We had many problems with the airlines in India (which apparently is quite common) beginning with our first internal flight. Our itinerary had to be changed slightly following Indian Airlines' decision to cancel the scheduled Sunday flights between Jodhpur and Udaipur. This meant we had only one night in Jodhpur but we got an extra night in Bombay. This actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise (see the section on hotels) but, at the time, the news caused quite an uproar in the group probably because the tour operator had known about it for almost a month but only told us about it the day before it affected us!

Ironically, we ended up making the journey from Jodhpur to Udaipur by coach anyway because the rescheduled Saturday departure had also been cancelled - this time because of Kashmiri terrorist activity! We had already been on the road for 5 hours when we arrived at Jodhpur hoping for an early evening flight to whisk us to Udaipur but instead we had to endure a further 7½ hours on the road arriving at our hotel way after midnight and very weary.

Our final internal flight was also very nearly cancelled. The pilots went out on strike while we were in Udaipur and we were convinced we were going to have to travel all the way to Bombay by road. Fortunately, they sorted out their differences on the morning of our flight and normal service was resumed just in time.

Our final problem with the airlines was on our long journey back home. This was once more down to the terrorists. The flight was already 4 hours late when we got on it due to the incoming flight being delayed. However, just as they were performing the pre-flight checks we were all herded off the plane without explanation. We were allowed back on almost 4 hours later with no explanation until about an hour into the flight when the pilot finally apologised to us for the delay and told us that we had had to disembark because they had been informed that there was a bomb on board! They didn't find it so I suppose there mustn't have been one otherwise you wouldn't be reading this now!

Apart from the air-conditioned coaches we drove around in with our tour group we also used quite a wide range of other forms of transport particularly when we were exploring by ourselves. Some of the more interesting ones are described below.

Our first experience was on a rickety cycle rickshaw powered by an old man who wanted only 15 Rupees (about 30p) to take us back to our hotel. The journey took about twenty minutes and was a real struggle for him. I desperately wanted to take over particularly when we were going up hills at a snail's pace. When we finally arrived at the hotel, the old man was sweating profusely following his exertions. We rewarded him handsomely with a massive tip and I think the shock of this almost finished him off!

Next, we had a ride on an elephant up the cliff road to the Amber Fort. There were 4 passengers per elephant plus the driver and our seats faced outwards. The elephant wobbled from side to side as it walked which was quite hair-raising as there was a sheer drop to the side and just a thin bar preventing us from falling off. The elephant following behind us was quite entertaining as it didn't like the hawker who was walking along side trying to sell us something and it kept swiping at him with its trunk.

Another interesting experience was our ride on a tanga - a type of horse drawn cart which was quite common in Udaipur. The horses, in India, were all unusually small as well as being on the skinny side and so when we got on at the back of the two wheeled cart it felt like we almost lifted the poor horse off the ground. This was no leisurely ride either. We had to hang on for dear life as the driver sped us to our destination presumably so that he could pick up another fare as soon as possible.

We spent a lot of time being driven between towns on roads that were full of goods vehicles restricted to 25mph and seriously overloaded. This picture of the cycle may give you some idea of how far they will go to take that little bit extra. The rule of the road is that you honk when you want to overtake somebody and also when you actually pass them. This drove us mad after a while as we always seemed to be either trying to overtake a truck or trying to be overtaken by another bus.

Another habit they have is to drive around at night without lights. They only put them on as a last resort if something is in their way. This made for some very scary journeys after dark when our coach would regularly overtake these slow moving trucks only to find another heading straight for us. There was plenty of evidence by the roadside of vehicles that had not quite made it.

Gridlock was also a regular problem on the roads. If anything stopped the traffic flow for more than a couple of minutes (like a level crossing for instance) many of the drivers would get impatient and drive down the side hoping to pass the blockage but invariably completely blocking both sides of the road on both sides of the blockage so that when it cleared neither side could make any progress at all.

This was the very first illustrated trip report that we wrote. It was originally written in Word to be printed and sent out to our family and friends. Four years on, we have finally got around to converting it to to HTML and publishing it on the web for the world to read.

As always, we're keen to know what you think of our efforts so why not send us an email - we'd be delighted to hear from you and (if you don't mind) we'd love to add your comments to our Readers’ Comments page (we promise not to include your full name or email address). We welcome any suggestions or even criticisms that you might have and in return we'll let you know when we add other trip reports.