Udaipur

Got up at about 8, though it was probably earlier with the noise our neighbors were making! After breakfast we headed off to Jagdish Temple which was nice but nothing too amazing, we got conned into visiting another art school by a man inside who told us he was a painting teacher and he is taking his work to exhibit in Camberwell and then in Hobart and was off to visit Australia very soon. We went to his school/gallery/store to see the works he was going to exhibit and of course were led into their shop straight after, where I actually decided to buy something to remember India by (there is a lot of beautiful stuff to buy in India but most of it is for girls) So I bought a triptych of a horse (symbol for power), elephant (symbol for good luck) and camel (symbol for love), we also bought a gift for our driver (a small painting of Ganesh) which we are planning on giving him at the end of our time in India. After finally getting out of the painting school we finally made it to the City Palace which is where the Maharana of Udaipur used to live, it was nice but honestly not the nicest or the biggest palace we have visited! Still interesting though, but it was very busy which made it a little frustrating as we were sharing an audio guide and the speaker volume didn’t go too loud! And Indians talk very loud! There were parts where me and Bec performed the crab dance whilst listening to the guide to get around other people (Cat will understand) Next we went on a cruise of the lake which took us past the palace and the famous Lake Palace Hotel, we stopped on an island in the middle called Jag Mandir and had some lunch, drinks and some shisha! We had some beautiful views from the island and spent a couple of hours there. We then got the boat back off the island and went looking for a way out of the palace grounds, Bec getting very frustrated with some of the gate guards who would not let us pass, eventually we did escape the gardens and headed to the Tibetan markets which are nearby, these markets were a bit of a let down as it was mainly just cheap copies of western brands with only a handfull of stores selling anything of interest. Next door was a small Indian crafts market where Bec got some cheap sunnies (as she had lost her pair) and some cheap clothes, I ended up with a new shirt. We headed home stopping at a couple of shops on the way looking for gifts/souvenirs, we both ended up buying a few bit’s and pieces and Bec ended up getting fitted for a custom made dress! Which we are picking up tomorrow night. After our shopping trip we headed back home for some much needed dinner and that about sums up today!