Day 121 Tuesday 16 January 2007 Jaipur – Pushkar

Plans for an early start evaporate, partly as a result of staying up late to watch DVDs (The Lost City – 4 stars). Most of the staff of the Holiday Inn try to assist us fixing the mudflap which has been dangling since we bumped over a high kerb in Delhi, we suspect their enthusiasm for car repairing stems solely from the vain hope of getting some handout rather than from any skill or ability they can contribute.

Backtracking slightly we head to Jaigarh Fort, a massive series of battlements and an enormous cannon perched high on a ridge overlooking the former capital Amber. Then we stop briefly at Amber to view Amber fort from afar, an equally massive ochre yellow edifice with crenulations, cupolas and chambers before heading south to Ajmer and Pushkar. The road is mostly 3 lane highway with little traffic so we make good progress, reaching Pushkar in time for tea with the setting sun. We find the hotel easily and despite the town being purely vegetarian with no alcohol we have a very good dinner.

The curiously named hotel, the Master Paradise, is satisfactory, newish, v clean and with interesting furniture with beaten silver detailing. We are relieved to find it exists, having booked it thru a very dodgy travel agent in Connaught Place in Delhi, claiming to be part of Flight Centre. We should’ve known better by now but after our past experiences in Gorakapur, Lucknow and Delhi the prospect of searching the web to make our own hotel bookings in the peak tourist season in Rajasthan was not something we relished, hence the dodgy agent. We’ll probably end up paying at least twice the going rate and miss out on some of the more interesting hotels.