Going to Jodhpur

It’s about 350km from Jaipur to Jodhpur, which meant a journey of about 6-7 hours. I’d been suffering with an upset stomach and sore throat since Monday so we opted to pay the extra Rs250 to have the air-conditioning turned on in the car.
The journey took us off to the West, along different roads. The out of town driving in India is as crazy as that in town but for different reasons. The roads are often wide enough for three lanes of traffic, however it’s not unusual to be faced with three lanes of oncoming traffic and to have to swerve off the road to avoid them. The lorries all seem to trundle along at about 50km/h and rarely make way for you if overtaking.

As we headed West, the number of camel carts and Jeeps decreased, and the number of lorries increased. The journey was pretty uneventful, apart from us passing the first road accident we’d seen in India; a head-on collision between two lorries whcih had mangled one cab pretty badly. There were a couple of policemen directing traffic around the spot but little other fuss.

We arrived in Jodhpur at about 4pm, and checked in to our hotel, the Haveli Guest House. The first room we were given didn’t meet expectations (tiny window with no view) so we moved to a much nicer room with a large bay window looking out onto the hilltop fort of Jodhpur.