Udaipur

What a lovely town! It is in a very hilly area and the town (at least the old part) is quite hilly too. Small streets crammed full of people, animals, fruit, veg and animal feed being sold on the pavements, shops, loads of cooperative groups who do traditional minature painting and many temples and cows - absolutely loads of cows.

Subhash told us that people keep cows in their houses (I think he meant courtyards) they feed them in the morning and evening, but in the day they are free to roam the streets and they eat any vegetable left overs that people give them and chapatis.

We have been to the "City Palace", home of the former ruler of Rajesthan and he has a very extensive home indeed with a very great deal of colourful decoration, carving, painting, whole rooms done out in coloured mirror glass etc, etc. The Indian Princely dewelling is big on decoration and it looks wonderful.

Today we have been to a lovely park, nice and quiet after the busy streets; seen a wonderful wedding procession on the way back to town. There were the bride and her attendant in a carriage pulled by two white horses, followed by the most colourful group of about 100 ladies you could ever wish to see, followed in turn by the town band in their red uniforms all blowing their brass instuments fit to bust.

Once back in town we went to visit the largest of the temples and watched a bit of a ceremony, a lot of very elderly women chanting, a couple dancing (far more gracefully than most English pensioners could manage) and a chap in white doing priestly things at the back in the shrine. After the chanting everyone got something to eat and had a chat to each other. It was so interesting to watch and as long as you keep still and quiet, no one seems to mind. Also I did donate to the food fund.

Tess

We really like Udaipur, its a spectacular setting and as you will see from the photo when we can upload it, surrounded by hills and set among several lakes. Its also a place we can navigate - the streets are a teeming bustle like all streets in India (particularly fascinating are the group of four donkeys laden with rubble from a building site which navigate their own way across town and back again - how do they do that?) but the central part of town is compact and after being totally lost the first time we walked through it we rapidly found our way around. Of all the places we have been in so far in India this is our favourite and the hotel we had for our second night had the most wonderful view both from our room and particularly from the roof restaurant.

I have to report that the shopping embargo has collapsed and we have been in several fabric shops today where substantial (in Indian terms but not in Sterling perhaps) purchases have been made - just irresistable to T. We also visited one of the painting cooperatives yesterday and a further gift was purchased there.

In a few hours we leave on an overnight train for Ahmedebad - where we are greatly looking forward to staying with the Shah family. From there (and with advice we hope from the Shahs) we will be making our way further south.

Brian