I arrived in New Delhi on Jan 17th. As usual I had not made reservations in any hostel as I had done in so many of my RTW trips I had hoped to make reservation for first night's stay in new country from the airport. I could not find any Indian Tourism office in the airport that could help me with this. Next I got some change and tried to use public phone to call some hostels, soon discovered that in the airport and all three phones were not working, this was in New Delhi international airport, capitol of India, that thinks its not a third world country. Welcome to India, country supposedly on a cutting edge of technology.

So I got a prepaid taxi to place there are several hostels in Central part of the city, the drive from airport was a jolt. Found out that there was some kind of doctor's convention in New Delhi and all hotels were full. I called about 10 places from LP guide and all were full, so I decided to trust the cab driver and he took me to a decent place in Carol Baag. Next day decided to take a day tour of New Delhi visited Kutub Minar, Lotus temple, Indian parliament etc. Decided to get the hell out dirty New Delhi towards Jaipur. Booked a bus ticket to Jaipur and bus turned out to be Jeep with about 8 people and driver. They had told me it would be 2x2 bus. I soon discovered most transportation operators in India do not know word -- honesty.

Drive to Jaipur was okay. Decided to stay in Athithi Guest House in Jaipur, I would highly recommend this place, nothing fancy but its fairly clean, food is good. I decided to use the autorickshaw driver that had dropped me off at the hostel next day for day tour around Jaipur. First visited Jantar Mantar, an observatory built around 1700. Its an interesting place, but do take a guide with you if you want to know details about different things. Just around the corner
from Jantar Mantar is very impressive palace complex.

The next stop was Amber fort about 15Km from the city center, if you are going to visit one place in Jaipur I would absolutely recommend this place. Its a place built high on the hill around 1590s. It has some amazing gates and palaces.

You should check out the Jai Mandir and Sukh Niwas inside this fort.

Next day spent a day in Jaipur just walking around the market and mailed home some stuff I had purchased.

Next day took a R.T.D.C. (Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation) bus from Jaipur to Bikaner. It was the dirtiest bus I have travelled on in last 10 months. This is excellent way to develop tourism I guess. But this was not all, when we arrived in Bikaner, driver told everyone this is the last stop when we were about 3Km from the bus stand, right infront of a auto-rickshaw stand. So everyone including locals, tourists had to take auto to the city. As it turned out place where I was going to stay was 3 minutes walk from the actual bus stand where driver should have dropped us off. Honesty!! Anyway stayed at Hotel Palace View again a reasonable, clean place. Very good home cooked food. Its a place owned by retired govt official and his wife. Very nice people indeed. He wrote down details about my bus journey and promised to follow it up with RTDC, but I don't think it will make any difference.
The drive itself from Jaipur to Bikaner was not bad, I had thought Rajasthan would be all dessert but there seems to be lot farming in Rajasthan. On the way we were passed by trucks taking about 50 Indian army tanks, we had to stop for 20 min to let them pass. Bikaner is about 60 miles from Pakistan border.

Next day morning walked from the hostel to the Junagarh, place constructed around 1580s. Very impressive place. In Rajasthan one thing is uniform all the tourist attractions palaces, forts are well maintained once you enter them you are transported into different world, but moment you step outside you are in dirty world of people spitting, garbage is every where. Its the same place in hostels/hotels most of them are clean but moment you step outside, you are reminded that you are in country where people take very little pride in keeping their cities clean.

Anyway Junagarh is very interesting place worth spending 3-4 hours.

Bikaner also has some interesting hawali worth taking a auto ride around them.
Next I booked a dessert safari for 2 days one night, it was interesting experience to sleep in the dessert and sleep under start away from the constant sound of horns. Although the way folks cooked food was terrible. I will certainly not recommend vino tour.

Next I took a bus ride to Jaisalmer. The pictures of Jaisalmer always looked very interesting to me and the actual views did not disappoint at all.

This city was founded in 1156. You can actually stay inside the fort and most places have terraces where you can enjoy food, coffee etc. There are few temples and palaces inside the fort that are interesting. How would you like to have balcony like this?

Next stop on Rajasthan tour was Jodhpur but this was the worst ride ever for me as I had some rice and dal fry day before that required use of life saving Pepto-Bismol. I think nobody should step into India without the magical pink bottle of Pepto. So I arrived in Jodhpur with upset stomach so decided to take it easy for couple of days. When travelling in India never eat Dal Fry...

Jodhpur itself is very interesting place where lot of houses are blue coloured, they signify house of a bramhin. But they no longer follow this convention..

The main attraction in Jodhpur is Meherangarh, absolutely breathtakingly beautiful place.

The next stop from Jodhpur was Udaipur, but instead of using lovely public transportation in India, I decided to hire a taxi. On the way to Udaipur visited the Ranakpur Temple. It was built by Dham Shah Porval Jain during the reigns of Maharaja Kumbha in 1432. I also stopped by Kumbhalgarh, its a really beautiful fort, from the top you get a nice view of the planes below and you get idea why this fort was never taken.

Udaipur itself was bit of disappointment because i thought it did not have anything except the Lake palace, may be I had seen too many forts and palaces.

Finally from Udaipur to Mumbai I took a overnight luxury bus. It was another example of how private operators do not give shit about customer satisfaction. But may be customers get what they deserve. Case in point, at start of the bus I asked the bus driver at 5.30PM are you going to stop somewhere for dinner and when, answer was yes will stop somewhere. He actually stopped for dinner at 11.30PM. I asked bus driver how long is the dinner stop, he said 30 minutes, which turned out to be 90 min stop. I kept asking the driver when are you going to leave after the half hour was up, no answer, and funny thing was other 50+ people on the bus did not give a shit that driver said stop will be 30 min and it turned out to 90 min. I guess most people in India do not give shit about customer service and customers also do not expect it??