Hello everyone back home.

Well we still can't get any photos uploaded so you'll just have to wait a little longer for those, but we can let you know what we have been up to since our last update in Jodhpur.

We had a lovely older guy as our guide in Jodhpur, he was very well educated and had fantastic English so it was very easy to understand him and really interesting to listen to everything he had to say. He was very knowledgeable about the sights and history. So we started at the Jaswant Thada which is an amazing marbled temple and memorial to the Maharaja. It is an amazing piece of architecture with beautiful marble detail and several intricate memorials to past Maharajas that have died. There are great views from here across to the fort and over the blue city of Jodhpur. We also had a couple of kites fly just over our heads while we were admiring the view.

From here we headed up to the fort, which you really could spend days at probably, but we had a few hours instead. We managed to see the best bits I think which included the Maharajas collections of swords, silver, art and elephant harnesses. It also gave great views over the city, including across to the current Maharajas new palace..half of which is a hotel, but way out of our price range!

We wished we could have kept our guide for the rest of our trip through India, but no such luck and we rushed off to our next stop, Rohet Garh. Our hotel was lovely with a pool, so we chilled out there for a bit before going out on a jeep safari of the little villages in the local area, where they live in mud huts with so little material belongings, but it was very tranquil. At one, which was a little bigger we were welcomed to join an opium ceremony...slightly random where we drank some ground up and watered down poppy seeds from our guide hand...slurp slurp!

Next day off to Jajowar which was a change from our itinerary...not sure why! We checked into our hotel which was like an old haveli and chatted to the owner, it had been in his family for 8 generations. Again they had a pool so we had a much needed cool down and it was great to have nothing planned all afternoon.

The next day we were off again, this time to Mount Abu, a hill station where people use to go (and still do I think) to cool down in the summer. The landscape now was changing, becomming much greener and hilly. It was a welcome change from the desert before. Mount Abu was beautiful and we could have stayed several days, but we just had one and so had a tour of the town with its unbelievably intricate Jain temple. You could spend hours at this place as every surface (ceiling, wall and pillars) had carvings all over. Our guide was fantastic and very knowledgeable so I felt we learnt alot...see this trip really is educational!!We were also vey lucky and had been upgraded to a suite so we had the most enormous room! Think we may get a shock when we get to SE Asia and start booking our own hotels!

So that takes us to yesterday, when we stopped at a few sights - temples in Ranakpur and a fort with great views out over the valley and hills at Kumbalgarh- and then arrived here in Udaipur. We have just had a tour of the city seeing the City Palace and beautiful Crystal Gallery and at last managed to find some time on the internet.

We have had lots of interesting experiences on the roads of India, there seems to be no rules of the road, we are forever dodging cars, rickshaws, overloaded trucks and buses with people hanging off the roof, as well as cows which are considerd sacred but roam wherever they please, including dual-carriageways!! But our driver Sampat is hilarious even with his limited English and the Tata is our sanctuary from the heat as it has functioning air-con...ahh bliss!

Anyway, we hope all is well back in Blighty...missing you all lots.

Loads of love

Gem and Andy xxx