we got to udaipur after a five hour bus ride from mr.abu. the first hour was a bendy mountain road nightmare. i used my entire meditative energy to stop myself from being sick repeatedly. we were relieved when the indian woman behind us plastered an entire side of the bus with the contents of her stomach. i managed to fall asleep until we arrived in what is rightfully called the venice of india. in an entirely indian way (which to those who haven't been here, i can hardly begin to explain) udaipur is beautiful, romantic, calm and full of wonderful crafsmanship!
as promised, ron took me shopping for the afternoon - an experience very different to that in oxford street or via torino!
i havent yet mentioned how haggling is the way of life here. it is not solely used in the market place, but it takes place everywhere and always - for everything, except government owned stuff. so my afternoon of shopping was primarily, though by now entirely naturalized, characterised by the art of haggling. a bed sheet was lowered by almost 500 rupees, a typical miniature rajasthani painting went from 800 for one to 1200 for 3....and so on! the kinds of things you can buy in india are so different and so cool and i just wanted it all!! but though things are much cheaper, 2 + 2 = 4 and 4 x 5 = 100 and in this way, my money ended, the exchange rate that day was a rip off and so, my shopping came to a saddening close.
our hotel, an old haveli (a typical rajasthani's merchant house) is in the perfect location - everything is at walking distance and we can glimpse the beautiful pichola lake from our window and can take in the whole view from the rooftop restaurant.on our first night i dragged ron to what turned out to be a super fun and interesting evening of folk music and dance. our favourite acts were the following:
a local folk dance practiced at harvest time whereby women holding bells were sat on the floor and to the sound of the background tabla and cymbals, were dancing with their upper bodies and using their bellls to hit a number of metallic plates strapped to the randomest parts of their bodies - like under their feet on their knees, on their elbows, behind their head and so on. it was random but also really good considering the amount of skill put into avoiding hitting themselves with the metal things!
one of the acts was absolutely mad. a girl was dancing hopping jumping crawling with a pot full of burning fuel on her head! another shocking act was carried out by a woman who older than our mums, danced with first one then ten cermaic water vases on her head - whilst tapping her feet on shreds of glass and balancing on a metal plate while using it to tap a rhythm. a completely unexpected evening, at the end of which ron even met a magician!! (hurrah)
we even - and again entirely unexpectedly - ended up dining at a really yummy italian restaurant. pasta...hmmm!! quanto mi mancava!!!!
all topped off by a walk on the ghats to see the splendid lights of the lake palace floating magestically in the middle of lake pichola.
today, after a cakey breakfast, we headed to udaipur's overrated city palace. a very big palace belonging to the city's maharahs but somewhat disappointing in that it mainly was converted into an out of bounds hotel, somewhat less grand than jaipur's amber fort!
it did take us a good 3 hours though to go through it all including a quiet and pleasant break in one of its peacful gardens with a fountain and pretty carved pillars. we then had lunch and tried booking flights to mumbai - but failed, of course.
ron went to hang out with his new magician friend, or his dad, whilst here i am updating the pages of my journal.
