The road from Udaipur to Mt Abu had about 100km of roadwork - they are building a new tollway. There were plenty of jobs for civil engineers (Adam and Duncan) and hundreds of diggers and trucks with big boys playing in the dirt. We shared a car with an English guy, so we were sitting in air-conditioned comfort but it was quite a slow trip.
Now we're in the honeymoon capital of Rajasthan - Mt Abu. About 1100 metres above the plateau. A lake and many palaces, amidst granite boulder-strewn hills. It's a little bit cooler, too, than the plateau. The selection criteria for our hotel was that we were offerred trekking tours from here. Well we did a great afternoon one after we arrived, firstly to a Jain temple with more intricate granite carving than Ranakpur's, but not as big, then up into the hills to an impressive lookout to see the sunset across Rajasthan and Gujurat. It's quite hazy at the moment so the distances are limited.
Yesterday we did the John Cleese bus tour of Mt Abu, leaving at 8:30, stopping at about 20 temples all of varying interest ratings. Before getting off the bus each time we were given a five minute spiel of what we were about to see in Hindi. We were given talks at two of the World Peace centres; not a religion but all religions lead to God, God is light, we are spirit beings in a mortal body and we are in a cycle where we keep coming back until there is a new heaven and earth. Phil just loved this tour - NOT!
So today we took off with our trekking guide, Lalit Ganesh, up into the hills where we could hear no horns and see no people. Peaceful and plenty of excercise for Phil (Jenny too, but no wheels ;).
The Shri Ganesh Hotel is definitely the place to stay in Mt Abu. Jenny is off to a cooking class right now and Lalit takes walks in the hills each morning and evening.
We are off to Jodhpur on the bus Thursday morning - the Jodhpur road is supposed to be much better so the bus might be quite OK.
