"The potato vada has returned!" Patrick spots the stall at Nadol, the junction of 40 with NH 67. They are the best we've had so far, and we have two each!
All day adults and children wave and/or shout bye bye. In this region of Rajasthan, we've started to notice the more colorful turbans the men wear. The landscape doesn't change much, the road surface varies from decent but narrow, to bumpy asphalt to a nice road with shoulder and painted white lines, to narrow again and almost a goat track.
We decide to take the new bypass road around Pali and aim for a hotel on the other side of the town. There is an overpass for the railway that we don't take because the hotel is on the other side of the road. Only the road ends under the overpass at the railway tracks. We push and lift the bikes over the tracks, and Patrick's tire goes flat. We are almost to the hotel, Arawali Palace.
A palace it's not. It's not even completely finished and probably won't ever be. Looks as though the overpass has almost put the place out of business, there's no easy way to get to the place. Patrick haggles the price down then we become demanding guests. The sheets look dirty, they are changed. There are two toilets. Patrick takes a shower, then there's no water for Rachel, and we ask for the water to be turned back on. It is, until we return from dinner in the restaurant and there's no water and no one around. Dinner was good though, and there was beer.
All acceptable, by staying here tomorrow is a few kilometers shorter.
We have some twists and turns on small roads today. The GPS is an awesome tool.
Reaching the main road to Pali. We decide to take the bypass and not go through the city. Instead aiming for a hotel on the east side of the city to make tomorrow a little shorter.
Our hotel is a bit dodgy. It appears the building was never quite finished, and with the new raised four-lane highway it is hard to access and out of sight. The room is okay, and with Patrick's haggling, the price gets cut in half. We do need to ask for clean sheets and have the water turned on.....
Next door is a bar, so a cold beer is ready for us.
