The City of Lakes: Udaipur

It took ten hours by bus from Jaiselmer but it was actually not as bad as we had imiagined and we had certainly travelled on worse in Laos but it was just soooo hot. We arrived safely (a miracle) and checked into the very nice Kumbha Palace, targeted by us because it advertises marmite on toast for breakfast. Oh the joy of feeding our addiction after so long of going without! Our delight seemed to offend the chef who clearly would have preferred us to go into raptures over his (excellent) alu gobi.

Udaipur is named the most romantic city in India and the guide book promised us 'shimmering reflections of the Lake Palace in the water of Lake Pichola'. Unfortunately not much was reflected by the dry lake bed - without water for years now. D'oh. Watch James Bond Octupussy to see Udaipur at it's most romantic complete with shimmering lakes and chaotic rickshaw scenes.

We had little time in Udaipur so we took an auto-rickshaw (a very jolly Indian driver) and were driven around the sights of the city; from the heady heights of the monsoon palace to the splendor of the city place, from the 4000 year old Jain temple to the ancient Royal Cenopaths before rounding off with a traditional puppet show. The latter only served to perpetuate our view that the Indian men are sexually repressed - the puppets appeared to hump and gyrate their way through the show at the hands of the pervy puppeteer!

Two hours of the day was spent sending parcels. And we thought Royal mail was slow? In India, they do not use cardboard packaging for international post but goods are wrapped in cheesecloth then hand stiched around the items and finally sealed in place with wax stamps. Honestly, it's an art form, albeit one that involves a frustrating amount of time to execute.

Reluctantly we moved on leaving the cleanest and least polluted of cities we had visited, to pray for rain to restore their most famous lake to it's former glory.