ALTERNATIVE UDAIPUR

It's on everyone's 'have-to-do' list, a tourists' paradise - full of spice shops, jewelery shops, silks and cottons. Given the opportunity to travel with friends in their Scorpio, I jumped at the chance, looking forward to seeing interesting palaces and a fascinating culture.  We were to travel through the night because it's cooler and there's less traffic.   After a strange journey, stopping at '24-hour chai wallahs' alongside the road every now and then, we finally arrived in the hills surrounding Udaipur at 6 a.m. in the pouring monsoon rain.  It took us an hour to find the hotel in the hills because there were no signposts and the few we saw were written in Hindi.

After a couple of hours sleep, hearing roars of laughter coming from the lounge, I wandered through to find the other guests, a group of Gap Year students from the UK, plus our host, Piers, playing parlour games - a cornflakes box was set in the middle of the floor and you had to bend down giraffe style and pick it up with your mouth, hands behind your back - after everyone had had a go, the box was torn to make it lower and we all had a go again.  After this unusual start to my first visit to Udaipur, it was off for a picnic in the rain near a lake.  Everyone in two cars.  But that's when the fun really started because one of the cars got bogged down in the acres of mud - it took us 4 hours to get it out, eventually sending a party of volunteers out to find a tractor - !  So that was day 1 of the itinerary.

Day 2 -  went horse riding !  Horses in this region, Marwari Horses, are descended from the war horses of the Mughul Kings of centuries ago.  They are quite different to ordinary horses because their ears are crescent shaped and point inwards.  I hadn't ridden for ages so I was faintly apprehensive.  Her name is 'Noo Ranni' I was told, as I gingerly mounted my horse, which could be described as pink in colour, with matching pink eyes.  Comforted, I thought that probably meant she didn't like running, but, no, on the contrary, it actually meant, 'Beautiful Queen' and this was her first outing away from her foal of a couple of months and..she was damn sure it was going to be a short one! 

Day 3 - All aboard, next stop Jaipur ! I wonder what those bazaars looked like ?