It all ended in a cloud of smoke... v2

---

Despite only having about a week left in India I ended up spending 3 days here before I caught a train out of the place. I'd like to say that this was because I did something crazy and exciting that will enthrall others but I didn't really. Apart from another day exploring on a scooter and a couple of interesting walks around the place I did very little really.

Just to set the scene, Udaipur is a picturesque place with an old palace (now a hotel) on a lake but apart from that there isn't much to it. Why then did I spend 3 days there? Alcohol, good company and bad reports about the places I was planning to go to.

The first day I met a crazy mix of people from around the world of all different ages who had decided to rent bikes for the day and explore. The day was reasonably interesting but nothing amazing - the highlight being that I had my first ever Chola Bhatura. A huge football sized inflated piece of deep fried pastry that comes with some curry to dip it in.

The hotel I stayed at sits on the lake with beautiful views out over it from the communal seating area. The evenings here were spent drinking large amounts of alchohol and chatting. There seemed to be the terrible attitude that modern day travellers have of trying to be the most cultured and most travelled - each person with their own tactic for showing this. Nevertheless it's great fun sitting around in the evening and meeting all the different people each with their own story to tell.

One of the most cliche'd reasons to come to india is on spiritual quest to find yourself and I was shocked to find that there are still a lot of people openly admitting to this - which I believe is a farce. If you are on a quest to find yourself then for gods sake find somewhere better to do it and do it properly - don't come to a tourist catering city and spend your time drinking alcohol.

Moving swiftly on:

The second day, the most interesting, I met two new people. The first, Kevin - an ecentric and highly animated Dutch guy who whore a bandana around his head and usefully spoke a little Hindi (he's fourth generation Indian). The second, Becky - An attractive busty English Girl just out of a long spell in Australia trying something a little more adventurous before she goes home.

I had put an idea forward to these two new people and Michael, an Austrian guy who was a little nuts but in a good way, that we should rent bikes for the day to get out of Udaipur and see what Rajasthan was really like or at least a little bit of it. Not long after the four of us were on two bikes - me riding one with Becky on the back and Franz Riding the other.

After far too much time going in the wrong direction (those local directions again) trying to get out of Udaipur and head towards a place called tiger lake we were eventually on the open road. The day turned out to be great visiting Tiger lake, a small local village further out and monsoon palace for sunset.

The village was definately a highlight where we got chatting to a local family there and were invited in for tea. The village was a small ramshackle place of a few buildings surrounded by fields of what turned out to be wheat and sharply rising hills. It was Kevin's Hindi and my Hindi phrase book that allowed us to actually have a reasonable conversation with them about our and their lives. At one point I had another marriage request, this time from a girl who can't have been older than 12! The blonde hair seems to be all you need out here.

Later that day after bimbling around for a while we headed up a large hill towards monsoon palace to watch the sunset. I took an early lead and picked up as much speed as I could to get up the large hill but after a few hundred meters our poor battered old bike started to struggle. Soon Michael and Kevin came flying past us laughing because they had the use of gears on their scooter where as I didn't. Our predicament got worse and worse as we struggled up the hill and all we could do was laugh as more and more black smoke flew out of our exhaust and the speed decreased to walking pace. Eventually the situation got so bad that the bike couldn't even drag itself up the hill because it had overheated and we abandoned it to walk 15mins up the last bit. Ironic really because we had specially paid more after an argument with the rental guy to take a bigger bike to ensure it would make it up the hill!

The suggestion of going with Becky to Jaisalmer was raised that day and a later chain events led to us arranging to go together. In the end Fiona another girl from the hostel also came with us for the long and bumby ride to Jaisalmer. So me and my two wives (a joke we told indian men who were asking after them) set off for the bumby ride to Jaisalmer.

---