December 27, 2006: Jaisalmer to Udaipur. 600 kms

6:00 AM and out on the streets of gold. This ride was going to a long one the second longest in the entire trip. The longest would be the last lap Pune to Bangalore...

7 days on the road... this has been quite a colourful ride so far. In Rajasthan the temperatures have incredible swings of highs and lows. The early mornings and late nights are biting cold, the day time is hot even in December! This early morning was no less, but with a heater in the car, could not quite feel the bite. But a stop over for tea and snacks got us to reality! It was a freeze outside. nothing seemed to get the food or the tea hot! Even fresh baked Alu Paratha became cold in a jiffy. That roadside dhaba breakfast turned out to be the most expensive one we'd had in quite a while. Imagine shelling out 300 bucks (Rs) at a roadside shack for nothing!

The road to Udaipur meanders via Jodhpur. So we decided to do a gas filling halt. And I decided to go back to that friendly petrol bunk once again to feel good. Yeah it did feel good. From there on trundled along village roads, lost our way somewhere outside Jodhpur went all over before coming back on track and heading towards Ranakpur.

What a change in the goegraphy. Right from arid dessert lands to hills and valleys and greenery all over... Ranakpur incidentally also houses a mindblowing Jain Temple which is held up by more than a 1,000 columns. The carvings on these are intricate and each is different. As for the place its breathtakingly relaxing. Wifey wanted a stay here and not at Udaipur. I was the ass who felt the drive up to last leg should not be too stressful so that extra 100 odd kms would be a good saving and the roads were really bad! It took us close to 3 hours to cover the 100 km distance to Udaipur.

At last the city of palaces, lakes and colours. City of Octopussy. The good thought screeched to a halt when we found the directions to the Ram Palace hotel... a single slender lane with cattle, bikes, cycles, people, cars, jeeps running through it! After a long and tedious snaky drive finally the spot. It resembled a shack! And there was no parking space for this hotel. We could not stay here.

Too numb to figure out what to do next we decided to hunt for a coffee shop to sit down, look at the options and then make the move. The shop we found was a South Indian joint. They also claimed to have hit the Guiness book for the longest Dosa made in History. We were too distracted by our own plight... ordered coffee and started calling all the hotels around from the books... none had ANY room. Imagine, Udaipur was full. We had visions of sleeping in the car already!

Not to give up I chatted up the restaurant manager for help... these guys were more than helpful. They came up with a list and recommendation as well. A few calls later we'd hit the sweet spot. The hotel turned out to be quite a decent one at that as well. And they were charging twice the tarrif we'd paid so far (3,500 plus.)

Dejected that this seemed to be spelling the end of the mega trip and unable to scourge Udaipur for a couple of days we just blacked out.

Few and bad quality pictures were taken from this day on till the end of the trip. Faulty Camera.