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  Udaipur, India
Thursday, November 17, 2005

We're in a place called Udaipur now, to get here it took 8 hours by train, 8 hours sitting in a smog filled city waiting for a bus then 6 hours on a sleeper bus, we finally arrived in the early hours of tuesday then had a frihtening wait on a deserted street while we tried to find a taxi to take us into town. By chance we ended up in a lovely hotel, with a mosaic mirrored ceiling and puppets hanging on the wall. The town is on the edge of lake called lake Pichola which has a floating palace in the middle of it (which was used in James Bond "Octopussy" - every hotel screens the film EVERY night!)

The beds are so comfy, its not so hot at night here, and everyone is very chilled out and relaxed, very different to hectic bombay.

Yesterday we found a tuk tuk driver who offered to be our guide for the day-he had a big sound system in the back so we drove around the narrow streets to blaring indian music. We went to the city Palace, which used to be the ruling centre of this part of india; fabulous views across the lake and marble walkways and shady courtyards and mosaiced mirrored rooms. I wandered around pretending to be an Indian Princess (then Domi came over to me and said "I bet you're imagining you're an Indian Princess...") then we drove out of the city and went to some gardens that were once kept for the ladies of court (so they couldn't be seen by men) which had a an area with big leaves and fountains so that when you close your eyes it sounds like rain! It seems very strange to create a place to sound like rain, but here in rains so little it's a luxury to hear! Until last year all the lakes were dry, so the town is very happy now and the lakes sparkle in the sunshine.

Finally we went to a kind of India Land! A museum of all the different kinds of villages from the Mewar area - there are life size huts and people dressed in traditional clothes performing music and dancing and selling handicrafts. I bought some glass bangles.

We've truly found the cheapest place to eat on earth - we went to a thali restaurant, traditional for this area, you have a tin plate with lots of little dishes of lentils and vegetables and spices, they keep bringing around chapati and rice, and everytime your dish is empty they fill it up until you can't eat anymore, and its 45p!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!All vegetarian and amazing.

Unfortuntelty Domi is suffering with dodgy stomach, inevitatable as it's his first time to this part of the world, but im amazed it's taken a week so pretty good going!I'm still fine, touch wood, the food has all been amazing.

Tomorrow we head to Pushkar then onwards North, we've limited our trip to Rajasthan now - to head to the beach is a serious three day mission both ways, so i don't fancy a week of travelling just for a day or two in a place full of travellers, here its beatiful and relaxed, so we're just enjoying that before picking up the pac agin for the taj mahal craziness.

I'm off to watch the sun set over the lake palace, Udaipur should definetely be a place to head to if you ever come to India!

Love for now,

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Dom in botanical gardens	Dom in Udaipur	Hindu temple	India Video
Indian lady with bowl on her head	Indian musicians	Lake Palace Udaipur	Lake Palace, Udaipur
me in mudhut in ethnic village museum	Me on rooftop of hotel	Rain fountain	Udaipur
Udaipur sunset	Video clip-welcome to our village...	View from Gardens	View of other lake from gardens, Udaipur
View of Udaipur

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