Kipling country - Ranthambore & Bundi

Ranthambore National park - ostensibly the home of Shere Khan and Bagheera, yet our jeep safari yielded just one lonely tiger footprint. Accommodation was provided by a former hunting lodge with incredible views over the park, but the lodge is now unfortunately run by the infamous RTDC tourism department so what could have been amazing ended up being a lacklustre version of its former glory or future potential. No doubt some investor will capitalise on the opportunity before too long.

Not to be discouraged by the non-appearance of our (honeymoon-card) car or driver, we set off for Bundi later in the day. The train was delayed by two hours, not necessarily unusual or notable in these parts. The buses on arrival in Kota weren't running either, ditto. TV crew interview of Mr & Mrs Brewster in Kota station about how the lack of transport had affected us - mildly interesting but as we had only been in the place 10 mins with a main objective to leave, we couldn't really pass much comment. Upon reaching the guesthouse in Bundi we were immediately swarmed by Western tourist inhabitants asking; "how did you get here?", "what was the journey like?" Erm - all fine we said, just jumped in a taxi, why? It transpired that they had been stuck there for four days and had heard all road and rail was closed due to Gujjat troubles. Ah. Our travel problems that day started to become understandable.

We decided to ignore the outside issues and concentrate on exploring Bundi which is a lovely town. Kipling apparently wrote part of Kim here, an unsurprising fact once you start to enjoy the (relative) peace of the place.

Bundi palace was one of the most stunning we have seen in India. Clinging on to the side of a mountain and crumbling haphazardly down the sides it shows that the maharajahs really knew how to flash their cash. Incredible courtyards, gardens and murals all over the walls and ceilings. A proper treat. In homage to the release of the new Indiana Jones film, the husband embarked on a remarkable mission through a "secret way" up to the top of a tunnel, which required wading through bat droppings so deep they squelched into his Crocs, and hearing just the whoosh (like a fan he reckoned) of a wall of bats flying just past his head. Not for girls, happily.

Final comments on Bundi relate to our guest house. There is a make of ancient air conditioning unit which we call the Desert Storm. It's about the size of a Mini and is attached to the outside of your room. You have to fill them up with water each day. Anyway the pins on our DS plug broke so we sent for the guy to fix it. Oh no problem, he said, we'll just do it direct and proceeded to strip the cord down to the wires and popped them directly into the socket. As you do.

Next stop U-U-Udaipur.