Jaisalmer - Day 6

September 29, 2019

Cows and camels.......We visited Jaisalmer, the Golden City "famous for its golden hued sandstone fort and cobbled streets."  I'm not sure if it was because it was World Tourism Day but we got another grand welcome, bigger than the rest, when we arrived that morning.

If you look closely this is made out of chalk dust!  So neat yah?  

Lots of singing and dancing...

Our itinerary for the day:

Breakfast on board   7:30

Departure for sightseeing of Fort Havelies and Shopping  9:00

Return to POW for lunch and rest 1:00

Departure by coach for sand dunes camel ride  3:30

Dinner and cultural program at Palace Hotel  7:45

Return to POW 11:00

Departure for Jodhpur  11:55

But first, the welcoming committee!

Ont he way to Fort Havelies we stopped here. I saw this and of course I was giddy 

I wanted to ask the guy if i could feed him but I was too shame

Before we left I ran up that hill so I could get more pics.  The people on my tour must thing I'm weird

Fort Havelis...this is the country's only living fort.  Our guide for the day actually lives in here.

Gotta watch out where you're walking or else you'll get run over by a motorbike!

These puppets are really popular 

Such pretty colors!

After our rest we took a long bus ride out to the sand dunes for our camel ride.  We weren't gonna do it since we've done it before but I'm glad we did.  This one was prettier than all the rest.

I was hesitant to give the guy my camera but he got some really good shots

Dinner was ok.  It was really dark and we sat way too far from the stage to get any good pics.  Tomorrow we head for Jodhpur, wow, the tour is almost pau!

Udaipur - Day 5

September 28, 2019

We arrived in Udaipur and the first thing everyone noticed was how clean the city was compared to everyplace else we've been.  I think this was my favorite stop of the trip, our guide was excellent and yah, like I said it was CLEAN! heheh.  It was kinda drizzly so most of my pics were taken with my phone, which I'll post later.

Itinerary for the day:

Breakfast on board 7:00

Arrival at Udaipur  8:00

Departure for sight seeing  9:00

Lunch at 5 star hotel  1:30

Boat ride  2:30

Return to POW  3:30

Departure for Jaisalmer  4:00

Dinner on board  8:00

For a guy who doesn't like taking pictures, he sure is weird.  He made me take a bunch of him like this to make it look like he was standing in the rain

I love this wall!

This is a good picture of our group...we had a really nice mix of people.  The lady in pink on the left is Louise, her and her husband John are on a 52 day vacation.  Right after our tour was done they rushed off to the airport because they had to catch a flight to Nepal.  They were gonna hike in Kathmandu!! The guy front and center is our guide, I can't for the life of me remember his name.  Behind him...I have no idea who that is.  He doesn't even look familiar.  I wonder if he snuck in to listen.  That Chinese guy in the back is from Hong Kong, a businessman.  The guy in the blue is Kieran and his wife is in the front next to the lady in red.  They were a crack up.  They are from London and I hope we somehow keep in touch, Randy and I really liked them.  The lady in red and the older guy in back are from India, he owns a steelsmith? company.  I think that's what he said. And the lady on the far right is one of the Brits.  I can't remember her name but her and the other ladies were a hoot.  And last but not least is Anil.  He's the Indian guy in the gray.  He lives in Minnesota with his wife Kate, they are in IT management.  He has family in Udaipur and he mentioned that he was meeting up with them when we arrived.  I was convinced that our guide was his younger brother.  I saw them talking when we got off the bus so I was telling Randy that they must be related.  Come to find out they just met that morning.  THEY TOTALLY LOOK ALIKE! I shoulda got a picture of them next to each other.  A bunch of people did ask them if they were brothers though, so I'm not the only one!!

I forget where these guys were from but the guy on the left has done 7 Ironman Triathlons!!

I just realized that all of my boat ride pics are on our phones, so I guess I'll be showing you that later.  oops.  Tomorrow we're off to Jaisalmer!

Sawai Madhopur & Chittorgarh - Day 4

September 27, 2019

Today was an early day, we arrived in Sawai Madhoupur at 4:45am and had to leave at the crack of dawn to head to Ranthambhore National Park.  Time to look for some tigers!  Here's our itinerary for the day:

Depart for Rathambhore National Park 6:30

Breakfast on board   9:30

Departure for Chittargarh  10:30

Lunch on board  12:00

Arrival at Chittorgarh   3:40

Departure for sightseeing 4:00

Evening tea, light and sound program at Fort 6:00

Return to POW  7:30

Dinner on board 8:00

We got to the reserve, hopped into some jeeps and off we went with our guides

It was a very pretty morning but I think I'm over safaris.  I forgot how extremely bumpy the rides are and you practically get thrown all over the place.  You gotta hold on tight or else you'll smoosh whoever is sitting next to you.  Lots of my pics came out super blurry cause we didn't stop much when we were in there.

So I think these guys lied.  We didn't see any tigers, heck we barely saw any animals at all!  We saw a hyena (which was far and ran away pretty quickly),  a bear, which was far also, I didn't bring my zoom lens with me so I didn't get any pics of him, and this deer.  Well I think it's an deer.  Who knows.

To give them the benefit of the doubt, we didn't spend that much time there.  We were there for only about 2 hours.  I think if we stayed longer more animals would've peeped out.  Oh yah and we saw an owl.  If you look real close you'll see him. 

Today was the only day we actually got to be on the train during the day while we travelled to our next destination.  I enjoyed watching the sites although it was raining a lot so we didn't get to see as much as I had liked.  I was texting Jalna while I was on the train and I was telling her how nice the lighting was and I showed her a picture of Randy that I took.  She turned around and drew me a picture of him!  So neat yah!  Super fast too, I thought she did a real good job

goofin off on the train...

So, I apologize, we arrived in Chittorgarh and we went to this one place that I can't remember. I looked through my notes and I can't find it.  But I thought it was really pretty.

When we arrived at the Chittorgarh Fort I got super excited cause the first thing I saw was....MONKEYS!! Tons and tons of monkeys! This fort is one of the largest in India and is also a UNESCO site.  

I think we were more excited about the monkeys than the fort itself :-)

I was trying to get a picture of this lady standing in front of the building but I got photobombed

As I was editing these photos I kinda freaked out on how long their tails are!! I didn't even notice when I was there

After the fort we had some tea and refreshments then walked to the site where the light show would be.  I was kinda disappointed, I thought it was gonna be more spectacular.  I couldn't get much pics here, it was way too dark.  I feel bad,  They were telling stories while lighting up the fort and I barely could pay attention, I was so tired.

Tomorrow we go to Udaipur...see you then!