Day 35: It's over

That’s it, the journey is over. Tonight we are flying back to Paris.
What is left from this trip: few useless artifacts and over 3,000 pictures that I promise, I will not bother anyone with. But mostly we are having our eyes filled with stars from all the splendors we saw and all the people we met.
Thank you for having spent some time with us reading this blog.
So long, and do not drive like the Indians.
Philippe

Day 34: Bombay

Elephanta Caves
The Taj Mahal Hotel
Now we are riding a bus which is comfortable but less poetic. We saw the city and its contrasts (rich districts, poor slums). The Taj Mahal hotel is operating but still under repairs following its recent terrorist attack.

We had a boat cruise to visit Elephanta Island and its amazing VI th century carved caves dedicated to Shiva. This was our last visit ending our tour with a bang.

Day 33: Vadadora - Mumbai (Bombay)

Strange encounter on the highwayReturning the cars at the docks
The day was spent mostly driving to turn back the cars to the shipping company for loading on containers for shipment to France.

The road was not too bad, mostly 6 lane highway, with the peculiarity to encounter shepherd and its herd of various animals or a truck coming on the wrong side for obscure reasons. However the fourteen 2CV Citroen did perform miraculously well, not a single accident in more than 10,000 km (exactly 10,100 km for us).

Overall our car did very well, if I except two blown up tires, two front shock absorbers shot, few torn rims and a collapsed frame, everything was repaired mostly with a big hammer.

We are going to miss our car, we feel like a knight without his white horse or Lucky Luke without Jolly Jumper (this for the French readers only).

We only spent 4 hours waiting for the custom officer to accept our cars and 2 more hours to reach our hotel, so there was not time to visit Bombay, which is tomorrow program.

Day 32: Udaipur - Vadodara

Lake Palace where James Bond movie "Octopussy" was shot

Washing time on the lake

Morning visit of the palaces of Udaipur, the Venice of Rajasthan. The desert is gone and water is changing everything. Now the palaces are built in the middle of lakes, and it is refreshing.
Then driving again to Vadodara, not because it has specific places to visit, but to get closer to Bombay that we should reach tomorrow.

Day 31: Jodhpur - Udaipur

Water carrier


Jodhpur Fortress

Morning visit of the fortress of Jodhpur(XVth century) and its correspomdind Maharajah palace. These palaces seem repetitive, however each place is very different. This one, besides its massive protective walls, houses delicate collections of elephant silver saddles, ornated cribs and very inventive arms to maximize mauling of the enemies.
Then back to the cars and our regular 43C. There is no cloud in the sky and the sun is scortching us. We buy water and/or Coca Cola that never felt so good.

Day 30: Jaisalmer – Jodhpur.

Durga festival is over, going back home


Fortress of Jaisalmer


Fortress of Jaisalmer

Daytime visit of the fortress of Jaisalmer, it was very different from our evening escapade. We could see the narrow street with small boutiques housed in old palaces made of lace of stones.
We drove in the Desert of Thar again to reach the major city of Jodhpur.

Day 29: Bikaner – Jaisalmer

Fort of Junagarth


Another Maharajah palace


Getting ready to enter the Temple of the rats

We started the day in Bikaner with an individual visit (meaning few people without the group) to a temple full of rats that are worshiped because they are supposed to be the reincarnation of children. We were lucky to be there during one of the two annual festivals. It was very crowded and very colorful. However being obliged to walk barefoot in the middle of herds of rats is a pleasure I could have done without.
Then we visited the fort of Junagarth and the palace of its Maharajah housing many collections of arms, material for tiger hunting etc.. including a De Havilland biplane offered by the British for the Maharajah behavior during WWI aside the allied forces.
From there we kept crossing the desert of Thar, sand with scattered thorny bushes, to reach another city-fortress, Jaisalmer. All the Rajasthan cities owe their fame and fortune to the trade and the caravans during the Silk Road era.
Today they rely on tourist and Indian Army that guard the Indo-Pakistani frontier.
On evening we went for diner on a nice quaint restaurant on the fortress overlooking the city (courtesy of the “Guide du Routard”) and we also discovered an antique shop in the very home of a collector of collections.