HAPPY 30th Birthday to Ian XXX We woke up late on my birthday and had a really lazy morning with no sightseeing or planning on the agenda. Bliss. Towards lunch Chris, Emma, Claire and myself headed out in our best Indian togs for a posh lunch at the Sunset terrace at the City Palace. On the way, and before we got drunk we stopped off at a few shops for some heavy bartering for some really cheap 'to be destroyed at Holi' clothes. I bought an extremely tastless shirt (see photo) and Claire ended up in a shirt she wanted to keep. All cheap as chips though. We did get side tracked and ended up buying some raw silk cloth for Claire. At the Palace the setting was beautiful overlooking the Lake Palace, thankfully under a large unberella. The food was excellent and there was tonnes of it as both couples ended up ordering the tikka platter. the most exciting part was to be able to order wine from a select wine list. We had a pretty decent Indian Shiraz. It was a really fun and enjoyable afternoon and great to have such good company. Plied with alcohol and very happy we slowely made our way back to the hotel. Chris took me to the rooftop for a beer while the girls slyly made surprise plans. When I was signalled to come down to the room I was greeted with a gin and tonic and presents. Claire had bought me a lovely silver money clip which had a tiger eye set in it and my initials. Very sly. i had no idea and wasn't expecting anything. Even more suprising, emma and Chris had also got me a tigereye necklace similar to one we had seen in jaipur. Even more sly. We chilled out in the afternoon with a stiff Gin and eventually got ready into our holi clothes for the evening celebrations. Just for my birthday the nation as having two days of celebrations. On my birthday they lit Holi bonfires everywhere with firecrackers and then the drinking and paint throwing starts and carries on to the next day. We waited around for a while outside the jagdish temple for the main Holi to be lit and were entertained by indian transvestites. The fumes and chaos got a bit too much for us so we went up to teh Roof of Anna's restaurant to find Chris stumbling out of the toilet, ill and teh owner handing us solutions to feed him. It turned out to be food poisoning from the day before. He lasted as long as he could and managed to watch the Holi being lit. Firecrackers went off in a trail up the road and round th holi to the massive stereo sounds and then lit the Holi itself . Its is essentually a 20 ft straw bonfire with firecrackers stuffed into it. It lasted only seconds and was absolutely crazy. Peopel were running round throwing fireworks and ended in mayhem. Very entertaining from above though. When it finally calmed down Chris had to go back to the hotel. When Claire and I settled down to enjoy our meal, the owner came upstairs with a birthday cake which he had bought. It was so nice of him to do that and we were touched. His grandchildren, who had come to watch Holi came up to see the cake so we insisted on dishing pieces out to them, and to the chef who was another lovely guy. It was a lovely gesture and a great night. Strangly enough, I didn't feel any of the panicky feeling associated with your 30th, probably because we on an adventure of a lifetime doing something we've always wanted to do, and with the intention of coming home with plans to do something that we'll enjoy. I don't know but I feel great.