A slight change of plans

New Delhi, Hotel Ajanta

Okay, while I have a chance to type it up, here is our renewed itinerary:

18/9 - Delhi to Bikaner by car

19-20/9 - Jaisalmer, includes 'evening camel, stay in desert, and morning camel' according to Guman, the guy who organised it, LOL

21/9 - Jaisalmer to Jodhpur

22/9 - Jodhpur to Udaipur

23/9 - Udaipur

24/9 - Udaipur to Pushkar

25/9 - Pushkar to Jaipur

26/9 - Jaipur

27/9 - Jaipur to Agra

28/9 - Agra to Varanasi (by night train)

29/9 - Varanasi

30/9 - Varanasi to Lucknow

1/10 - Lucknow

2/10 - Lucknow to Mussoorie

3-6/10 - Mussoorie

7-12/10 - Hiking in the mountains

13-14/10 - back to Delhi, Mark leaves for NZ, James & Clara go to Mumbai, possibly by domestic flight (better than a 24 hour train ride!)

Okay, from then on it's sort of similar to our previous itinerary, but it's probably subject to change so I can't be bothered re-typing it again.

One of the downsides about this trip is that everywhere you go you have to try and avoid being ripped off, the problem is you can't avoid doing things like paying for accommodation, transport and food, and whoever you get it from will obviously be trying to make as much profit from you as possible, so it's just a matter of choosing who to get ripped off from... Like for example when we got the business room we were told that breakfast and the minibar stuff was included in the price. I was a bit dubious, but there was never a pricelist on the stuff, and we were so thirsty so we decided to just drink the Coke anyway. Of course, when we checked out it turns out they totalled the amount for the minibar stuff and asked us to pay. I was nearly going to argue with them and try to find the person who told us it was included, but then we worked out that it was going to be about $5 NZ, which is... actually not much at all - in fact it was cheaper than getting the same drinks from a roadside stand, i.e. 30c for a soft drink. So it wasn't a ripoff at all, but I would've appreciated them being more upfront about it. Ah well, I guess if we even think of $5 as a tip, then that's not too unreasonable.