Pushkar —> Jodhpur Day train

Woke up around 8 and chilled in bed for a little while, there had been a lot of chill in Pushkar and I liked it, however I was definitely ready to get going again and as I was feeling much better today I could actually think about how we get out of Pushkar. We both got a shower (who knows when the next hot one will be) packed up our things and we checked out before the 11am check out time.

As we’d be on a train a lot of the day, we went to grab some breakfast, and eventually found a little cafe and got butter toast and honey for 30 rupee. It was a weird blend, but certainly gave the energy we needed to get out the hostel and get the bus to Ajmer. We walked in the heat to the bus stop with one of the guys go took us to the wedding and the bus arrived minutes after. We bought our tickets from the counter and battled our way onto the bus to get seats, after a few minutes those people who were just battling to get on the bus started to filter off to get their tickets...instead of getting tickets and then getting on the bus like a normal human being. Eventually, the bus departed and we got to Ajmer bus station. We wanted a Tuktuk and played the different drivers off one another for the best price. To minutes later we jumped in a TukTuk to the train station and waited for our train. It arrived only 20 minutes late, we boarded and watched the chaos as people tried to find their seats, it was painful watching them...they had been living in India all their lives, all the signs are in their local language and they couldn’t figure it out, whereas Tom and I managed easily. The train set off at 14:55 and we were on our way to Jodphur! On the train, the chaos never stopped with people still struggling to find their right seat and also the weird man sat in front of us taking selfies with us in the background and sending them to his friends - however, we had now become used to this here. Surprisingly, we had loads of space on this train with loads of leg room and a free seat, so we stretched our end enjoyed the ride. The last hour is where this journey got weird...we were put on FaceTime with a family, had numerous interviews about where we were from etc, the last thing we wanted. We even had a guy sit with us for about 30 mins and interrogate is about what we did, and what two generations back in our families did...clearly trying to set us up. He then pulled out a little black book and asked for our UK address. I thought on my feet and gave him a blend of both mine and Tom’s home address : 16 Esholt Crescent, Barnsley, UK, BD14 4PL. This was all made super awkward as this guy kept trying to either shake hands or high five with Tom, but each time it needed in an awkward mid air hand holding. We decided that from this point we’d just say we were married!! There were a couple of kids on the train who wanted to lay, so we played guns and shooting with them from between the seats - this was met with hysterical laughter from the kids.

Finally we arrived in Jodhpur and as the hostel was only 2km away an that was our upper limit for walking we set off. By this time it was about 8pm so we were hungry. We walked up the Main Street and found a place called Al-Haq who specialised in mutton. Although we’d been veggie for pretty much all our trip, we both fancied a bit of meat and rice. This plate arrived and it was amazing, the tastes and textures made a nice change from veg thali. We made it to our guesthouse within the old city walls and it was pretty nice with a great rooftop view of the fort perched 400ft on top of cliffs. After our long day, we decided to get some rest as we were going to explore the blue city of Jodhpur tomorrow.Read more