Getting to Udaipur took approximately 8 hours. As usual we took a public bus but fortunately this time we did have a toilet stop! However the tiny toilet was the exclusive domain of the women and children so David had to join the rest of the Indian men (and wild pigs) and go al fresco - well whilst in Rome!

Our accommodation in Udaipur isn't a hotel as such as we are staying in the home of an ex army colonel and his wife with mad hair and a hearing problem (or at least she must have if the volume of her TV is anything to guage it by!). In fact she reminds me a bit of Marjory from 'The Good Life' as she floats around with her big hair, colourful khaftans and snobbish demeanour.

Udaipur has received the dizzy accolade of being named the tourist number 1 hotspot for 2009, overtaking the likes of Cape Town and Sydney for the first time. Now don't get me wrong I actually do really like this place but it kind of goes down in my estimation because of it's aggressive commercial quality and the young men who ride around on motorbikes pestering you. It is known as the Venice of India as it has a huge manmade lake at its centre - Lake Pichola. In the centre of the lake stands 2 former royal residences which have since been converted into 5 star hotels - needless to say we are not staying in these! I think the people who do stay in these hotels may well be the ones who have given it such good reviews. Udaipur speaks money so if you have a lot of it then this place is your oyster and I'm sure you will be treated like royalty.

As well as wandering around the interesting narrow streets of Udaipur we did a number of other fun things. On the first day we went to a traditional Indian painting demonstration. This style of painting is very intricate and colourful but it's really strange as it is one dimensional and shows absolutely no consideration to perspective. After the demo we each got a complimentary nail painting - David got a tiger but, on the grounds that it was girly, scratched it off as soon as we left the shop whilst I got an absolutely beautiful painting of an Indian womens head which I wanted to last forever ( though it's nearly disappeared after 4 days).

5 of us got up at silly o'clock one morning to do a yoga class on a rooftop with some renowned yoga man who I couldn't take seriously on the grounds that he looked like he'd been tangoed. He was wearing orange trousers and an orange top and to make it worse had put henna on his hair to make it bright orange!!! The first 20 minutes were quite good with some positions and stretching but the next 40 minutes just lost me totally with boring breathing excercises involving lots of panting and 'om's'. I've come to the conclusion that my mind is too active and I'm too self concious for this type of yoga. At the end of the session he tried to impress us by distributing a photo album of himself performing some special yoga excercises - it was repulsive! In some of the photos he'd got an orange string winding it's way up one nostril down another and in and out through his mouth, whilst in another series of photos he illustrated how he could consume 5 litres of water and then blow it out through his nostrils - aagghh!!

For quite a long time I've been wanting a henna tattoo on my leg so I was delighted to discover that Anuj could organise one for me in Udaipur. I absolutely love it, so fingers crossed it lasts longer than the 1 week I was quoted. Earlier in the day I'd seen a girl with a horrendous one so I was very apprehensive when I first arrived but he listened to what I wanted and painted a delicate leaf across my foot and up my leg. We even drank a glass of Indian rum and coke as we were having them done to put us at our ease - very hospitable!

Udaipur has a very famous city palace which David and I visited whist there but it has an even more famous Monsoon Palace.Why? Because this is the place where the Bond film Octop**** was filmed. It is high up on a hill overlooking Udaipur so, as recommended, we all decided to get a taxi and go up there for sunset. The Maharajah and his court used to take a week of processions to make the journey from the city palace up to the monsoon palace. As we drove up the narrow, steep and winding road I could feel nothing but pity for any palanquin carriers - I hope, for their sakes, that the entourage went up on horses, camels or elephants! As we had to pay an entrance fee to the palace it was a bit of a shock when we discovered it was a building site - quite literally! They've clearly let the place go to rack and ruin and now they are trying to revive it. That said I loved the views, the breeze, the silence and the general atmosphere. Recognising the money making potential there was still a cafe tucked in amongst the scaffolding and building work so we all sat down to have a drink whilst we watched the sunset. Everything was going famously as we relaxed and chatted until, suddenly, we were surrounded by a group of monkeys. They are so disgusting and managed to scare the people on our neigbouring table away thereby leaving it free for them to scoff their chips in double quick time. David was the only one to have ordered food on our table and in an absolute panic shouted to the waiter 'cancel the brownie' (which has since become a holiday catch phrase). Recognising the potential loss of income they immediately sent out a small boy with a stick to get rid of the unwanted visitors. He even guarded over our table whilst David ate his brownie which I helped him eat to speed up the process and prevent any further monkey attack.

When we were at the City Palace we saw an outfit that they used to put on their horses as they went into battle, a cover which gave the illusion that the horse had a trunk. The reason for this disguise was that their enemies rode elephants in battle and in the elephant kingdom an adult will never attack a juvenile elephant - clever eh!

The final 'big thing' we did whilst in Udaipur was visit an astrologer for a temporary palm reading and birth date thingy! Mine was very much a character assasination which basically said that I was both intelligent and lucky but that my introvert nature was inhibiting my full potential whilst David was likened to a coconut, hard on the outside but soft in the centre. This guy confirmed that marriage will elude me forever but did suggest that David may get married again in 2014 - so start looking for your wedding hats ladies!

Sleeping and our accommodation are not 100% compatible. Apart from the owners ridiculously loud TV there is a resident pack of dogs which live outside the hotel that have a couple of fights each night and Ramadam has begun. Ok so this is how it works, at 7pm, when everyone is awake, a single siren sounds to indicate that everyone can start to eat whilst at 6am in the morning, when most people are asleep, a speaker starts blasting out the loudest music ever to indicate. I assume, that it's time for the days fasting to commence - marvelous!