Udaipur turned into a bit of a dump – the water in the lake dried leaving hotels and restaurants 'floating' in a cow field. It would be beautiful with a full lake but…..now ….not so much, here’s hoping for some big monsoons for India this year! Basically our time in Udaipur was spent trying to get my laptop repaired. The owner of the hotel , Ramu, was really nice and called in many favours for me and 1 day turned into three and by the time I got it back we had spent many waiting hours discussing business, life and religion. I spent the time talking, Carrie shopping and that resulted in us missing the palaces and the museums but we did get our palms read and saw the movie Octop**** – old James Bond. It plays nightly under the stars on a rooftop of a restaurant. The movie was filmed in Udaipur so it was fun to point out the highlights. The palm reading was quite something – Carrie went first and me, being the professional doubter I am, pooh poohed the whole thing. Well……he pegged Carrie exactly, telling her some pretty amazing things that really hit home. Seeing his ability, I threw down my rupees to see if I was to get the same assessment – not even close – he read me exactly and it left me a reformed doubter.

Udaipur,, saying it is a dump is far too harsh but we just didn’t like the vibe – too many tourists and sleazy young boys looking for opportunities to scam the many package tourists. We have been fortunate to have been off the tourist circuit for the most part of this trip, enjoying a lot of celebrity so perhaps this lack of specialness tainted our view.

The world and the concept of six degrees of separation always amazes me and again, in Udaipur, there was yet another bizarre connection.

Carrie is an avid Rotarian – like in Rotary Club. Each place we have been, she has inquired about rotary meetings and it just wasn’t coming together. In each city whoever we asked has had a friend in Rotary – she has been able to talk to some but the meetings were either cancelled or occurring after we were leaving. She asked Ramu and, of course, he had a good friend who was a Rotarian. He told us about seeing all this Rotary stuff in his friend from kindergarten’s store and gave us the guy’s card to go see for ourselves. We got the driver on the case and eventually found this fancy fancy jewelry store. Upon entering and seeing all the plaques and award shields and banners, it was clear the guy was not a Rotarian but a Lion’s Club big shot. He was not there as he was out of town and his son was running the store. Carrie was disappointed but we did not let that deter us from trying on a bunch of jewelry. As she was looking at stuff, I looked at one of the many plaques on the wall and saw "Melvin JONES" on one of them. It took me aback as that is Bob’s (last boyfriend) Dad!!!!!!! He was an avid Lions Club member himself for many years and had passed away before Bob and I got together. Here was a plaque from him to Ramu’s friend, commemorating some International award, in the middle of India, in a gem store where we had been directed incorrectly. I mumbled something to a staff member and we left. That night Carrie and I discussed how weird a moment that was and thought how serendipitous the whole thing had been and that maybe Yvonne – Bob’s Mom, might like to see it so we went back for a photo…..tada – not clear but what are the chances in a country of over one Billion to find that kind of connection?????   These things happen to me all the time when I am in the most remote of places. Walt Disney was right – It’s a small world after all!