Like walking in a film set!

---

So currently in Udaipur - the official home of James Bond in India but more on that in a bit.

We left Jodhpur - another bum-numbing bus journey but this one was a bit better as half-way through we got off the bus and visited the amazing Jain temple complex at Ranakpur. The main temple was absolutely amazing - it was very intricately carved and the temple itself was a forest of 1444 pillars! It was really cool as the pictures suggest. This temple complex was at the bottom of a valley and the bus onwards to Udaipur climber up this valley and there was some fantastic scenery, rolling hills, plunging rivers - i expected Indian scenery to mainly be flat desert, especially where we are but this scenery was very nice. For the first hour and then more time was spent concentrating on keeping bums in seats! Another note about the bus journey - two wasps decided to fly into the bus and buzz around me and ames. Now I say wasp, these things are like birds! If one of the buggers had stung me i'm sure it would have impaled me to the seat! Now we both cowered in our seats with books in hand as protection, which all the locals (and this bus was full!) found very amusing - especially the guy that flicked this man-eating-wasp out of the window as if it was a house fly!

Udaipur - as i've said before - the home of James Bond in India! Octopussy was partly filmed here and so you don't forget, every restaurant of any kind of worth offers showings of the film EVERY evening at 7pm! Being the tourists we are, we of course had to oblige!!! In one of these restaurants i've had my tastiest meal in India so far and it isn't a curry! Had a veg biryani - Mum you would have loved it! It was so good that we went back the next day and I had it again!

Have done the touristy thing of course while in Udaipur - visited the City Palace (was cool - a bit too museum like for me but the original palace rooms were very nice), boat ride on Lake Pichola with a trip to Jagmandir Island (used in Octopussy!), went to the Jagdish Temple (very nice but not as impressive as the temples at Ranakpur), visited a Haveli, and probably best of all, today we went a few km out of Udaipur to visit Ahar where there is a graveyard for the Mahajara's and their wives,brothers,servants,kids etc, instead of graves and headstones these people were buried in Cenotaphs - tombs with domes. The impressive thing is that this graveyard has over 350 cenotaphs making for a very impressive view - well worth the trip out!

So anyway - tomorrow we're on the move again - bus (only 2 hours thank god) to Chittor where we'll spend 3 hours looking around before getting on a train to the small town of Bundi!

Once again hope everyone is well!
Ant

---

Photos

Inside Ranakpur!
And the forest of pillars!

Udaipur
And the view over the Lake Palace Hotel

Ahar
And all the Cenotaphs!

Comments

[John Sheffield]

Family update
Thanks for the phone call on the 6th April, it really made Mum's day. Everyone is OK and looking foreward to receiving your travelblog updates. Leicester 2 CP 0, but they are still in the playoff zone. All our love.