Udaipur is famous largely for its use in the film Octop**** The city is centred around a large lake (although the lake can be empty in the dry season) which is home to the Lake Palace (now a rather pricey hotel) which was used as James Bond's house in the film. It is absolutely beautiful. It was quite a long drive to Udaipur from Pushkar but the evening we arrived Dada took us to a show at the folk art museum which he had spent all the previous night trying to explain much to the amusement of everyone at the hotel. There were three acts. The first was a puppet show based around a circus. It was a bit bazaar as some of the puppets kept changing gender and doing rather unsavoury things to the male puppets....there was a rather stunned laughter around the room. The next act was a girl with tiny cymbals attached all over her body which she played when she danced. The third, and Gareths favourite, was a guy who danced with up to elven pots balanced on his head then walked on crushed glass. Dada also called at the chemist that night to buy me some herbal remedies which I have to rub on my ankle twice a day. And then as if he hadn't worked hard enough that day he made us dinner it was a lovely rich chicken curry which we ate on the rooftop where he was sleeping that night.

The next day we did some sight seeing and visited the city palace ( one of the Maharajas three palaces along with the Lake Palace and Monsoon Palace) which was beautiful but like the City Palace in Jaipur was very touristy. Afterwards we went to a nearby Haveli (palace) which had been recently renovated and the rooms had been made to look as they would at the time. It also housed the art gallery. This place was great as it only cost a few pence and we were the only people in there. We spent the afternoon having a lazy lunch by the lake and updating our last lot of blogs. In the evening we went up to the Monsoon Palace which is perched on a hill overlooking the town. Unlike the other two it is now in ruin but you can completely understand why they used as the villians lair in the Bond film.

So anyway after a few days of catching up on the blogs we are getting there. Next time we will fill you in on the last two days in Ranakpur and Jodphur. After Jodphur we are heading to Jaiselmer for a camel Safari and Bikaner before going back to Delhi for our flight to Nepal on the 28th. We hope you are all well please keep in touch.

All our love

Laura and Gareth