We’ve made a wonderful trip through Rajasthan. It was a very beautiful route, that lasted 23 days. It was quite relaxing to be able to take our time for everything. We spoke to several people who were in India for 15 days, but then you must hurry to see everything.
India is very colourful! The Hindu religion is fascinating, with it’s diversity of rituals. We loved all the temples; Ranakpur is fantastic! It was also surprising to see the significant differences between every town, and the varying sights that they all had to offer.
We saw the walls of the old inner town in Jaisalmer, as well as the desert with it’s camels. In beautifully blue Jodhpur, we saw an immense fortress, where we took part in a nice audio tour and drank delightful lassi under the Clocktower. We walked through cosy streets and visited the beautiful palace in Udaipur. We visited the lesser known desert town Bikaner, and the astonishing rats temple in the nearby area. Mandawa and Jhunjhunu have the ambience of a small town, and accommodate beautiful havelis.
Jaipur is very pink, with a beautiful Amber Fortress, and cosy restaurants (LMB, Natranj, Niro). Here we also visited the cinema, and the astrologists in the fortress of Jodhpur. We went to Agra, where we saw the serene and impressive Taj Mahal. The street life with all the beautiful people and cows also made a big impression. India is the most polluted country we ever visited, but yet so friendly.
We experienced our first holiday with an arranged car and personal driver as quite luxurious. It was like a group vacation, but without the group: lovely! Mukesh clearly enjoyed doing his work; not a single request was too much trouble for him. He always asked us what kind of plans we had in mind and then offered a schedule for the day, plus additional advice; superb!
Mukesh always waited at the car when we undertook something, and showed us where to get our tickets, etc. He knows his way around and knew every hotel. We picked our own hotels, even though Mukesh sometimes advised against one. He never pushed us to check into the hotels of his choice (even though he could then sleep there with a discount). Mukesh is humorous and kind spirited. His English is decent, and he is exceptionally punctual. We drove from nine to five on our last day in Delhi, and saw a lot. For instance: a holy man in a cabin in the middle of an intersection. Mukesh passes this man every day.
All in all, our trip was an amazing exploration of India! If we return someday, we’d pick Mukesh as our driver again, without any hesitation!
