It may have been the fact that everybody to whom we mentioned our itinerary to seemed to dislike Jodhpur, and told us that there were no good restaurants, enough for only one day of sightseeing, and that it was a city that had all the (bad) things you thought about Indian cities that made me want to like it even more.

That and the fact we’d booked in for four nights and our itinerary in Rajhastan was pretty inflexible with all our hotels and trains booked in advance that detouring from it would be pretty difficult.

Our driver (hired from Jaisalmer, how very decadent!) dropped us off at the end of Nai Sarak – the main commercial street in Jodhpur and admittedly quite busy – and just in from of the Old Town Sardar Market. Again, trying to look like seasoned travellers we lugged our backpacks through the market and into the streets of the Old Town. I was pretty confident our Guest House was pretty close by, and we ignored the inevitable touts and scams we were certain they were trying to pull us into.

I guess it’s a sad thing to feel that way, and it does feel a little unfriendly and rude barking a disinterested “No” at people – many of whom I’m sure genuinely want to help – but the Lonely Planet warns you about people coming up to you wanting to give you directions only to tell you that the hotel you have booked into has closed and can help you find another one. As we neared where we though our guest house was near, and looked decidely lost, we were approached by a gentleman enquiring about our destination. After rudely ignoring him, and shouting “Heaven Guest House, we know where it is” he started following us, saying it was our lucky day as he was the owner – yeah, right.

Well, he actually was the owner. If he was offended he didnt let on, and thankfully showed us the way to our second guest house.

By chance, a lot of our first hotels have been much more family-run that we realised. This man and his wife ran the guest house with their family living on the ground floor. Business seemed to be done in their living room and as we settled in I began to understand the way of the Indian people a bit better. Initially I found their directness a little strange, and bordering on rude. Although everybody has been incredibly friendly and overly helpful, quickly you realise just how bloody polite British people are. How we scowl when somebody doesnt say please or thank you; doesnt it make our blood boil when the person in front of us lets the door slam in our face; how invaded we feel when somebody dares to invade our personal space by bumping into us on the street and doesnt even apologise.

Well, in India don’t expect any of that. “please” is an oft-used word. Instead of would you mind sitting there, or please come down later and if you fancy I can recommend some nice restaurants, you get – “Now sit” and “I know a good restaurant. You go.” It’s just a very economical way of communicating.

Our room in the Heaven Guest House was small, but nice and quiet. It had either cold or scalding hot water in the shower, but this was a marked improvement from Jaisalmer. However the main thing was that it had another lovely rooftop restaurant that looked out onto Mehrangarh – Jodhpurs magnificent fort – and with four days in the city, this was perfect. I’d go as far to say that a decent outdoor communal space should be high on your check list when it comes to booking accommodation in India. It can be a frenetic place, and having that little bit of sanctuary that’s not your room is very much a necessity.

So, having settled in we decided on where to eat. The food in Jaisalmer was OK but we hadnt found that beautiful Indian experience wed been hoping for. So, we opened up trusty Lonely Planet and plumped for their “Top Choice” Indique. This wasn’t expensive by UK standards, but it was pricey compared to the other restaurants. Located in the plush Pal Haveli, and featuring a stunning rooftop bar (reminiscent of the wonderful rooftop bars in one of my favourite destinations, Istanbul) I almost felt transferred to somewhere far more cosmopolitan than North India. Some other travellers were nearly killed by more of those “side-ejecting” Indian fireworks that went off out of nowhere – but that did little to distract from the disappointment of the food. It wasnt very nice, and it was expensive!

A wise friend gave me the advice, “In India, you have to go veggie all the way” Indeed, even in this fine establishment I opted for a veggie (potato) curry. James thought he could beat the system and ordered what turned out to the most scrawniest piece of butter chicken Id ever seen. As usual, he ate it anyway and didnt complain until after – whenit was too late and the damage was done. I wont go into detail, but while I was fine – he was not, and the only difference was the butter chicken. It was a mistake to be repeated a couple of times more I regret to say.

So, what of Jodhpur – the city that needs only one day? It must be to do with different tastes but I loved it. It was like India on steroids – cow dung everywhere, four cows for every person, streets of dirt, rabies filled dogs around every corner – but it was just one of the most fascinating places to just, wait for it, wander about. And that’s all we did for the first day – wander. The old town is painted blue and theres just so much to look at and absorb. With India still a novelty it was intoxicating to suck it all in. We also had a much better experience dining that day (or at least I did, somebody else was a bit too fragile) at the Nirvana Cafe. Half the price, and double the taste than the previous evening.

Day Two was tourist day as we headed up to the fort. The audio tour was magnificent and made the whole thing come alive. Im not going to bore you with details but its been my favourite tourist attraction in India so far and provided amazing views of the Blue City over which it looks. The day was ended on an adrenaline high as we signed up for the Zip Line tour around the fort.

In a rather bizarre match, while visiting Jodhpur fort you can get yourself harnessed up to a Zip Line – or flying fox – and soar out of the fort and over the lakes surrounding it on six different lines. Anybody who knows me well will instantly know this was something I HAD to do. It is rather pricey, but it is such an amazing experience its well worth it. I only felt sorry for the poor Australian woman whose zip seemed to fail half way down one of the lines and had to be rescued. Actually, if Im honest – it was quite funny.

Our third day was the last in Jodhpur and again, gave me one of the best days of our whole trip so far. Id stumbled into a shop looking for some water and saw a small cookery class taking place inside. Id wanted to learn how to make a proper Indian curry so signed us up for one of the lessons. When we got there there was an Australian couple taking part as well and we went through the basic lessons of Chai Masala, Vegetable Biryani, Daal, Channa Masala, Panner Masala, Naan, and Chapati, Raita, and Saffron Lassi. It was a whole day of knowledge and eating tasty food. This would certainly be top of my Must Do activities in Jodhpur – and only 850 rupees (£10) – bargain!

Udaipur was next up on the itinerary, and it had a lot to live up to. In all the pre-planning it was probably the city I looked forward to the most. The most beautiful city in India? I couldn’t wait to find out.

Having only skimmed through Delhi, and our first taste of India being the fun (but not luxurious Sleeper) train service, arriving in Jaisalmer would be the first taste of India proper. The only worrying thing being that our hotel – the Hotel Suraj – was one I booked by mistake. Rather confusingly there is a Hotel Surja as well. The reviews for that one were amazing – it seemed like the ideal way to get started on our Indian adventure. Once the mistake was noticed, I tried to book that one instead, but it was full. I tried another, and that was full as well. So we had to make do with a hotel where one trip advisor reviewer noted that it was cold, had holes in the walls, and bats that flew through the room – nice.

I like to appear a confident traveller, and had google mapped the hotel (in the old town, or “fort”) and concluded it was within walking distance. As we strode out the station, backpacks proud, we navigated the expected Rickshaw drivers and confidently acted like we knew what we were doing. We’re not going to be conned by anybody this trip. After a couple of minutes we could see the Old Town Fort majestically, as described by the travel books, rising from the desert. No matter how majestic it looked, it looked a damn sight further away than it looked on google maps. “Shall we get a rickshaw?” I asked James, but no, we kept our pride and lugged the backpacks through the streets toward the fort.

Like many things, the thing you do is often the one you think is the right idea. It actually didn’t take that long and the walk gave us the best overview of what Jaisalmer was like outside of the fort. Like Delhi, the main thing to get used to was the animals just roaming the streets, the slightly ramshackle feel of the buildings (are they going up or coming down?) and the amount of rubbish and cow dung everywhere. Despite this, I didn’t feel as shocked as I thought I would. India was beginning to drawn me in.

A quick walk through the fort brought us to the Hotel Suraj. Although initially quite impressed with the Fort I have to admit it didn’t quite live up to the Arabian Night dreams I’d been having. It is certainly one of the most interesting pieces of architecture I’ve ever seen, but it wasn’t windswept and covered in sand. Probably a good thing. There were no snake charmers or such, and it was much less touristy than I had imagined as well.

As we were led up to our room at the Suraj (or Surja, I don’t know, I need to ask James each time) I was very definitely worried. This was my mistake after all and I so wanted everything to get off to the best start possible. Due to there being the annual Rickshaw Ride leaving Jaisalmer in a few days, and a resultant block booking, we were upgraded (third time, get in!) to the Maharajah Suite. It wasn’t the height of luxury, but as owner Chimmy made quite clear, it was a budget hotel. I didn’t feel like a Maharajah but the room was absolutely perfect. I loved it. I had such a low expectation but the room, the staff and Jaisalmer itself was the perfect way-in to India.

I reckon most people might find our way of travelling a little boring and would be surprised to find that we didn’t even visit the Jain Temples (which we could see into from the hotel roof terrace) nor the Fort Palace. Instead of seeing every gallery, museum, or temple from the past, I much prefer to just wander and take in every aspect of life as it is today.

Granted, our camel safari was probably one of the most touristy things we’ve done so far on holiday – but when in Jaisalmer it seems you cannot leave without spending at least an hour and a half riding a camel through the desert.

The 90-minute jeep ride was lots of fun – bumping along terrible roads at 90 kmph, but the journey also provided one of the weirdest and uncomfortable parts of the trip so far. We stopped off at a village and were bombarded by children demanding rupees (pens and sweets no longer cut it) and in our 5 minute aimless wander I learned little about Rajasthani village life and felt the 100 rupees lost during the encounter wasn’t worth how terribly voyeuristic I felt afterward. As a westerner I don’t really know how Im supposed to react in this kind of situation. Do I give them the rupees? Do I feel sorry for them? Go back to the UK and decide to make a difference? It’s an impossible quandary with most pre-trip advice being ignore their demands.

The safari itself was a lot of fun, and the short camel ride was quite frankly more than enough for me. Its not the most comfortable form of transport, but it did get us to one of the few sand dunes near Jaisalmer just before sunset. After a quick camp-fire meal we headed back to the town having fulfilled our tourist brief in Jaisalmer.

We had also chosen Jaisalmer as our first destination as we were going to be spending our first New Year abroad and thought an evening in the desert would be fun. Originally I thought doing an overnight camel trip would be great, but having felt how cold it was, hearing tales of gigantic desert beetles, and generally enjoying our hotel too much, we decided we would try and find a party in Jaisalmer. There are loads of hotel roof tops, the town seemed quite busy and if worst came, we always had our own hotel terrace where, we’d been assured, there would be music and dancing.

As evening fell we became aware of a stillness in Jaisalmer. There seemed to be nobody except us and four Japanese students in the whole of the town. We wandered a lot, followed music that turned out to be a red herring in the form of a very loud television, but kept positive that a small gathering would present itself around the next corner. It didn’t.

We sadly headed back to our hotel to try and get a drink there, but the promise of music and dancing turned out to be a cruel lie. There was nothing, but the staff man on duty would “turn the lights on for us” which was something I guess.

As we gazed into the desert we were sure we could hear the laughter and music from all those in Jaisalmer who were on camel safaris. However, as we listened carefully we thought we could hear music a little closer to home. Not in the Old Town, but somewhere not too far out of it.

Should we try, at 23:40 to find that elusive party?

Our options were a drink on the terrace on our own (but not in the dark), the hotel over the other side of the road that had 6 people (of which two were the hotel staff) or take a tuk-tuk into the unknown and see what happened.

We found a rickshaw and told him to take us to where the were people. After a consulting with a local twelve year old boy who was lighting fireworks and chucking them at a wall, we set off somewhere. That somewhere proved to be a rundown cafe on the edge of the city that, at first glance my reaction was no way. However, James pipped in first and said it was fine so we approached the 20-or-so people huddled round a camp fire and sat down. It was a mix of Indian men and Wester tourists and the reception was frosty at first. However, we had our beers and a terrific view of the fireworks being set off all around from the desert and the posh hotels.

We also had a soundtrack that included two plays of Shakira’s classic ‘Waka Waka’ – so all was well.

At midnight the atmosphere changed completely and everybody jerked alive. Wonderful Indian fireworks (they go sideways it seems, not up) hugs and wishes of happy new year followed by fantastic (modern) Indian dancing. Its a bit unusual for us to see but Indian men must be very used to dancing without women as the lack of them at the party didn’t stop them from really going for it. Of course, I joined in as well and it made for a pretty random New Year but a perfect one as well.

As we crept home we probably felt we could have stayed many more days in Jaisalmer but we only have two weeks to see Rajasthan before heading down south. Jodhpur, the Blue City, was the next stop on our list and it saw us flying high up in the air around the Palace.

I’m starting to get a little more confident with my camera, but travel photography is very different to weddings where people expect their photos to be taken. Anyway, here is some from Jaisalmer.

Delhi

Our trip got off to a fantastic start when, trying to check in online with BA I was told that our seats had been upgraded to World Traveller Plus. An upgrade, even one that mostly consists of a little extra leg room, was very much appreciated and set the tone, I hoped – for what would come the rest of the 7 wek trip to India – Rajhastan and Kerala to be precise.

As a very early-30s backpacker, whose biggest trip before was ten years ago as an intrepid inter-railer around Europe, I feel at quite a strange point. I’m not young (and stupid) enough to put up with squalor at the expense of saving a few pounds, but can hardly afford to spend 7 weeks lounging around in 5* resorts either – and of course that’s not what I’m after anyway. Mid-budget might suit me best, but what that translates into in India I have no idea. It’s not that I’m not well travelled – indeed a lot of my friends will tell you I’m more often out of the country that in it- but that I have got accustomed to travelling in style.

Lots of people had prepared me for the arrival in Delhi, the most extreme being “get out as fast as you can” Having never travelled in India, or Asia for that matter before, we decided to follow this advice and ensure a “soft landing” in India by cocooning ourselves in the rather plush, and expensive, Radisson Blu at Delhi airport for the morning of arrival – 2am if you want the exact time. I must admit to feeling a bit of a fake-packer as I glanced our rather smart driver holding up our names as we entered the arrival hall. I convinced myself that, having had a long flight, and with what was to come, this was a little bit of luxury to help ease us in to the way of Indian life. In retrospect, this was certainly one of the best things we could have done… an easy ride to the hotel, a glass of wine before bed, another upgrade – this time to a suite – and a quiet, restful night.

Still being a bit jet-lagged, we had a rather lovely lie-in before heading down to the buffet breakfast. I always thing a buffet breakfast is the best way to go and it was interesting to see a full range of Indian breakfast items on display. As I write, it’s actually been the most Indian of breakfasts I’ve had. After that, a little lounge in the spa (really we could have been anywhere in the world at this point) before deciding that we better get some chains so we could lock our backpacks to something while we slept on the train. It was time to leave the confines of the Radisson and brave the local market 500m from the hotel.

Now I know lots of Japanese people wear those mouth protectors in London, and I’m not sure if that’s to protect from smog or disease – but really the smog and pollution in Delhi puts London to shame. It even gets inside buildings making your eyes smart if you don’t blink enough. The smog does seem to add atmosphere to the place though, and for our first encounter in India, it played it’s part setting the scene.

This has probably been written before, and it’s probably a horrible cliche – but India assaults all your senses as soon you enter. For me the first thing that hits is the sheer number of people who are just there. In London there are lots of people – but they are busy going somewhere usually. In India the people seem to hang around – of course they are doing something, but they don’t seem to be in any great rush to do it.

Unless they are driving – and the second thing that hits you is the noise of the horns. The beep beep is pretty constant and seems to convey a whole lot of messages in what I’m sure is some kind of code passed down from father to son over generations, as without it, you ain’t going to last 5 minutes on any of India’s roads. Despite the chaos, and lack of traffic lights or pedestrian crossigs (Tufty would have a heart attack here!) it all feels surprisingly safe as the drivers seem to have a sixth sense that guides them out the way of most cars, pedestrians crossing the road, or any cows who decide that now is when they want to cross the road.

Within 3 minutes we’d seen our first cow. You know it’s going to happen (the cow pats in the street make that clear) but seeing a cow wandering along the street for the first time is a memorable experience. I’ll probably talk a bit more about cows as I travel, but their presence is such a big part of Indian life.

The smells are also very different to here and with every step the smell can change. Mostly it alternates between the lovely smells of spicy food, and the rather unpleasant smell of sewage. Thankfully you only have to walk a few more steps for the smell to change again.

After trying to buy our first piece of Indian food (a Samosa! Crazy!) but failing as we didn’t have a small enough denomination of rupee – we managed to make our first successful Indian purchase (two chains – 120 rupees) that’s a little less than £2. I’ve successfully managed to haggle once – this wasn’t the time. I’m planning to get better at that as I go along.

Our train to Jaisalmer was due to leave at 17:30 so we found our way to the Metro Station and took the rather lovely Metro to New Delhi Station. The train ticket booking system in India is incredibly well done, but a little tricky to navigate for the first time user of Indian trains. Of course, we’re pros now, but 2 months ago when we booked this ticket we were not and unfortunately fell foul of the dreaded WAITLIST ticket.

In India there are different classes for train travel – AC1 (first class luxury) AC2 & AC3 (second classes) and the Sleeper class. AC1 costs about £30 while Sleeper costs around £3. With this being our first (and rather long at 17 hours) train journey we decided to plump for the luxury of AC1. We’d worked hard for 10 years, could afford it and therefore deserved it. So we booked the tickets. It was only upon reviewing the tickets we realised that our tickets weren’t confirmed tickets but waitlisted tickets. Basically we were in an electronic queue (far better than a physical Indian queue, but a queue nonetheless) and had to hope that enough people cancelled so we could take our rightful place in first class.

They didn’t.

Luckily we had managed to secure a Sleeper ticket for the journey so we entered the station sad we hadn’t made it to AC1, but optimistically curious about sharing our journey with the real India.

I’d had visions of New Delhi station being a straight out of the Orient Express. A vision from the times of the Empire, and a place where one might have a cup of coffee, flick through one’s Kindle while leisurely waiting for ones train.

The reality is that New Delhi Station is probably one of the ugliest buildings I’ve ever seen in my life. With the architectural panache Stalin would be proud of, it’s a bit like entering the biggest, busiest public urinal man has even built. Being two well prepared travellers we were there around an hour early and so enjoyed our time waiting in this gloomy building.

Perhaps alarm bells should have rung a bit earlier, but as we got to closer to 17:30 we began to be slightly worried that the 17:30 Jaisalmer Express wasn’t displayed on the departure boards. After checking with the Enquiry desk at around 17:25 we were informed that our train went from Old Delhi Station, not New Delhi Station. How do we get there? The Metro.

The usually upbeat me who thinks that anything is possible was actually ready to admit defeat, but James decided we should give it a go. We lugged our bags on the busy Metro and on the journey realised why the mistake had been made. Nowhere on any map is Old Delhi Station listed. It’s not mentioned in the usually comprehensive Lonely Planet, and the ticket just says Delhi Station. Neither New nor Old. We later learned that others due in Jaisalmer had made the same mistake.

Whether someone looking down on us took pity, or whether the Indian trains are always late – we reached the platform at 17:45 with the train yet to pull out the station. As soon as we tried to take our seats we were accosted by a man trying to explain something to us that, to me sounded like, you can’t sit in those seats as they are ours. We showed him our tickets, trying to explain that these are our seats and he whisked them out our hands and took us to some new seats, whereit became apparent that his family had been split up on the train so could we swap seats. Why yes of course we could, but these seats already looked full? We were then told by a lovely Indian man that it was a bit of a free for all until 7:45pm when the seats actually became ours. At one point in the journey there were around 15 people in the seats. But it was fun. It wasn’t comfortable
but it was fun, and it was the real India. I took ten minutes to stand at the door, almost hanging off it as we trundled through the suburbs of Delhi, amazed to see people walking along the tracks beside the train. This was the moment I felt I’d really arrived in India.

The rest of the train journey was long and pretty uneventful, but one thing really made it all worthwhile. Once the train emptied and we had our beds down we asked the nice Indian man and his mum if there was going to be any kind of buffet car (I know, sounds pretty naive now) as we didn’t have any food. Thankfully they said they had more than enough to be able to share, as did the man in one of the other bunks, so we didn’t go hungry. I also thought it nice that our first proper Indian meal was one shared with us. It was all beautiful as well.

Morning came as we approached Jaisalmer. Not exactly refreshed, but very excited, and also a little worried that our hotel – booked as a mistake by me thinking it was a different hotel – wasn’t going to be very nice. It turned out I needn’t have worried.

My photos aren’t uploading properly, so you’ll have to wait until next time for that.

So. The time has come. I’m just about to head off to the airport and embark on my biggest travelling experience… Two months in India.

This post is to let everybody know that while I’m away I will be blogging every now and then with some photographs. See below for my new travel camera, the fujifilm x100 – I can’t wait to get going with it properly. It’s also the first time I’ll be logging straight from the iPad.

Although of course my blog is based around my business, I hope a few travel posts will be appreciated :)

I’ll be checking my email every now and then, so if I don’t reply quickly then I’m very sorry!

It’s no secret that I love a good wedding day portrait session, but as I have said in previous posts, probably my favourite part of photographing a wedding is the ceremony. It’s such an honour to be part of that moment when two people come together and make those vows – sometimes (and I know it will shock those who know how manly and tough I am) I even get a bit emotional myself.

Bella and Stu’s wedding ceremony was one of those times – there was a whole lot of love in that room and it’s difficult not to be moved by it. One of my best friends commented that, looking at theses photographs, ireally made them understand Bella and Stu’s feelings for each other. As a wedding photographer that must be one of the best compliments somebody could pay me – and it’s my biggest goal to achieve at every wedding I shoot.

Bella, our beautiful bride, looked amazing in her 50s styling and gorgeous shoes and I loved her slightly bee-hived hair-style (girls, it never fails!). In my mind, it suited Bella and Stu’s fun approach to the day and made this wedding such a blast to shoot. Stu was just as well turned out (and I think it was his emotions that got me in the end!)

Big thanks to both families who made me feel a big part of the day :)