Namaste

Last night we could not resist the temptation and ended up on the highest rooftop restaurant in Udaipur watching Octop**** !!! Yes a bit kitsch but good fun, there was a nice warm breeze and good views of the palace and lake as well.The only downside was that the food was not as good as we have become accustomed to!!!

Our hotel is in a great location and it only took us 1 minute this morning to walk down to the ghats where the women gather on a morning to do their laundry. This basically consists of them dunking the garments into the filthy lake then beating the cr*p out of them with a big stick!!! From here it is hung out to dry, give me a washing machine anyday, although Mel was impressed with their technique.

One thing that did confuse me was the fact that for a country that still has rules for women being covered (purda) they were stripped off and washing in the lake!!!!

Udaipur is a maze of narrow streets and you have to be careful not to get run down by rickshaws, cars or even cows and elephants. They don't yet have pavements here!!!

We decided to have a look around the shops as Udaipur is famous for it's miniature paintings on silk. By now it was 11am and the electric had just been turned off but the shop we found had an ingenious way to light up the shop. He placed a big mirror outside with the sun reflecting off it and into the shop which worked a treat. After about 40 minutes of sifting through tons of paintings we eventually found 3 that we liked and got a good deal. Each painting takes at least 2 days to paint and the detail is amazing.

Unfortunately money does not grow on trees and it was back to the bank for cash, Mel spotted a nice Ganesh ornament and bargained the young boy down to 80 rupees/1 quid so a good few hours and we were happy with our purchases. We found a great little bakery where we had our first lunch that didn't involve curry since we arrived. I worked out yesterday that we had eaten 17 curries in 1 week!!! I am seeing chappattis in my sleep.

Even the cows eat them!!!

Tonight we will sample some Indian food on our hotel rooftop away from the noisy streets and hopefully see some more fireworks like last night. Tomorrow is Pushkar, this is a dry state so no drinking allowed.

Will be in touch from there.

Lots of Love

M & M

xx