Third time in India
This is, in fact, our third trip to India. We first came in 1998 for our first holiday after moving to Abu Dhabi. We backpacked, took trains, and went to Mumbai, Chennai, Cochin, and rural Maharashtra. We loved it and brought back all sorts of tat to decorate our apartment in the school in Abu Dhabi, silk miniature paintings, drums, saris, and even a gramophone (which we still have!).
Our second trip was in 2001, and we just went to Delhi and Agra and stayed with our good friends Deb and Phil, who had been posted there for a few years. We stayed in their luxurious house in the countryside, and their driver drove us around Delhi, etc. We had lunch at 5-star hotels and shopped at Christmas markets aimed at European expats, so we had quite a different experience.
I have actually been planning this trip to Rajasthan for more than 20 years. The first time was when I had just completed my doctorate in 2003. If all went well, I would pass and graduate in January 2004 and travel back to Exeter for the graduation via a holiday backpacking around Jordan and Syria. However… I was terrified that I wouldn’t pass the thesis examination, and to take the edge off the potential crushing disappointment, I planned an alternative dream trip to Rajasthan. As it turned out, luckily, I did pass and we did go back to Exeter for my graduation via Jordan and Syria (which was an amazing trip - no blog, just handwritten journals that I might type up one day).
So, we never had that Rajasthan trip in 2004, and shortly after, we left the UAE, and India wasn’t as accessible as it had been. Over the years, we have looked into going back to India, but prices for flights and hotels soared, especially around the Christmas holidays. We were going to splurge for my big birthday at Christmas/New Year in 2019-20, but that was a tough year, and it wasn’t good timing and it never happened. So, finally! 27 years after our first visit to India, we are going back again.
On this trip, we wanted to be independent travellers as usual and take trains as we did before, but we wanted to stay in nicer places. We were able to book trains and hotels in advance this time, which made things so much easier. Credit cards are widely accepted now, and there are plenty of ATMs. On our previous trips, we were stuck trying to cash travellers’ cheques in towns with no banks.