We arrived in Amsterdam from Edinburgh at 7pm and caught the included shuttle to our hotel, Ramada Amsterdam, arriving around 8pm. Our flight the following morning was early, so we were in bed not long after arriving.
The next morning, we were up at around 5am to catch the 545am shuttle to the airport. Our first flight of the day was from Amsterdam to Munich, which was slightly delayed and departed at around 830am. Once we landed in Munich, we had to stay on the tarmac in the plane for a couple of hours due to a security issue in the airport. This then caused our next flight to Delhi at to be delayed 12pm to 2pm. We finally arrived in Delhi around 12am where our taxi driver was waiting for us. It was about a 30-45 minute drive to the Moustache hostel.
Due to the big day of travel the previous day, and time difference, we slept in the following morning until around 11am, missing breakfast. It was only a short walk to the Bhoj restaurant, where we had our first delicious curry of our stay in India.
We then caught a tuk tuk to the train station to organise and buy overnight train tickets to Jodhpur for the following night. Once back at the hostel, we headed out for momos at Dola aunty’s momos and jalebi for dinner, before another early night as we had a sunrise tour to the Taj Mahal in Agra organised for the following morning.
We were up at 230am the next morning to get a private taxi at 3am to Agra. We were both fairly tired, and arrived at the Taj Mahal at around 630am, which was good, as the number of people here was not too crazy.
We wandered through the impressive gardens and around the Temple itself for around 1.5 hours admiring the sheer size (73m), the intricate details and the surrounding red Temples. Even though it was early, it was so hot and humid. After sitting for one last time and taking it all in, we walked back to the taxi, where we ate breakfast nearby.
It was a short 5 minute drive from here to Agra fort and we spent a good hour here wandering through this also impressive site.
The drive back to Delhi took a few hours and we arrived back around 2pm. We spent the afternoon lazing about and eating a late lunch/early dinner before heading to Old Delhi Station, where we caught the 920pm overnight train to Jodhpur.
The overnight train arrived in Jodhpur at around 830am the following morning and we actually had a pretty good sleep in the bunk beds and air conditioned carriage on the train. It was a short tuk tuk ride to the moustache hostel and we lazed about until check in at 12pm. We caught another tuk tuk to Ghanta Ghar (the clock tower) where we had some delicious samosas at Shahi samosa and a Lassi at Shri Mishrilal for lunch, before doing some tea and herb/spice shopping. It was back to the hostel from here, and we lazed about until the free masala chai time and walking tour at 430pm.
The walking tour started with a short tuk tuk ride to one of the city gates, before walking through the blue city and fort before climbing up to temple for sunset.
The tour was really good and we learnt some history of the area and visited many great viewpoints along the way. We also tried the local alcohol free “fruit beer” and a dessert/snack before heading back to the hostel, having dinner and finishing the evening with a game of Chinese checkers before bed.
The next morning, we caught a tuk tuk to the bus terminal to catch the 10am bus to Ajmer. It was a local bus (with no a/c) which took around 4 hours. From there, we caught another local bus to Pushkar which was another 30 minutes away.
Ben and Kristy's sweet adventure 