What a journey! I knew we were facing an epic adventure taking the train to Ahmedabad and then catching a train soon after up to Udaipur but when doing it, we never thought the journey would end! With a race to get to the station for the train for 1.15pm (which we realized when we got on the train should have been 1.40pm after all!) we left over an hour to get there (1/2 hour would usually suffice) but all roads stopped for what we found out soon after was the Prime Minister visiting the city. I'm sure we would have been happy to see him any other time but I was not happy he delayed our journey to the station! After a nail-biting journey we got to the station with 5 minutes to spare and as we only had a 500 note (the journey cost 150 Rupees) the driver tried to find change but with Dave shouting 'come on! Forget the money, we need to catch the train!' we left the driver with a very good tip indeed. The epic then commenced: What should have been a 7 1/2 journey, ending at 9pm at Ahmedabad stretched to 9 hours due to signal failure near Ahmedabad (solved by someone flashing torches to get us through - oh joy!) The on-board dining was interesting: a never ending trail of people shouting cha-ai (tea), selling a range of (actually increasingly tempting as the journey went on) sandwiches, Indian titbits and sweets, and various entertainment like lit spinning tops, strange Barbie-esque dolls, books, fluorescent tubes and miriad other exotic contraptions. The people around us (one family with a lovely little girl smiling and playing all through the journey, a lady next to me onthe way to see her husband who'd got promoted and they were commuting every weekend for 3 years until her returned to Mumbai, a few businessmen and a kind husband and wife) in turn were curious (asking questions) took pity on us (offering us food and advice) and were in fact very good travel companions.

Once at Ahmedabad we stopped for a bite to eat and a re-stock of drink, and then we got on to our "sleeper" train, which consisted of a family underneath our plastic coated bunks (nice..not) near the fans on the ceiling and this is what what I soon came to dub the 'ear piercing bone shaker'. It started off promisingly with two young guys next door offering us their bunks so we weren't above the family, but then they said they'd have a word with the family and the family cleared up and left all the benches to us! We tied up our bags to settle own for the night. However, a combination of a man loudly talking, seemingly to himself, a regular long blast from the train's engine horn, the loud rattling of the train shutters, door, and anything else that could move and the violent shaking of the train over every sleeper, I am amazed I actually did grab 40 winks!

Things started to improve when we woke at 5am (we set an alarm so we didn't miss the stop, not realizing it actually should have been 8am to aim for) but because of the early rise we saw the moon slip down behing the hills and the sun creep up over them. What a breath of fresh air and what a change from the slums of Mumbai and Ahmedabad. Instead we saw rolling hills and little gatherings of civilisation living next to cattle and drawing water from wells - none of the pollution, smell (exception for the smoke from the train!) and bustle of the city. We eventually drew up in Udaipur. It has about the same number of people as Southampton but reminds me of a Greek island in the sense that we have ended up in a bright, breezy room overlooking Lake Pichola. It is less noisy (but still too noisy for me to catch up on some sleep in the day - hence me writing this now) and most beautiful - several fairytale castles can be seen from the rooftop restraurant of our hotel. I think we may stay here a while!

Later in our stay...

Well, what a gem this place is! And yet what a dive! We have visited so many beautiful places and yet the people here are just non-stop. For ever hassling, ceaslessly. Every time you walk past, even if it is 3 times!! But let us concentrate on the gems. There is the City Palace where we had high tea and looked out over the beautiful lake. We took an evening stroll in some gardens where there was a sunset viewing point and we watched the sun literally roll down a hill - I have never seen anything like it before or since. There's the Jagdish temple where amateur student-aged guides take you round and give you a really interesting even if questionably true insight into what is in and around the temple. And then there was paddle-boating on the lake. This gave us a fun and unique perspective on the glittering shimmering lake where, in dry periods, they actually play cricket! We also ventured near to the luxurious and expensive hotel in the middle of the lake. It costs about 1250 rupees to stay there (about 100 pounds) and I was tempted but didn't want to blow that much money so early on in the trip. We also took in the sunsets by climbing up the temptingly lit paths to the top and watching the red sky settle over one of the most beautiful towns I have seen. Like everything in India it was tinged with a backdrop of threat - there were some blokes hanging about in some ruins looking threatening and we stayed as far away as possible, not sure if they were a real threat or whether we were just nervous. Not very relaxing!

Neither of us have felt very well so it's been good old pizza all the way except for one night we went to a posh restaurant and I thought I'd treat myself to not just a quarter but a half chicken cooked Tandoori style. Well, it must have been the skinniest chicken ever with the lack of meat on it. Hint: go veggie in India, you'll get a lot more! Mind you, you can't get meat in some places so I suppose I should be grateful for every scrap!

We got some money out from a bank and in our attempts to conceal it actually ripped it. We went to a bank to sort it out but they wouldn't believe we had got it out there. It was a 1000 rupee note which although is a meaningful amount to us (80 pounds) it is a considerable amount to them so naturally they were wary but this meant we had lost 80 pounds of our hard- earned cash. We would have to find some half-wit to pass it on to.

Did you know that Octop**** (the Bond film) was filmed in Udaipur? Well, a very little bit of it is, but the Indians are very proud of this and literally in every restaurant every night they run the film. Despite this we never actually saw it all the way through!!

We decided to try and get away from people for a bit and complete our convalescence in the middle of nowhere to we booked a taxi to pick us up the next day. Next stop: Ranakpur.