Pushkar to Udaipur

Udaipur was a lovely city famous for its lake palace in the James Bond film, Octop**** of which we were constantly reminded of on a daily basis.

We spent the first day exploring the city and found an amazing German bakery right near the lake, which had the most beautiful baked cheesecake I have ever tasted! If only I could send some home! The place was owned by some really nice people who gave us some advice on where to go and how to bargain with the locals. They also owned an Italian restaurant not too far away, where we spent most of our evenings. I am not sure how they were so good at making German cakes and Italian cuisine, but the food was good, and the people were friendly so I didn't like to ask questions.

The restaurant was strangely situated in a dark alley, which put me and Natalie off to begin with, but it was so lovely, and had a huge banana tree in the garden with flowers on it.

The next day was spent in pretty much the same way. However, the locals were celebrating Diwali, an important festival for Hindus, so the streets were filled with people dancing with sticks, buildings had been lit up with candles and lights and there were parades happening all around us. It was so nice to see a whole community of people come together. There was music playing all through the night, people marching and banging drums, while others spun and juggled with fire! It was very interesting, and we felt lucky to be in India to witness such a big occasion and celebration.

What was also interesting was the experience we had walking back to our hotel. We gained a friend along the way who walked us all the way back, despite many attempts to shake him off. It turns out, he quite liked English girls and followed us just like those people in Agra. What I was not expecting however was for him to get down on one knee and declare that "your (my) father is a thief, as he stole your eyes from heaven".

This was an interesting way to end the day! We walked away as fast as our shoes could carry us, but only after Natalie thought it would be amusing to humour him and take a photo of the moment.

The following day we had a manicure in the local spa, which turned out to be a big mistake as the woman's hands were far from steady! Enough said!

After another day of walking around the city, we found a hostel full of travellers and spent the evening sat on cushions on the floor, eating food and watching movies. Although this sounds like a really normal thing to do, and not something you do when you are traveling, we really enjoyed it as it brought us back down to normality after two weeks of disturbing sights and long days.