15th June 1992 Day 331

The Diary

A breakfast fiasco that could have been a script from Fawlty Towers. Indian ineptitude at its glorious best. Ignored at our table for 15 minutes then 5 different people came to take our order, two of whom claimed breakfast was over and we couldn't order. We perservered and perhaps Oz's call for the complaints book swung it our way.

It won't hurt a bit

We walked into town, watched a street dentist filing a man's tooth beneath the market clock tower and then headed up the hill to the fort. A familiar scenario, it was noon, the sun was blazing down & we'd just finished our water & we were about to climb a steep hill. We survived but we needed the drinks shop at the top. We did a guided tour of the palace in the Mehrangarh  Fort which was one of the best kept we'd visited (far better than the pathetic government museum a stone's throw from the tourist bungalow) and took photos including one of ourselves and some locals which we promised to send to them.

I think Oz did send a copy of the photo to them

We walked back down via a mausoleum and then cut through the one-storey boxes that most of the town seemed to inhabit. Blue houses denoted Brahmins but there seemed to be a large proportion of them. Maybe some people are telling fibs. Like the Pied Piper we walked through the streets followed by hordes of kids wanting to shake our hands, say hello or procure one rupee or one pen from us. They were every bit as exhausting as the 46 degree heat.

In the evening we went for a splurge at the Ajit Bhawan Palace Hotel. A superb buffet for 85rp each and an evening chatting to Rupert & Barbara (left Hong Kong after 3 years, travelling for several months in India before returning to the UK, she a ballet teacher that had lived in South America and we never did find out what he did) and Alan & Sarah (2 doctors from Blackburn doing a similar round the world trip to us, he'd just turned 30 and was reading the Great Railway Bazaar and came up with comments like "Tommy Hutchison still playing for Swansea at 42", she was a bit scatter brained - according to Alan - but was very forthcoming with lots of travel stories).