Sorry for blogging delay. Chez and I parted Anita in Mumbai on our whirl-wind tour of Rajasthan, Agra and Delhi...

UDAIPUR, RAJASTHAN

Without a doubt the most romantic place I have ever been to. I very quickly got swept up in the atmosphere of Udaipur and promptly proposed to Cheree. She said yes, which is very lucky and loves her new ring, which despite the abundance of quality silver lining the streets - is a ring pull from a coke can. Sorry Anthony - what can I say? Udaipur cast a magic spell over me.

It is a place of fairy tale palaces and sunsets extraordinary. We only stayed a night but could have stayed much longer. Our first stop was a Hindu temple where we prayed to Ganesh for luck and new beginnings. And then onto the wonderful City Palace with the incredibly enthusiastic audio-guide attendant. He excitedly informed us that the audio guides were provided by a Sydney based company. We replied with the appropriate level of awe and wonder at this information.

We learnt (through the audio-guide) of the valiant Rajasthani warriors and rulers. They initially fought their turf wars with elephants as their steeds, replacing them with horses in later times. So the enemy elephants would not attack their horses, they dressed them in elephant armour with fake tusks and trunks knowing that an elephant never attacks one of his own.

Another memorable story was of the daughter of the Maharaja - in a diplomatic error, she was promised to 2 young princes from neighbouring kingdoms. When they both showed up to accept her hand, the Maharaja had little choice. Rather than offend either one of the princes, which would have resulted in a bloody war, he ordered that the young princess be killed. No one was prepared to take on the task so she endeavoured to poison herself. The story goes the first 3 deadly poisons she consumed had no effect. Finally, one last potion worked and she died.

THE PSYCHIC JEWELLER

Strange happenings took place in a jeweller in Udaipur. Lured in by the excellent silver work we started talking to the jeweller. The requisite Chai was ordered from the street vendor and we searched through many of the products, myself settling on a gift for Shari and a ring for myself made my the jeweller and Cheree finding some gifts for friends back home. But what we really found was a person knew some strange details about our life without us even knowing. All up we spent 2 hours there with him giving us advice on how to live our lives. Including: If you ever sell a book that you have read, you will forget what the book is about as you have now taken money for it.

He also read my palm, saying that I would travel all over the world and very soon to South East Asia - specifically Cambodia, Thailand and Laos. That my health would be very good throughout my life. That I should be a neat person as untidiness causes me stress (one for you Mum). And other things of detail that were quite interesting. It was one of those strangely spiritual encounters with a stranger that seems to happen so regularly in India.

A little bit dazed, we went and had a beer on our hotel rooftop while taking in the sunset.