UDAIPUR

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The train from Delhi to Udaipur was another twelve hour sleeper train stint. We managed to find the station, platform, and even our seats with surprising, and indeed out of character for us on this trip, ease! The driver that we had booked also met us without a hitch, although he does remind me of a cross between an 80's gangster, and a kind of Marbella playboy. Rob thinks he looks like the man from Del Monte.

Our first impressions of Udaipur and Rajasthan, were that it seemed completely different to the rest of the Indian states that we had visited so far. Even at 8 in the morning it was roasting hot. We were staying by the Lake Palace, and there wasn't actually a proper lake because of the drought. In the evening we went to a rooftop restaurant that turned out to be pretty special. As we were guided up to the top we were the only people there and the views from the top were amazing. We watched our first proper sunset of the trip that looked out over some mountains that looked as though they been made out of ripped crate paper like you make at school. As dark started to set in (which over here seems to happen a lot more quickly than at home) birds flew overhead, including some huge vultures, some green parrots, and some white stalks with long legs and necks, who seemed to all be coming home for a rest in the tree right next to where we were sitting. They were quite noisy, chattering about their day together. After this some bats flew over our heads, thousands of pretty big ones all going in the same direction. Other people started to arrive as well at the restaurant, and there was quite a good atmosphere there. A massive multicoloured fly flew into Rob's drink too for a bit of a swim! Udaipur markets itself as “The Venice of India”, and as the lake is dried up we weren't really feeling that, but even so it is a really romantic sort of a city.

The following day we decided to take an early morning sight seeing tour. First we went to the city's main Hindu temple, the Jagdish Temple, which looked a lot like the temples in Khajuraho but it was carved out of white marble and not quite as stunning. These also had explicit carvings on - in fact our guide was extremely eager to point out the “man making sex with tiger”, with a really cheeky grin. I'm not sure if he clocked mine and Robbie's blatant lack of enthusiasm at this particular sculpture. The temple on the whole was quite beautiful, but I personally got into a little bit of a grump that so many people inside the temple kept demanding money from us. In the grand scheme of things it isn't that bad, but with the constant yapping I wanted to scream!

Next we went to the City Palace where the current king still lives. He has no actual power as a king today but he is however a very successful business man who runs a chain of expensive hotels. Our guide explained to us that there are many kings in India today, and they all have to be very good businessman in order to make money. The City Palace itself had been built into the hill and was quite nice. Again we were the only Western tourists there, and as such attracted quite a lot of attention. After the City Palace we went to some Royal gardens which were designed to make the noise of rain, before taking a cable car up to the to the temple on the top of the mountain. On the way up we were crammed in with a family from Delhi who seized the photo opportunity with us as well as pointing out some wild peacocks roaming below! Once at the top the views were spectacular and we realised how huge Udaipur was as a city. It's really beautiful, even without the lake being full!

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