Our journey into the 'Land of the Kings' started how we spent many an hour there - sat on a train.
But earlier nervousness about travelling the infamous Indian railways proved unfounded.
While the lower second class coaches were pretty rammed with limbs hanging out of open doors and windows, most travellers tend to pay a couple of quid extra and go in either the sleeper or AC classes.
We went for Three-Tier AC, which at about £12 each for the 12-hour journey from Delhi to Bikaner, meant we had our own bed, crisp sheets, and a chilled AC carriage.
Each carriage has eight beds, with two stacks of three beds facing each other, then a set of two on the other side. However only three other beds were taken in ours, meaning we had plenty of space to watch abit of Netflix on the laptop before getting a few hours of broken sleep.
Bikaner had a pretty strange vibe - as one of the less touristy spots we were accosted by the locals while venturing out, which felt abit uncomfortable at times.
The main purpose of our stop was to do a day of camel trekking before spending a night sleeping beneath the stars in the desert, which was pretty cool. We saw lots of wildlife - gazelles, eagles, and desert foxes - while plodding out to sand dunes, where we made camp for the night.
We had our own guides who also cooked up some Indian grub in the desert (super tasty, but we suspect the cause of our later Delhi belly), before we rolled out our blankets to sleep under the moonlight-lit sky.
As the moonlight faded though, the sky became emblazoned with twinkling stars. Spotting the shooting stars at 4am was stunning.
However less stunning was waking up with a dung beetle scuttling inside your vest, or a desert dog sniffing at your toes. Our sleep was also punctuated by some sort of incessant Indian tribal music blaring from a loud speaker in a nearby village.
It was an adventure, and an adventure suitably inkeeping with our India travels so far - beautiful moments mixed with bearable bother.
P.S. We also stopped off at the 'Rat Temple' just outside of Bikaner, which was utterly bizarre. Mangy rats were running freely through the temple as Indians paid worship.
You also had to take off your shoes to wander through rat-infested temple (!!!). Freya regretted not wearing socks that day..
Our next stop (six hours on train) was the beautiful Jaisalmer, the more popular spot for desert trips.
But we spent much of the three days recovering in our hotel from the dreaded Delhi belly, surfacing to tempt our appetite in the rooftop restaurant - which had great views of the fort.
Despite our troubles, I discovered a delicious new dish called chilli paneer - chunks of deep fried cheese tossed in lots of spices. Yum.
We did manage to get out towards the end of our three-days, wandering through the cobbled streets of the fort and taking in the picturesque havelis (below) dotted about the golden-tinged town.
Retrospectively a poor decision, we mixed up our transport mode to travel the five or so hours to Jodhpur, paying about three quid each to take a clapped-out bus that regularly felt like it would topple over as it swerved past cows at top speed on the Indian motorways.
Tired, sweaty and dusty - we arrived at the Dylan Guest House to the infectious smile of its owner Amin.
After a quick shower we were up on the hostel's super-cool rooftop hang-out - beer in hand, superb view of Jodhpur's formidable fort, and learning a cracking new card game from the locals (they called it golf).
We shared our time in Jodhpur between sprawling on the rooftop mingling with backpackers (in one night we had travellers from England, France, Sri Lanka, and Gibraltar), and exploring the beautiful 'Blue City'.
(Loads more pics on Instagram - @DickensTravels )
While we didn’t pay to enter the fort, the views from its outer walls were breathtaking. Also perched atop the hills overlooking Jodhpur was the serene Jaswanth Thada palace with its lush gardens.
We mostly ate at Dylan's, with Amin's team cooking up some incredible dishes -- including the speciality egg curry. (Hard boiled eggs, in curry). The veggie burger was also off the chart.
Our last stop in the fairytale-fort state was its capital Jaipur, a six-hour train journey that was scheduled to leave at 9am, but was delayed until near 4pm (apparently long delays aren't out of the norm in India).
Our arrival in Jaipur was also marred by riots that evening between locals and police. One person died after police fired into a baying crowd, sparking violence, cars being torched and curfews across the city. Our tuk-tuk from the station even had to divert to avoid the violence.
After spending the first day cooked up in our hotel (and yes, another rooftop restaurant with a fort-view), we hired a taxi driver to take us round some tourist spots.
The city centre was off-limits, but we got to see the main Amber Fort, super busy with tourists and touts, and the more peaceful Jaigarth Fort - set even higher up in the mountains with panoramic views of the city.
We also ventured to the Monkey Temple, a series of run-down palaces hidden away in the mountains that have been taken over by monkeys. I'm not a huge fan of monkeys, but these were too busy dodging the searing sun by belly-flopping into several swimming pools to pay much notice to passers-by.
We arrived this morning into Agra - to see the greatest palace of them all, the Taj Mahal. We're in a great little homestay just a stroll from the Taj, and plan to get there for sunrise tomorrow. The overnight train to Varanasi - the holy place next to the Ganges where they burn the dead - then awaits.
(Here's a very sophisticated map showing our trips rounds Rajasthan - crazy how small a part of India we've actually covered so far, despite the hours of travelling)
