The bus journey was uneventful, long and crowded but at least we had proper seats this time. We arrived in Jodhpur at about 8.30pm and amazingly the auto driver we used took us straight to the guesthouse without trying to suggest another one. In general, auto rickshaw drivers will try and divert customers away from the Shahi guesthouse because Bantu doesn't pay them commission but perhaps we had found an honest driver.

We were in the nice big room again and our laundry was all done too meaning that we had plenty of clothes to last us a while. I finally got to pay Bantu what we owed him already (plus a beer and a quick supper snack) and we sat out on the terrace and talked the evening away. Bantu's January wedding, visits from Rough Guide writers, other guesthouses, auto drivers, Yoga and tourism were all covered during our pleasant chat. Eventually though we had to go to bed as we had an early train in the morning and we'd need at least a little sleep beforehand.

We were up at 4.30am and no-one should be up at that time. We packed and went downstairs just as our auto rickshaw turned up. We bade farewell to Bantu and went to the station. Our train was only an hour late and we spent the next few hours just reading. I managed to get through an entire book before our train arrived, on time, in Ahmedabad. There we had to wait for four hours until our next train arrived. During that time I left Claire in the upper class waiting room and took an auto to find a certain chain of sandwich shop. It was either that or dubious station food and snack foods and there's only so much of that you can take. It took about an hour in total to drive out there, order and get back. Part of the time needed was to decide what to order. Being India, beef was off the menu and that ruled out a club. In fact they didn't have any meat at all except for mutton salami and that didn't appeal so I had to go for the vegetarian options. They also didn't have any proper bread ready, it was a most disappointing Subway visit.

Back at the station we ate our supper and carried on reading. A young man tried to engage me in conversation for a while but like so many others he had strong opinions on where we should have gone in India. While it's nice to have some pointers, I do wish that people would respect our decisions no matter how bad they think they are. Some of the people who have told us where we should go have even tried to get us to change our itinerary on the spot.

The train to Mumbai arrived exactly on time and we made ourselves comfortable. I finished my second book of the day before trying to go to sleep but sleep was difficult. Several people were snoring very, very loudly and there were frequent gassy emanations from all around us. It was quite unpleasant. I think that I only actually got to sleep after everyone else got off the train at the station before Mumbai.