Monday, February 27, 2017

Amjer to Jaipur by bus

The jeeps arrived about 8 am to take us to Amjer. It felt strange to be able to get up at a normal time, relax, have breakfast and saunter out of our rooms with our bags. Not every day has to start at 4 am with a cold ride in a tuk-tuk to the cold platform at the train station.


When we arrived at the bus station, Happy told us we had a choice. We could take this old local bus or a bus like we used to travel from Jodphur to Udaipur if we paid an additional 100 rupees ($1.60). We all thought very deeply for less than a second and shot the wad.


The bus was fairly full.


Men come first in India. They also go first.


The usual bedlam of traffic as we exited Amjer.



Just as in Turkey, men like to sit around, drink tea and talk.


A bottle of water was handed out.


Once you get out of the towns and cities, it becomes quite deserted.


Most of the roads have tolls. If you click on the photo you will see that somebody could not spell very well in #11.


This region produces a lot of marble and granite.





A herd of cattle. These cows would not be treated like the cows in the streets.


Elegant hotel out in the middle of nowhere.


We liked the trident near the rear vision mirror. Almost all trucks have a 'Blow Horn' sign painted on the back. Other drivers oblige with vigor.


One of the toll stops.


There are about 67 rupees to $1.




Some mountains that had been quarried.


The truck stopped for a few minutes. None of us got off since the journey was only two hours.


Another hotel with nothing much else around.



Driving on an elevated road into Jaipur.



An Anglican Church. A little bit of England.



The bus station.


There seems to be an elevated metro.


We got into tuk-tuks and away we raced.



My room at the Utsav Niwas Hotel. So far the group seems to like it.



My room is on the top floor and this is the view outside my door.



Views over the city.



It is quiet and pleasant here though you need to go to the ground floor to get internet.





Home cooked meal in Pushkar

Happy invited us to try another home cooked meal, this time in Pushkar. Since I had enjoyed the meal in Jaisalmer, I accepted. The younger members of the tour went into Pushkar and sampled street food.


A jeep came to pick us up and we headed down some rumpty back streets to get to the house.


The street outside the house.



There were just five of us including Happy. Some of the others were feeling a bit under the weather because of colds. I've got a bit of a sniffle as well but I think it might be allergy related from the dust in the air.

Pushkar is vegetarian and alcohol free so we had a glass of cold Coke and plenty of bottled water.


Cooking the chapatis and an appetizer. The cooking pans were exactly the same as the ones we used in the cooking school.


Rolling out the chapatis.



I think this was the spring onions going into the appetizers.


Inside the pantry. Note the pressure cooker for the rice at the lower left.



The spice tin.


The appetizer and they were delicious.


The papadum was thicker than usual and slightly chewy. The best I have ever had.


There were mixes of cauliflower, cabbage and some other things including a slightly sweet, intensely flavoured tomato. I reckon this was the best meal I have had in India so far, probably because everything tasted so fresh.

Another Intrepid group arrived as we finished. They were doing a trip from Delhi to Goa and had arrived in Pushkar a day after us. Their group had a couple of older people but the rest of the group appeared to be young ladies in their twenties. We are very happy with the mix of young and old in our group.