into saucers for us (my Grandad used to do the same thing!) and the whole village then sat and watched us as we drank it 🙂

After a thoroughly enjoyable visit we got up to leave but the boys wanted a photo with Leishia first:

Then a very pretty girl put on her most alluring pose:

and then we were on our way.

We reached Sasan Gir in good time and found a super hotel. Unfortunately they only had a room for one night so we had lunch and went straight out on a safari.

Sasan Gir is a 1,400 sq. km. sanctuary with a core area which is fully protected. The safari vehicles are not permitted into the fully protected area but fortunately the animals (including the Asiatic lions) come out! We were lucky enough to spot a lot of wildlife:

 Lion food, aka Spotted deer.

 A peacock facing off a spotted deer

This was fascinating to watch, the peacock was displaying and the deer kept charging at it! Eventually the deer backed off and went on his way.

 More lion food. Spot anything?

There’s actually a jackal almost in the centre of the picture. Here he is a little later:

 Langur monkey, part of a large troop

So having seen the lion food we came across this:

 Lion tracks

and, soon after, this:

 A basking male lion

And within a few minutes:

 Two females Another female A young cub A mother with two young

A great end to a great day!

Next stop – Diu on the coast via Veraval.

We left Udaipur wishing we could stay at the Lake Palace a little longer but at the same time we wanted to get back into the real India, plus we had a booking at a heritage palace hotel in Wankaner which we were looking forward to.

Sadly when we arrived we discovered that this particular “Heritage hotel of India” wasn’t a hotel at all and never had been and that our booking had in fact been made at their other “palace”. This was a modern day “bait and switch” (HeritagehotelsofIndia.com). We went and looked at the other palace but it was just a tumbledown place with nothing to commend it – except a very impressive step well:

Anyway we decided to give it a miss (Leishia was happy; for her “heritage hotel” translates to “Big, old and cold”!). We drove on to Gondal and looked at another “Big, old and cold” hotel but they wouldn’t give us a discount so they ended up with an empty room and we drove on to Junagadh.

Junagadh is off the tourist radar but is a fantastic place with 2,300 years of history. Junagadh actually means “Old fort” – more on that later! Interestingly Junagadh has strong links to Pakistan and in fact the locals still speak Sindhi.

Here is one of the several town gates:

Our hotel was really close to the Mahabat Maqbara, the mausoleum of Nawab Mahabat Khan II who died in 1882 so we went to see it before dinner:

The next day we walked around the old town, lots to see and experience:

 An old lady making her way up a small alley

 Upper windows typical of the town A disused mosque

 Twin arches

 Kids in an auto rickshaw A street vendor and her little girl

After a while we reached Uparkot fort; the fort dates from 319 BC and is really atmospheric:

The entrance way:

Our guide, Vinod (tel. 82382 52406):

 Great guy, interesting and knowledgeable.

Normally we don’t bother with a guide but in this case we were glad we did, it would have been very difficult to understand (or even find!) everything without Vinod. We definitely recommend him.

There were some ancient Budhist “caves” which were actually carved from the rock but the most impressive features of the fort were two wells, both also carved from solid rock. The first, Adi Kadi Vav was a massive well, 81m long, 4.75m wide and 41m deep with 162 steps down to the water. Here’s Leishia on the way back up:

The second, Navghan Kuvo, was more elaborate even though it is almost 1,000 years old. This well has steps which follow the outer edge in right-turning flights with openings in the well wall to allow light into the stairway. It is an amazing piece of civil engineering. The well has over 250 steps to reach the bottom:

 Pigeon roosts on the way down.

After the wells we went to see the mosque which is still impressive even though the three domes which once adorned the roof have long since gone. Outside was a small Muslim cemetery:

Very close to Junagadh is Mount Girnar, a sacred mountain and a pilgrimage site for both Hindus and Jains. It’s possible to climb the 10,000 steps to the top and to see the many Jain temples along the way. There is an annual festival (Maha Shivratri) which attracts over one million pilgrims to the mountain.

But that’s not all that’s interesting about Mount Girnar:

 The white dots are temples

Vinod pointed out that if you rotate the mountain 90 deg:

 it looks like an old man!

Always worth having a guide!

Next stop – Sasan Gir park!

We arrived in Udaipur early and almost the first thing we saw was this little donkey train:

They look cute but it’s a tough life.

We were on our way to look at the Royal tombs, the place is as big as a football field and absolutely packed with mausoleums:

The most interesting thing was that they used the “Samwat” calendar:

Samwat was new to us but it’s all quite straightforward, it is a solar calendar established by the Indian emperor Vikramaditya (1st century BC).

The Samwat calendar (suffixed BS) is 56 years 8 months and 17 days ahead of the Gregorian calendar so for example the year 2056 BS began on April 13th,1999 and ended on April 12th, 2000.

The Samwat calendar is still the official calendar of Nepal. Good pub quiz question there.

After the tombs we went to see the Royal Gardens built in the 1700’s for the Royal ladies:

The signs were amusing:

I think I know what it means!

From the gardens we went to the City Palace where we had our first glimpse of our hotel, the splendid Lake Palace:

The Lake Palace hotel was the royal summer palace but was converted to a hotel in 1963 and taken over by the Taj Hotels Group in 1971:

The Lake Palace from the Royal Palace.

The hotel is absolutely fantastic, Leishia had told them in advance that our stay there was my birthday present and when we arrived not only had they baked me a wonderful chocolate birthday cake but also they’d given us an upgrade to one of their Royal Suites (Sajjan Niwas Suite). From the moment you arrive at the dockside you’re in another world – nothing is too much trouble. As we arrived at the hotel we were showered with rose petals which came fluttering down from the upper floor, a traditional Rajasthani welcome.

We were expecting the hotel to be good but we didn’t realise or imagine how good.

Our beautiful suite:

with a wonderful terrace:

and super views:

The Common areas were just as lovely and there was often music in the background:

 The lily pond

 Early morning

Dinner on our first evening was a traditional vegetable thali:

and after that all we did was indulge ourselves with massages, a heritage walk, a sunset boat cruise, Indian astrological readings, live dancing and wonderful sleeps. We never left the island, we just soaked our time away from India – just what the Doctor ordered!

If I was listing my TopTen hotels this would definitely be number 1! What gets it there? Outstanding ambience, staff, and service.

For the record our number 2 is the Copacabana Palace in Rio.

Anyway today we said our goodbyes and for the next week we will be touring Gujarat and, with a little luck, catching sight of one of the four hundred surviving Asiatic Lions in their one remaining refuge – Gir National Park.

Jodphur – no funny trousers for sale anywhere. There was however … a fort! The Mehrangarh Fort and no, it’s not the best fort on the planet, that comes a little later. Here’s Mehrangarh taken from the old market square:

We were hugely impressed by the main gate, there is a sharp ninety degree turn immediately before it which means elephants aren’t able to get a run at it to barge it down. Then to dissuade them further the gate itself has huge sharp spikes at elephant height!

Inside the fort is interesting with some beautiful rooms:

In the museum they had entire displays of elephant howdahs, palanquins, turbans (mercifully closed) but most interesting of all (to me at least) were these carpet weights:

 I want some.

There is a temple in the fort complex, the Chamunda Devi temple:

This temple is hundreds of years old but tragically is most famous for an event which occurred in September, 2008. Thousands of devotees were visiting the temple on the first day of Navrati, a major Hindu festival, when something spooked the crowd and caused a stampede. 249 people were killed and a further 400 injured. Very sad.

After the fort we strolled around the Old Town which was full of old things (including us!):

 an old building

 an old man

 an old lady – selling street food

 Colourful India

and then went to the Umaid Bhawan Palace which is still the home of the current Maharajah, Gaj Singh II, but also houses a hotel and a museum:

The Maharajah who commissioned the palace was Maharajah Umaid Singh, this is him taking tea:

One of the exhibits was about him, it read (in part), “There was in him an astonishing simplicity, a grace he was born with and carried with him always, whether playing polo at Hurlingham or big game hunting in Africa, salmon fishing in Scotland or fox hunting at his sumptuous estate “Arranmore” in Ootacamund (south India)”. Mmmm!

The next morning we were up early and on the road to Udaipur. Great sights along the way as ever, the first of which was the Om Bana temple:

The story goes that Om Bana died here when he crashed his motorbike into a tree. The police took the bike away but twice it came back, apparently on it’s own! That was reason enough to name it “Bullet Baba” (the bike was a Royal Enfield Bullet) and to make it the diety of a new temple. Here is Om Baba:

and here, enshrined, is Bullet Baba:

After that surreal experience we continued on our way watching carefully for riderless motorcycles, all we saw were riderless donkeys:

and the occasional monkey:

The monkey that bit Leishia was a Rhesus macaque, these were the altogether more pleasant Gray langur, a very beautiful monkey.

We stopped for a while at the small town of Narlai. This little town is famous for two things, firstly the twelve Jain temples it boasts, secondly the local hotel, the Rawla Narlai, which is owned by a famous Indian fashion designer Raghuvendra Singh Rathore and has been visited by, amongst others, Mick Jagger! Anyway I rather doubt he took the eight hundred steps to the top of the hill to see the elephant – I did!

There was a lovely old lady in Narlai, covered in tattoos:

and still very flexible!

After Narlai we drove to see Kumbhalgarh fort. And what a fort. This is the best fort on the planet. A real grown up fort with a real grown up wall. A wall 36km long and broad enough to take eight horses ridden abreast. The wall is the longest continuous wall in India and the longest in the world after the Great Wall of China. It is the first line of protection for the fort but with or without it the fort itself looks impregnable.

 The fort from the wall

 The wall

 The snaking wall

 Temples and the wall in the far distance.

After all the forts we’ve seen in India if Ganesh were to offer me a fort of my own this is the one I would have! Kumbhalgarh is a fort on a grand scale, when you sit atop the battlements and look out you can see the enemy two days march away. You can enjoy your roasted wild boar and your goblet of wine safe in the knowledge that he’s not going to spoil your fun anytime soon. And then, when he tries, you just pour boiling oil over him and go back inside for dessert. Brilliant, my kind of fort.

So after a great day of sights we’ve arrived in Udaipur where we plan to stay for a few days before moving on to Gujarat.