Udaipur is a city on a lake - its architectural beauty is unrivalled in Rajasthan from what we have seen. O.K so it still has cows everywhere but its arched bridges, its palaces and its Havelis give it an almost mediterranean feel. Havelis were mansions usually built around courtyards very similar to Morrocan Riads, with dark wood doorways, painted scalloped archways and decorated ceilings. Our hotel Thamla is a Haveli, our room is probably the best we've stayed in - it has an arched window seat overlooking the palace and lake. An air-conditioned room with breakfast for £15 a night! Check out the photo of me relaxing, Maharani-style. As we had such a nice room we have spent a lot of time resting there after a hot sleepless time in Pushkar. Udaipur was used as a set for filming Octop**** and this film is screened every night in many of the hotels. On our first day we visited the palace that dominates the skyline. After the usual frustrations of a lack of information as to what ticket you need to buy, we bought cheap tickets for the palace complex, which was pretty extensive. It turns out however that most of the grounds are taken up with shops, carparks and hotels that you cannot enter, so that the ticket was pretty useless. From wandering about we realised that the palace rooms formed part of the museum, so we needed a museum ticket. The palace was very similar to the ones in Jaipur, it was started by Udai Singh II hence the name of the town and has been added to by subsequent Maharajas of the Mewar dynasty. The Mewar dynasty is supposedly the world's oldest ruling dynasty spanning 76 generations - they were renouned for patriotically not intermarrying with the Mughals or other ruling dynasties - bit of a limited gene-pool by the looks of them too! The palace rooms are the usual collection of mirror work, peacock mosaics, tilings and elaborate paintworks. We spent most evenings at Millets - a laid-back cafe that does homemade millet cookies that Paul became addicted to. Millets had a rooftop cafe so we could watch thousands of huge bats (size of fruit bats) at twilight fly over our heads from the hills to the countryside. Paul doing his guidebook research had spotted a show at one of the Havelis in town - it was a mixture of dance, puppetry and balancing acts with the Haveli's resident bats sweeping in and out of the show - at only Rps100 it came highly recommended. We have loaded some videos of the show to give you an idea - the Punch and Judy style squeaking during the puppet show had me in stitches - sorry the videos are quite far from the action. The show was a fun mix of stuff, very colourful and entertaining especially the woman racing round with ten pots on her head! The next day we headed through Udaipur town some 2kms to find an all-you-can-eat Thali place - remember Thalis are a selection of dishes served in bowls on a silver tray with chapatis, rice and papadoms. Neil - I hope you have had your lunch! The walk though town was the usual bewildering noise, tiny shops (tailors, tobacco sellers, grocers), narrow streets, wandering cows but no hassle this time as we were out of the tourist areas. Paul decided to stop at a barber's to get a shave - it was the full works (RP50 - 70p) - twice shaved with a cut-throat razor, then nasal trim and head massage. He drew the line at the eye-drops - the bottle looked well used. After a very hot walk we arrived at the Thali place - Rp140 (less than two pounds each) for all you can eat and it was nicely spicy at last! Needless to say we were the only westerners there. That evening we took a boat from the Ghat opposite our Haveli - Lal Ghat (Mewar Motor tours) it was much cheaper than the rip off ones from the palace. The trip was a sunset tour that lasted over 30 minutes - very pleasant. Paul got some great photos too. We got a close up of the palace/hotel situated in the centre of the lake. On our last day in Udaipur we took another long walk through the town and along the lakeside. There are some differences that we have spotted with the Rajasthani people - turbans and large moustaches are sported by the men. The turbans are pretty big, but unlike the Seikh turbans they are not to cover hair. Turban colours indicate caste and status - only certain castes can wear certain colours. Our last evening was spent drinking chai on our rooftop spot watching a party/festival on the Ghat opposite, like everything in India it was way too loud! The next day we had booked an air-conditioned taxi (Rp2700 - a fortune) to take us to Jodhpur via two impressive monuments - the Mewar fort at Kumbalgarh and a Jain temple at Ranakpur. With sweltering heat outside we were glad of the air-con, after two hours driving through barren countryside our driver stopped to give us spectacular views of the fort ahead set in the Aravalli Hills. The rounded bastions spanned a huge distance. The fort was equally impressive from the inside, within the ramparts were many temples. Take a look at Paul's photos. Next was Ranakpur, we were pretty hungry when we arrived at 12. We went to find the Thali place that was mentioned in the guidebooks outside the temple. For Rp30 each we got another all you can eat Thali - the best value yet and delicious!! The temple at Ranakpur is a Jain temple. Jainism was founded by a contemporary of Buddha in the 6th century BC. The Jains seek to attain purity by fasting and meditation. Right conduct and nonviolence to any living creature is at the heart of the religion - some devotees carry a broom to avoid standing on creatures and wear a piece of cloth over their mouths to avoid sucking in insects. The temple is made from milk-white marble, there are 29 halls supported by 1444 carved pillars - each unique. The carvings are particularly beautiful and intricate. When we toured the temple we had to remove shoes and any leather items. There was a ceremony in place, drums, singing and chanting with the help of a ridiculously loud sound system which must be undermining the structure - typical! Our next destination was Jodhpur - the blue city overlooked by the soaring Mehrangarh Fort.