Udaipur, Rajastan

Udaipur

Accomodation: Lake View Guest house. 200 ruppee for the room.

In the province of Rajastan in North-West India, Udaipur (pop 390,000) is 'the venice of the east' and Rajastans most romantic city. No man in toe, but armed with three female travelling companions, I fell in love with the city itself. Its famous for Lake Pichola, the Aravalli hills, and the floating Lake Palace, where parts of Octapussy Bond films was made.

Well, first impressions are I bloody love this place!!! What an amazing evening, especially considering we didnt get off the bus until 3pm and wasn't settled into accomodation until 4pm. The girls found a dorm but I really wanted a nice room so Anne joined me and we found for the same price a large room with balcony and terrace overlooking the lake and with views of the mountains and the rest of the city. Result! I had a nice shower before meeting Ducky and Alaina, and heading out for some food. I had the nicest lassi Ive had all my travels - a honey one. I also ordered a nice western meal since the past two days I have been dependant on whatever I can grab from the inside of a train or on train platforms. I think I am adampting to more indian food and becoming more tolerant of the spices involved!!

We wandered around the town which is just so full of character. There were many shops specialising in handicrafts and I had a fun half hour trying on sari's in a shop. I am starting to think about my 30th party Im gonna throw when Im settled into London. India theme, and I want the full works! I may buy everything I can here as I love this place amd I like buying clothes from abroad. We wandered around for quite a while, just taking it all in, and I loved it when 2 donkeys and a goat just wandered past of their own accord, like the most natural thing in he world. I love the smells of India, and the sounds..you here the jangle of bells from the temples, the sounds of indian music drifting across the marketplace, and the common sound of motorbikes which I might add are more crazy than anywhere I have ever been, and I thought south east asia was bad! The entertaining part of the evening was when I stepped in a large pile of fresh dung, resulting in peals of laughter from the girls, but an Indian man helpfully led me to a water pump and helped me rinse it away, shaking my hand afterwards and lingering just a tad longer than really necessary! I thoroughally enjoyed myself and just felt really happy.

Anne and I came back to our balcony and watched fireworks - there is some festival going on nearby, commemorating some famous guys birthday...dont know who?! I really like it here and oh dear it may just interfere with my itinary story of my life!!!!!

Wednesday 27th May

Another bloody great day. Think God is really blessing me the last few weeks of my travels especially after having such a down period and wondering what it was all about. I am sitting on my gorgeous balcony at my favourite time of day, having washed the past days dirt and sweat off me...and elephant smell! Yes, I finally got to ride an elephant and I have to admit I didnt think my first time would be in the Rajastan heat, off season, by myself, fighting the rickshaws and motorbikes for use of the road! Yes, horns and tooters ablaze, it was a blast (excuse the pun) peering from the heights of Mr Elephant, being the object of wonder or piss-taking, depending on which India was involved in the spectating. It was really quite a fun and random experience, partly because it wasn't planned but also watching the elephant simply walking up to every stall that had conceivable food in the form of bananas or greenery or melons, and about 99% of the time would be 'given' freebies. Methinks he eats like a horse, Obviously here too elephants are a slightly sacred animal, as some people also gave 5 or 10 ruppes which the elephant put in its trunk and passed up to me, who passed it on to the owner. I was supposed to be on it for only 1/2 hour and meeting my friends back where I got on it, but he kept saying ' no problem!' to my attempts at time-keeping and so it happened that 1 1/2 hours later I got dropped off at come unknown point in Udaipur and by luck managed to find my way back to the hotel hoping Anne wasnt annoyed as I was suppsosed to meet her an hour earlier with the only key!

Earlier today was a laugh. After breakfast, we went to the famous 'lake' which didnt exist! (see photo!)Apparantly its shallow at the best of times, but in any heat dries up completely! It actually needs the monsoon to get lake-like! So rather than the romantic and picturesque vision we envisaged, we were met with the sight of cattle grazing! We had to laugh. We also visited the city museum which was interesting. A hightlight was trying on sari's in a shop where James Bonds team went to to fit themselves with Indian attire back in '82. They proudly showed me a photo of Roger Moore looking at the various fabrics. Very exciting!

In the evening we watched 'Octapussy' until nearly the very end when the DVD died! I cant think how many times that DVD has been used as they play it every evening at 7pm!

Thursday 28th May

Another fanastic day!!!

We faffed around a bit in the morning after packing, checking out at 11am, and a late breakfast in Anna's. I bartered for some jewellery and wrote Gran and Uncle Jack a postcard which I have yet to post. We caught a rickshaw for 50 ruppee to a beautiful garden with water fountains and marble elephants. Alaina and I cooled ourselves down my running in and out of the sprouting water like kids. But it served its purpose in cooling me down, Rajastan remains to be very very hot! It was very relaxing and peaceful but it was our last day and we wanted to crack on (an. We then got another rickshaw to an arts and crafts village where an old sweet guy gave us a tour, giving us Indian names of Sita (me), Gita (Ducky), Marita (Alaina) and Rita (Anne) and like bossing us around a lot! There was some traditional music and a horse dance, and we saw village houses made in different styles and some amazing craft work including glass works by some well knwon dude that has won loads of awards. My favourite house was ?? which used mud and clay and dung to create solid walls (and keep the mosquitos out!) and then the inside was designed with broken bits of mirror decorated on a white surface. It really was very artistic and something I would like ot copy if I had my own place I would like to have the time to learn how to be creative with clothing and .

Then we got a rickshaw to 'Monsoon Palace' where the Octupussy was filmed. It wasnt that impressive to me honest, it looked better from the bottom of the hill but the views were absolutely incredible - panoramic.