its been a big week or so, and we have covered a lot of ground in india during that time. After leaving the camels behind in Bikaner, we headed south to Udaipur. It took an eight hour train trip and a seven hour bus trip to get there but it was worth it once we settled into our very nice, new little room nestled right in the centre of town, with a view from the roof of the stuff we came to see. The main attraction in Udaipur is the Lake Palace, which is a beautiful white building which has been constructed over a tiny island in the middle of a manmade lake, so it looks like it is in fact just floating on the lake. By night it gets lit up and looks even better.

Other than the Lake Palace, the town itself is amazing to look at from a distance. It is a walled town, and all the larger buildings such as the Royal Palace and some temples all poke out from above the wall. from ground level too, the town can be fun thanks to the enormous amount of trinket shopping on hand. I think Kate could have spent a lot more time and money in this town than we did, but she still managed to come out of it with some nice new jewellery.

Last thing to cover in Udaipur is of course the food. For the most part it was quite boring, and touristy, but just outside the main town was a place we had heard about which made thalis for about 2 aussie dollars (a thali is a big platter with rice, chapatis, dhaal, curry and goodness knows what else on it, and it is refillable...). Thats about a normal price for a thali in India, but the thing about this one is that it involved no less than ten different dishes on the platter, so we didnt know what to eat first. great stuff. sorry no photos from there, we were too busy eating :)

we left Udaipur to go to Chittorgarh, which was just two hours away by bus. We went there to see the largest fort in Rajasthan, and easily the biggest fort either kate or i have ever seen. The fort was built on a plateau covering 700 hectares. Thats big. It just looms over the rest of the city, way up on the hill, with a long windy road leading up to it. Inside the fort there are over 130 separate temples, a bunch of palaces, and hundreds of other stone structures, mostly in ruins, along with a small town where locals still live and work. It was great climbing all the old ruins and admiring the views of the town from way up on the fort's walls.

Once we had seen the fort however, Chittorgarh got boring pretty quick. A nice market, our terrible room which was infested with mosquitoes, and merely a functional selection of food made us get back on the bus the next day and head back to Updaipur for one last night before continuing to Mumbai.

The only thing we had time for when we got back to Udaipur was to stop by and pick up the worst case of food poisoning i have ever experienced... in a restaurant. If you ever go to India, take my advice and STICK TO STREETFOOD. every time we have been sick (in any country on this trip for that matter) it has been from restaurant food. I spent the next three full days (ie - our entire time in Mumbai) confined to the bed in our room, leaving every 20 minutes to briefly visit the bathroom. Dont worry mum, im better now, but i think i lost about ten kilos in the meantime. i always wanted to know what my ribs looked like anyway.

So that was Mumbai. stuck in the Salvation Army Hostel, with my perfect wife Katie getting me water, food and medication whenever i could stomach it. But it's not all bad. we are now in the famous state of Goa, and we are just getting back into our beach bum vibe, staying in a rustic little concrete shack near the beach of Arambol, chilling out and chewing over the last month in India. more on Goa in the next post.

Till then!
//Brendan