Day 7: 28 November – Jodhpur to Jaisalmer

Photo of the day: the Meherangarh Fort, Jodhpur, seen from the Jaswant Thada mausoleum.

The Meherangarh Fort is spectacular: we left the car and our driver in the car park and walked up to the entrance. For the entry fee which included the camera permit (note to budget conscious travellers – don't take more than one camera!) we also received a free audio guide, which was excellent, although probably produced by a graduate of the Rajasthani School of Overacting. The Fort, which is built on a large outcrop above the city, was started in 1459 and added to by successive rulers.

It was primarily built for defence, especially against elephants that were used for battle for much of the Fort's history, but there was also space for the Maharajas to enjoy themselves, with opulent leisure rooms. We saw the ladies' quarters – women were kept separate from men under the rules of purdah – and saw where they were able to look out over the courtyards to see what was going on. There were also really interesting displays of armaments and also howdahs (things that you would sit on on top of ride on elephants – these could be very ornate and elaborate) and palanquins.

As we headed out of Jodhpur I mused on the fact that travelling to India like this is a bit like taking a two week holiday in Europe and spending one night in Paris, two in Rome, etc. There is so much that we are missing and not being able to take in – and we could easily fill another four or five trips to India similarly without visiting the same places twice.

The road from Jodhpur to the western city of Jaisalmer was quiet and fast – there is a heavy army presence in the western part of Rajasthan because of the nearby border with Pakistan, which has led to better roads. The scenery became more arid, with little agriculture but rather scrubs and small settlements. From time to time we would see goats and camels feeding on the underside of thorn trees (it sounds like a travellers' cliché but it's true!), and a couple of times camels in the road made us slow down.

We got to Jaisalmer in the late afternoon. We are staying out of the city and will be exploring it in the morning – for the evening we watched the sunset and then I caught up with all the news on the internet. I hadn't heard in detail about the events in Mumbai until now.

The hotel was almost deserted … until three busloads of French tourists arrived. At dinner time however the staff invited us to eat outside, so we did – on our own by the swimming pool under a clear sky with the city of Jaisalmer in the background, bats flying overhead, and a band of Indian musicians getting ready for their presentation to the others.

(And the hotel did have beer – just they didn't advertise it on the menu. It's always worth asking!)

Day 6: 27 November – Ranakpur and Jodhpur

Photo of the day: inside the Jain temple at Ranakpur

We headed back north from Udaipur along a route where a new road was being built – lots of construction work in place and diversions. After a couple of hours we came to a hilly and forested area, which was where Ranakpur Temple was.

This is one of the most notable Jain temple complexes – in a beautiful area feeling very peaceful and natural. At the temple there were lots of tourists but it still seemed quiet, especially in the second temple where we were the only ones there. In respect to Jain traditions we took off not only shoes and socks but also leather belts. (Jains are famous for their pure vegetarianism – e.g. sweeping the street in front of them to avoid stepping on insects, or not eating root vegetables. Does that mean no chips?)

The temple itself was ornate with many intricate marble pillars and felt cool and airy. A group of pilgrims was worshipping but we went and sat at the side where a priest came and blessed us with a yellow spot on our foreheads. The smaller temple felt very quiet and spiritual – well worth a visit.

Our driver took us to a nearby restaurant for lunch. One small disappointment has been that the driver has taken us to lunchtime spots which are expensive (by Indian standards – in some cases up to UK prices), whereas I would be happy with some street food. So today when they offered us a lunchtime buffet for 300 rupees (£4.50) I declined and got a plate of dahl and rice for 100 – still a very good deal for them. It was very tasty and I spent the next couple of hours feeling smug about my negotiating skills.

Jodhpur is dominated by its fort on a hill above the city, which we will be seeing tomorrow morning. But it seems like more of a working city. Our hotel, a 200-year old “haveli” (palace) is a fantastically ornate old style building, with courtyards and thick stone walls. It is right in the middle of the city, by the market.

After leaving our things in the room we went out for a walk in the city – this was probably our first authentic Indian city experience and it was market day! It was amazing – loud, bustling and frenetic. It was a lot more enjoyable than I might have thought – as this isn't such a touristy city we didn't get hassled at all: people were going about their business doing their shopping or going home. It was like being on a film set! We made slow progress down the street, getting out of the way of vehicles or cows lying in the street (I am secretly rather scared of cows), making a couple of purchases in the shops – a pharmacy store and a kitchenware store, where we got a tiffin for my packed lunches back at work.

Every day is fascinating and exciting – but I'm exhausted! A quiet biryani on the rooftop restaurant and a good sleep tonight, I think...

Day 5: 26 November – Udaipur (second day)

My birthday!

Bonus photo: the Doctor and myself enjoying a birthday sundowner at the opulent Jag Mandir – he a lime soda, myself a lovely pot of strong, milky, spicy and sweet masala tea.

Photo of the day: taken from the hotel restaurant at breakfast time, showing Lake Pichola and the Lake Palace Hotel

After a leisurely breakfast we met up with our guide for a walking tour of Udaipur. First we went to the Jagdish Temple, one of the major landmarks of Udaipur. With a guide it was much easier to understand the symbolism of the carvings and statues. There are three animals represented mostly in Hindu art – the elephant (representing luck), the horse (power) and the camel (love – for some reason), and they were repeated in many of the art we saw over the morning.

With the guide we went over to the City Palace, the landmark of Udaipur. Pages about it are written in the guidebook and although it was full of tourists and quite hurried it was really spectacular. It was built on a hill on one side, so there was a stone edifice without windows for five floors. Inside, there was the furniture used by previous Maharanas (the local rulers until the last one died in the 1970s) – but apart from the architecture the most impressive features were the intricate paintings of battles, court scenes and everyday life (the local equivalent of hunting, shooting and fishing) – the paintings were made with deep natural colours and executed with paintbrushes apparently made from the local squirrels. (There were lots of stripy squirrels around so we weren't too worried for them.)

Finally we went to the City Garden which was a really lovely quiet patch of green with fountains and a rather weird museum of science teaching materials, like a couple of curvy mirrors (the sign said “to inculcate interest among general mass and students”) and a skeleton in a glass case.

In the afternoon we took it easy and I carried out the spiritual pursuit of Facebook and updating my blog on the internet.

Just before 5pm we took one of the last boats heading out for the Jag Mandir island – the ride took about 20 minutes and passed by the Octopussy Hotel and alongside some of the city landmarks from the river, giving us some great photos of both. At the island, which is a hotel for seven guests, we took tea, as in the photo, and enjoyed the views back to the city as the sun set. From the quay we walked back in the almost deserted grounds of the City Palace.

Dinner, taken in our hotel, was … curry! A dahl and spinach paneer with rice – lovely. We felt very comfortable in the hotel where the staff were outstandingly helpful and welcoming.

Day 4: 25 November – Udaipur

Photo of the day: old Jain temple at Nagda, near Udaipur

We set the alarm for 6.15 in order to be up for sunrise – as predicted the temples started chanting, singing and drumming rather before that! As it got light, the shapes of the ghats became clear: they looked very quiet with a few people around, and cows taking a walk around the lake also. Then I went back to sleep...

By the time we left it was a bright and warm day, getting hotter as we headed south and west. We weren't in the desert yet: the monsoon still comes to eastern Rajasthan, but the land seemed to become more arid and a little more barren as we drove through various small towns and over a few hills. There were a lot of marble works and we saw piles of large slices of marble, with different patterns and colours. They are used in temples and floors of houses.

After a hair-raising six hours with the kind of driving that makes the news headlines back at home (“road users shrieked aghast as a madman careered along the wrong side of the highway, double overtaking a car and a truck while avoiding a cow and an oncoming truck”) we came near Udaipur and drove to a small collection of old temples in the countryside. Dating from the early 11th century and almost deserted now but still well kept, they were the first Jain temples we saw. The temples which were lying partly submerged in water among lotus flowers were particularly beautiful, with their reflections in the water and with wading birds foraging around.

The centre of Udaipur has some really narrow steep roads: our hotel was again in the centre around where the tourists seem to hang out. When we got to the hotel we went up to the rooftop terrace and were amazed by the view – we were looking out over a lake which contained two islands – one of which had a huge pavilion on, the other with the “floating” hotel made famous in the James Bond movie Octopussy. We abandoned our plans to go out for a walk and instead spent the evening on the rooftop terrace watching the sunset as the lights came on on the famous island and temples, with egrets flying overhead and (I think) both Mercury and Venus both shining brightly in the twilight sky.

For dinner I had a vegetable biryani but asked for extra egg (money no object), which seemed to surprise the waiter. Clearly they haven't imported every recipe from the Indian restaurants at home. Or maybe it's a strange recipe – like putting marmalade on pasta or something.

And the rest of the evening I spent recovering from the shock of the Doctor looking at me and gasping in horror, so that I ran out of the bathroom in panic. I thought that I had a scorpion hanging from my shirt or something! In fact it was just that I had accidentally dipped my towel in the toilet...

(another hotel name check – the Mewar Haveli in Udaipur: small and relaxed with a great location...)

Day 3: 24 November – Pushkar

Photo of the day: View of Pushkar and its lake from the roof of our hotel

After a good sleep (whoever thought of putting Nytol and Kingfisher together should be knighted) we had a spicy omelette for breakfast. The hotel in Jaipur, incidentally, was excellent – small and friendly, with a lovely courtyard garden setting in a quiet area, so a name check for Dera Rawatsar.

In the car we drove back into town and stopped off for a few pictures and some practice at crossing the road – the worst thing that happened was that I almost walked on a cobra that one of the men sitting there was “charming”. As well as the older city, Jaipur also has some new buildings and a mall-like structure. Then we joined a six-lane highway and bombed along it, wondering if there were any tourists who do self-drive car hire and if so whether it was what they expected.

Pushkar was about three hours from Jaipur and we drove down narrow streets to get to our hotel. First impressions were of a rather touristy, alternative small town, with lots of western tourists walking around. However when we got up to our room we saw the lake that the town is built on, with all the steps leading down to it. These sets of steps are called “ghats” and are used by Hindu worshippers who wash in the lake: this is one of the most sacred lakes in India. It was a beautiful view, and later we sat there at sunset with the bells and music ringing out loudly from all the temples. (We are expecting more of the same later and at 5am tomorrow...)

After a delicious and cheap thali (no meat or alcohol allowed in this town) we went walking around for our first taste of walking in an Indian street scene. It was quite mild as an introduction: lots of shops catering for tourists but also some people selling vegetables and clothing.

We found the Brahma temple – one of the very few in India. Brahma was the god of creation and for some reason temples weren't built to him after the 6th century. Going round it was rather bemusing – not knowing what to do or where to put the marigolds and sugar that we had been given on the way in as we left our shoes. The marigolds were to be left at various points, and the sugar... well to be honest I didn't work that out.

With some of the marigolds remaining, we looked for a quiet ghat to go down and enjoy the view of the town and the lake. Finally we found one, when a man came and started to help us to pray, so he intoned various prayers which we repeated each word after him as we threw individual marigold flowers into the lake. This continued until the last prayer when his prayer contained the words “donation” and “five hundred rupees”. My Hindi isn't as good as it could be, but we could see that this wasn't a good sign, so we politely declined and eventually (and less politely but I've had worse) he went away, leaving us to enjoy the view.

Having been expecting lots of begging and touting, actually it isn't too bad so far – probably no worse than some of the stuff I had on my Inter-Rail holidays in Greece for example.

Day 2: 23 November – Jaipur

(sitting in the courtyard garden of the hotel at dusk, with a pot of tea)

Photo of the day: the Monsoon Gate at the City Palace, Jaipur

We got into Delhi on time at 3.45am and the airport was a lot easier than expected: immigration and customs were nothing like the hassle I thought they would be. The Doctor changed money and got a bundle of 100 100-rupee notes (I don't think he counted them). We met our driver and emerged into a cool (13 degrees) hazy Delhi night, with the smoke and smell of burning charcoal.

It's about 250km from Delhi to Jaipur, and for the first couple of hours we drove through the night while I tried to doze, waking up every 20 seconds as the car almost plunged into the truck in front and I felt the blood draining from my feet. By dawn we had stopped at the town of Behror, about half way where we got out and I had my first taste of chai – flavoured with cardamon. It came out of a machine (Nestea), it was hot and milky and a bit sweet. Lovely.

By the time we got to Jaipur I had got the measure of road sense here – driving is certainly “assertive” here but the really amazing thing is the variety of traffic in the roads. In Jaipur on the streets we saw all sorts of cars, jeeps, vans, buses, cycle and auto-rickshaws, motorbikes (some with families of four on them); but also camels, oxen, donkeys and elephants (yes!) in active service, together with various animals wandering around by themselves: goats, a pig, dogs and monkeys, and of course the cows. Of course I knew that cows were sacred but not really appreciated how it means that cows tend to stand around in the middle of a busy street and moo – it is a bit disconcerting. Taking a roundabout with all of this happening was fantastic – basically it just means that you point your vehicle at where you are going and go for it.

After some sleep and lunch in a bit of a tourist-trap restaurant (but still very nice – apparently stuffed tomatoes is a Jaipur speciality) we went to one of the sights of Jaipur, the City Palace. This is a walled block of buildings built for the Maharajas, the rulers of Jaipur when it was a state. Like many other traditional buildings here, they are painted pink in honour of a visit many years ago. A couple of the most interesting things were: two huge silver urns – over 300kg each – that were made for a devout Maharaja who travelled to England in the 1900s and took Ganges Water in them for purity; and this picture from the courtyard showing one of the four gates representing each of the seasons. These peacocks represent the monsoon season (which takes the place of autumn).

Day 1: 22 November – Doha, Qatar

(sitting in a Costa Coffee Shop in a mall in Doha)

Photo of the day: Fort at Al Zubara, with the Qatari flag fluttering in the breeze

After getting into Doha we picked up our rental car (petrol costs just 16p per litre and is a rare bargain in Qatar) and I tested out my navigation skills: the Qatari government isn't known for its leadership in street signage. We found our hotel by a total fluke and stayed in a suite which was about twice the size of our flat. The Doctor's bed could easily have accommodated five friends at the same time, I think. I slept ok, but I think that the microphone for the call to prayer before dawn was under my bed or similarly near.

In the morning we went for a drive around town and looked at the exterior of the new museum of Islamic Art that opens next week and at some dhows in the harbour. Then we went to a huge mall and enjoyed the delights of Arabic speciality retailers such as Carrefour, Timberland and Next. However where it differed from Bluewater was the people – ladies wearing traditional dress pushing a laden trolley down an escalator and the standard of driving and parking was amazing – lots of hooting and pushing with one hand holding a cigarette and the other a mobile. We weren't allowed to sit by the window when we went for lunch – that was a family area apparently.

After buying a ridiculous hat which you will see in photos shortly we decided to head out of the city and look around – so we headed for the fort at Al Zubara which is right on the north coast, about 120km from Doha. We got there after taking four wrong turnings so I think we have now explored half of Qatar in a day.

The fort was deserted apart from the keeper who opened the gate for me and pressed into my hand the padlock key for the “museum” - a collection of artefacts from the ancient city that was around here. The fort itself was only built in 1938 but looks a lot older. It was a fantastic atmosphere – very quiet apart from the odd car going past and the wind blowing around the fort as the sun set over the Red Sea. And we got to see a lot of the Qatari desert scenery on the way too (almost as absorbing as it sounds).

Off the airport shortly for the next leg to Delhi. Would I recommend a Doha stopover? Possibly – it broke the journey nicely, it was really good to look around, and it's good for passport stamp collectors like me. It's a bit bigger than I thought, but I don't think a lifetime of return discovery is in prospect.

Day 0: 21 November – London to Doha

(written somewhere over Turkey I think)

Photo of the day: an airline meal (lamb biryani)

If you think that is weird I will say (a) that the woman in front of us took a picture of hers, and (b) you haven't seen www.airlinemeals.net where there are hundreds of similar photos.

It's a good flight: six hours from London to Doha and I think that most of the people are going to be transferring to other destinations. We are spending 21 hours in Doha and taking our connecting flight to Delhi tomorrow evening. A relatively easy trip to the airport and even Heathrow Terminal 3 seemed more pleasant than before.

We planned this trip months ago and bought the flight tickets in April, so it was a pretty good price of £380 each to Delhi. For the arrangements in India we were looking at planning our own itinerary around the national parks, but it was looking quite complex to arrange. (The Indian Railways website has a huge number of railway classes and discounts – one for circus performers for example.)

So then we found a company that would offer a tour, customise it for us if we wanted, and make the arrangements. The company (India Travel Plan) has been really responsive and enthusiastic – Bryony there has looked after us by sending emails with lots of information and detail. We're going to combine two tours - “Camels and Castles” and parts of other ones and cover a wide area which even Bryony describes as “whistlestop”. I'm looking forward to some great scenery, three or four different religious sites and lots of interesting things to see, sunshine, and curry three times a day for the next two weeks. Yay! What more could I ask for?

(And I've never been to India before, so it will be interesting to see what it's like...)

I am travelling with ... ah, blog writers always make their travelling companions sound more interesting and mysterious than they really are, so let's call him The Doctor.

I will plan to write something every day and upload it when I can. We'll see if we can do a photo each day as a base.

So … we'll be in Doha in about two and a half hours, so back to the guide book and the Hindi pop on the headphones.