Posh living in Udaipur

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It's funny how quickly you get used to the finer things in life. Following the 'incident with the rat' in Pushkar, we've steadily upgraded our way through Jaisalmer and Jodhpur, culminating in our night in a maharaja suite, courtesy of Peeping Tom. And now there's no going back! Udaipur is a town of many palaces, most now converted to hotels charging hundreds (thousands in some cases) of dollars per night. But we have a recommendation from Andrew and Helen about the Ring Niwas Palace Hotel, where we haggle an amazing monsoon deal of just over a fiver per night...we decide to stay a week!

It's a lovely place with turreted balconies overlooking a swimming pool guarded by stone elephants. The beautiful gardens are the domain of the first cute dogs we've seen in India...a trio of Dachshunds who spend their days fruitlessly chasing chipmunks as fast as their silly little legs will carry them. Terraces and a lounge are filled with antiques and fantastic old photos of royal hunting parties (not to mention the musty old stuffed tiger heads adourning the walls). The hotel was once a royal hunting lodge and the owners are decendents of the last maharaja...it's interesting talking to their daughter, just out of university, about life for women in modern India.

The very best thing about the hotel is that we have our own butler! An old fashioned telephone sits on a sideboard outside our room, where we can order food and drinks to be enjoyed wherever the whim takes us! We therefore become very lazy, spending languid days sunning ourselves round the pool, eating al fresco and watching cricket in the lounge. I could get very used to this side of life in India! To continue our posh new ways, we go to the City Palace for afternoon tea. Pots of darjeeling and four tiers of cakes and scones with cream and jam, enjoyed sat under a huge crystal chandelier in the old royal ballroom...naughty but nice.

Udaipur, built around Lake Pichola, is hailed as the most romantic town in India and was a location for James Bond's Octopussy. It is very beautiful with it's many white palaces looking like big wedding cakes, but we never get to see it in it's full glory as the lake has totally dried up in these last few weeks before monsoon. One night we go to the Bagore-ki Haveli for a show of traditional Rajastani music and dancing. As the ladies whirl like dervishes, a storm hits and the thunder and lightening add drama to the already excellent show. On the way home we get absolutely soaked as our rickshaw splashes through huge puddles and the rain hits us sideways. It's lovely though...the rain is very welcome after traveling around Rajastan in the hottest and driest month of the year.

So it seems the monsoon has finally begun, so there's just one thing for it...we're heading south to Mumbai in the...umm south west of the country...just as the annual south west monsoon hits! This could get wet.

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