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Published: September 25th 2009
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Udaipur
view from our hotel restaurant terrace needs more photos but it's long overdue so recklessly publishing without!
(written.. well started.. by Graham at 10.30pm in the Cozy Bangkok Place Hostel, Bangkok, waiting for the washing to finish, 2 bottles of Singha down, midway through a bottle of Chang, considering whether or not to open another bottle. Kerry's in bed, tired after several days of illness, now resolved by a trip to Bangkok International Medical Centre, more on that later....... Added to by Kerry some days later)
Woo Hoo! We
love Bangkok.....but enough of that for now. Just one more catch up blog to write and the computer that I'm using runs on a meter system. If I type quick enough then maybe, just maybe I can cover the last 2-3 weeks in 30 mins.
Rajasthan (BI - high everwhere, like 2ish, alcohol hard to come by except in hotels and some restaurants, hence high score)
Udaipur Beautiful. Stayed in an old
haveli with an amazing view over lake Pichola which holds
that palace used in the Bond film, Octopussy.
Managed to avoid the many, many hotels that held regular 7pm viewings of said movie.
We really treated ourselves with the
accommodation here as we were looking for something cheaper after the posh place in Goa. But we fell in love with the place and couldn't go elsewhere. All the rooms were different and amazing. Loved the general haveli architecture and in hindsight it wasn't even that expensive!
We even managed to stay in 2 different rooms over the 3 nights as on the 2nd morning we awoke to an infested bathroom. It had been raining heavily and they were doing some work on the roof the day before. Somewhere between the 2 a nest of small fly type insects must have been disturbed because our bathroom was covered in them, literally hundreds of thousands of little things. Pretty inoffensive things really but we had to move. I was glad that I'd not put my glasses on in the night when I went to the loo as we remained blissfully unaware until about 7.30am when Graham got up to pee and returned scratching his head.
Anyway the second room we had lacked the balcony but it did have a cute little lounging area (those matress & pillow type affairs) which we made use of. We'd quite like one
City Palace, Udaipur
and did you know Liz Hurley was considering this place for her wedding but ended up having it somewhere else. Probably got a cheaper deal on the booze. in our flat if there's space when we get one!
Took a guided tour of the City Palace - impressive. Kerry was very impressed. It was beautiful and practical. You could actually imagine people living there. Loved the elephant parking which was nothing really to see. Just really cool that they had it. We also learned a lesson here: it's worth the couple of quid for a guide. It really does enhance the experience - especially as we're pretty lazy.
Food at Ambrai - our weekly trip to an expensive meat restaurant. Worth it, if only for the views but the food was awesome too so a double winner!
Took a sitar lesson with a local guru. Pain, unbelIEVABLE pain on the fretboard fingers. And cramp in the right hand because of the very specific shape it has to keep over the body of the sitar.
Apparently I'm a "musical genius" (I managed to "impress" my guru with the ability to pick up the strict techniques and last the entire lesson without wimping out with dead fingers or cramp) but I suspect that he was just buttering me up to buy his CD. I bought
Our balcony
our haveli was amazing. This balcony was the reason for choosing the room we did over a bigger one. his CD, obviously - with me, flattery gets you
everywhere, but you knew that already 😊
Jailsalmer Spectacular sandstone fort town in the middle of the Thar desert. Took a camel treck out into the Thar for two days, with one night spent sleeping under the stars.
Was definitely a top India moment for the first couple of hours' star gazing, which included clear views of the star-filled night sky and a couple of shooting star spots.
Then, as the tiredness kicked in, stray dogs barking incessantly (in "the desert"?) and also apparantly nocturnal desert bugs (dung beetles, active little buggers) started to congregate. I think I got about 1 hour's sleep the entire night after fighting these buggers off.
Also the saddle sores were pretty unbearable on the second day, especially Graham who actually ended the treck with a pair of grazed bleeding buttocks - he was the only one without stirrups so there was no relief for him!
One of the highlights of the camel safari was galloping on the second day. For some reason it was just really funny and we had no idea how we got them to do it.
Octopussy building thing
top night photography by Graham I think you will agree! All of a sudden one would just start speeding up and the rest would follow. Luckily we'd already learned how to slow them down or it might have been quite traumatic.
Jodhpur We didn't really go to Jodhpur. We meant to but a misunderstanding in the Jailsalmer ticket office meant that we only had 4 pre-breakfast hours there instead of a night. But we did stop there twice so it's worth an honourable mention. Had dinner and breakfast in the same restaurant with a fort view on both stops. It was alright.
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