It was the same no-hasstle story for the bus to Udaipur, apart from the fact that they were still laying the road we were driving on. This gave us extra time to spot the monkeys hanging out by the side of the road. Udaipur is a hilly town. So hilly, in fact, that the tuk-tuk drivers spend as much time pushing their woefully underpowered two-strokes up the hills as they do free-wheeling down the other side. Most importantly, for those James Bond fans out there, this is the city where most of Octop**** was filmed complete with Roger Moore's countless one-liners.

It is also the first city in which anyone on our tour has gotten properly ill, Holly falling foul with the classic symtoms of food poisoning. Luckily, we had three nights here so she could sit it out in a room, rather than on a bus.

We started our first full day here at the City Palace, where our very good guide took us around the public part of what is still used as the local Maharajah's residence. There are a number of adaptations made to palace for its inhabitants, the first being those made for the elephants (including elephant 'pillows' made of concrete) as well as those made for one Maharajah who was paralysed from the waist down. Apparently it was essential to his well-being that he had a fake door put in so he could laugh at all the able-bodied people walking straight into a wall.

We also had a quick stop at the Jagdish Mandir, a 17th century Vishnu temple replete with the kind of people Raj had warned us about - the ones who try to show you around, garble on about a bit of carving and then ask you for money for their ten seconds of 'work'. Sadly, this is the first time they actually managed to detract from the experience as they simply wouldn't take no for an answer. So we left.

In the afternoon we had a cooking lesson. From chai to malai to biryani (ok the last one doesn't rhyme) we cooked some of our favourites from the alst couple of weeks, and we were even talented enough to make our own dinner out of it!

The cultural immersion continued the next morning with rooftop yoga (at least for those of us who could be bothered to get up, Hannah). I won't try and describe the carnage that followed, but it was a lot of fun.

The second lesson of the day was in miniature painting, so it was a good thing the yoga included some exercises for the eyes (I kid ye not). These things are very detailed even for absolute beginners such as ourselves, and it took about an hour just to paint one little horse.

After all this excitement and hard effort, it was time to relax, so we spent this evening out on a boat on Lake Pichola. You get great views of all around, and get as close as you can get to the palace on the lake without paying the 20000-odd Rupees per night to stay actually set foot on it.

Thus, without so much as a sniff of a British secret agent taking down a super villain, nor even a glimpse of a woman with a silly name who has diversified into shipping, hotels, carnivals and circuses, we concluded our time in Udaipur. Come to think of it, where is Holly?