We arrived in Udaipur on Saturday afternoon. On the way we stopped off at Ranakpur to see the Jain Temple which sits in the mountains. This is the largest Jain Temple in India and was rather impressive. Pete had to borrow a very fashionable pair of trousers as he was wearing shorts which weren't allowed.

We then made our way to Udaipur. The roads were pretty crazy as was Inder, our driver. The road had a shear drop on one side; the only thing between us and a massive drop were some small concrete blocks. Pete was wondering at points if these would be strong enough to stop our Tata Indigo with three passengers crashing through. Luckily we didn't have to worry as Inder's bald tyres seemed to grip the road well. This was until we went flying round a corner to meet a huge roller on our side of the road flattening the freshly laid tarmac. As Inder skidded round he left huge skid marks in the fresh tarmac. This was followed by an argument with one of the workers. It wasn't completely Inder's fault; although he was driving a little fast he was given different instructions by two different people. This is pretty common in India as we have found out from our own experiences, it makes things a little confusing but amusing at the same time.

We continued our way to Udaipur passing through many small rural villages. Many women have their faces covered with a veil and carry large metal urns on the heads which they have just filled from the local well. We have also noticed on building sites that the men do the bricklaying and building and the woman do the carrying and digging. We have seen women carrying large amounts of bricks on their head whilst the men stand and watch.

Udaipur is set on the side of a huge lake. It has tiny, bendy streets that are lined with shops and motorbikes. Still, motorbikes and tuk tuk's fly around and there's no real pavements so you have to be careful not to get run over. Udaipur is like the Venice of India with grand hotels on islands in the lake. It is a beautiful place.

We found a nice little French bakery with a proper coffee machine. Pete was exited to get a decent coffee as most of it here is mainly milk with a granule or two of instant stirred in. This horrible coffee also comes with a lovely thick skin on top and if you're lucky you might get a lumpy bit of milk too. Pete got one of these in his mouth last week and nearly threw up in the street, not that that would be unusual over here. Anyway, he couldn't have his coffee as there was a power cut so a soft drink sufficed with a slice of apple crumble.

We had our standard free hotel breakfast of toast and coffee. Once again the coffee was awful so we headed back to the French bakery and got a decent one. We spent the day wondering around the shops, visited the Palace and spent an hour trying to post something back to the UK. Once we had the parcel sealed and ready to send the man asked what was inside. This is when he told us you couldn't send any spices so we'll be carrying those around for eight more months.

We then had a lovely dinner on a rooftop restaurant overlooking the temple. Outside they were having a political debate, well that's what we were told. The person talking would break in to song at the end of each speech. We are both still mainly eating vegetarian dishes as the meat still scares us. We think they buy the chickens alive and probably serve them that way too.

All in all Udaipur was a beautiful city.