Life's a beach....

Day three in Goa and it's fair to say that we are in full blown chillax mode here. The weather is hot and humid and so we are spending most of the time down by the pool dipping ourselves in the water (which is lukewarm rather than cold) and drinking plenty of Kingfishers (the local beer, not puréed wildlife) and cocktails. It seems I have a penchant for ladies cocktails, as every time. We make an order the waiters *always* put my drink choice in front of Sarah and are genuinely surprised when we say it is for me! What can I say?? I enjoy fruit based cocktails in this sort of weather!! **Update** I may like them, but my digestive system certainly doesn't enjoy the fruit based cocktails, so I am having to stick to beer instead now!!

Our regular breakfast view overlooking the pool......relaxing

View of the pool, with waterfall and caves to explore!

Anyway, permit me to give you a few things I have noticed so far. The food and drinks in the hotel are fairly expensive (Relatively! It is still cheaper than a night in London), and if you are brave enough to venture out of the grounds even a little way, you will find the same drinks for a fraction of the price. I suppose it is hard for the Leela to compete, as they have staff to pay for etc. and I am guessing they have to pay their share of government taxes too.

The beach bars and vendors all have wonderfully English names. We like dining in Vernon's bar which offers good local fare at very reasonable prices and this is next door to Pearl's beach bar, which after a few conversations is more a "Russian" place to go and eat (even the menu has been translated into Russian). As an example of the price differential, we had a lovely meal at Vernon's washed down with a handful of cocktails and beers and it came to a grand total of 1700 rupees (about £20). Compare that to us having two cocktails each at the hotel bar which will set us back a little bit more!!

A selfie at Vernon's - nice place to watch the sunset

 
It is safe to say we love the beach bars, we can sit and watch the sun setting into the Arabian Sea as we get progressively more tipsy. One word of caution though is that the cocktails are *strong*....there is no such thing as measures here, they just pour what they think is a reasonable amount of booze into a glass and shake it up...the result is a sharp intake of breath after your first sip, but it becomes more palatable the more you have (or the more drunk you become).

Cheap beer, generous spirit measures and a beach view.....what's not to like?

The wildlife here is great, it is not shy whatsoever! Sarah is a big fan of the egrets, and has taken to feeding them little tidbits whenever she can, much to the annoyance of the lone gunman patrolling the balcony trying to scare of the birds with his rifle. At least I think that is what he is there for.....he does have a knack of knowing when you are at your most relaxed to then fire off a couple of shots at crows. Needless to say, since we noticed him, I have avoided the "Goan chicken" on the menu ;)

Sarah feeding her little egret.....#come feed the birds, tuppence a bag#

The gun is to scare the birds - or non-paying diners!

Other wildlife we have seen includes a variety of kingfishers outside our room - they usually annoy Sarah in the mornings as they have a loud call, which is like an alarm, and do this every sunrise without fail! There are also Brahminy kites which soar around the grounds all day without having to flap their wings once, they swoop in very low, but I am just rubbish with my camera, so haven't got a decent shot of them yet!. On top of that there are chipmunks, snakes and Sarah's faves, beach dogs. 

Whole families of dogs just seem to laze on the beach around the beach restaurants, knowing that come the end of the night the staff will give them a few scraps. They are very friendly and not too rabid, so you can interact with them without ending up trapped in a beach hut in a Cujo-esque stand-off.

Dotty dog (Sarah's name for her ) - just a little pup and very friendly!

 

They really have the life of Riley here,  and you have to wonders if you would be rescuing them by adopting one.  Here they have warm evenings, water to splash around in, and an abundance of food (as far as I can tell) and loads of people who come over to say hello to them....

That is about all to report for now, we are looking to pop into the town tomorrow in order to pick up a couple of mementos (fridge magnets!) from Goa, and after that we only have one more day here before we start making our way back home (via Delhi!).

Goan Nights

We have arrived in Goa, and immediately it is clear to us that it is like landing in a different country compared to Rajasthan. The people are a lot more informally dressed here (that is not to say scruffy) but it is more casual in comparison to the saris we were used to seeing oop north!  The climate is also completely different, with it being hot and humid, so it doesn't take long to get all clammy. I can foresee many cooling showers will be needed over the next week!

The Leela Hotel is in South Goa; traditionally a quieter part of Goa from the more party/club oriented North. It took a fairly long drive to get here which means we are in the middle of nowhere, but the drive itself was fascinating as we were for the most part driving through a tropical rainforest of mango and coconut trees. The houses here are, understandably, more European in influence (Goa having been settled by the Portuguese), and they *love* colouring their houses in rich and vibrant colours. It is like a who's who of the Dulux colour wheel!! I will take some photos of them when we get out and exploring.

We arrived at the hotel and were greeted with our traditional flower garlands, and given a brief orienteering of the hotel before being taken to our room, which overlooks a lagoon. It is basically a large pond rather than a lagoon to me, but it is full of wildlife and we see kingfishers dipping into the water for some fish and have even seen a snake swimming in the lagoon too! The room itself is impressive; you don't realise how hot and humid it is here until you get to the room, and it is like walking into a fridge - very welcome in this weather!!

Our room for the next week - we can finally unpack our clothes!

Our welcome from the hotel - a bottle of fizz and a(nother) cake!

The lagoon around which our room is situated.

We have a balcony for early morning/evening dining in our room if we want it, and they also have a pillow menu here too, so Sarah is a happy girl! Another nice feature is the bathroom has a Venetian blind which you can retract and thereby watch telly whilst having a bath. 

Morning breakfast served on our balcony - lovely stuff

**Update** After a venture around the place ourselves I can confirm the hotel we are in is lovely! It is very open and spacious, the people are friendly and it is impeccably clean. OK, in fairness we have only really had a brief tour of the bars (our first port of call!!) and the Indian restaurant, where I have discovered I really like tandoori lobster (I tried it first in the Raas in Jodhpur), although I didn't quite appreciate they would give me a lobster that was bigger than Mr Zoidberg!

My tandoori lobster was delicious!

It seems like the day we arrived there was also an Indian wedding on in the grounds as there was some overly loud music being belted out, but we were sitting outside enjoying them doing a set which can only be described as Jive Bunny on acid! It is not easy to fuse The Birdie Song (which I correctly predicted would be played at some point), with "When the Saints go Marching In" and "Hitler Has Only Got One Ball", but somehow they did it. Also, as is traditional with an Indian wedding, they released fireworks which were very pretty, and so that was the backdrop to our first romantic meal in Goa!
 

Udaipur - The Red City

Ok, the title of the post is factually incorrect, Udaipur is actually known as the white city (and the city of lakes or Venice of the East), but after sitting out by the pool reading books for a few hours, Sarah's legs and tummy are redder than Arthur Scargill's political views. In fairness I am feeling a bit of burn too, so we have been slapping on aloe vera gel like it is going out of fashion!

Today, has not been very productive as we are loathe to leave the lake palace, it is so lovely here, we have not availed them of half the services they offered (i.e. they have a resident astrologer who you can get a star chart from) but whilst Sarah was having an afternoon nap I popped out and got my requisite Udaipur fridge magnet!!

However, one thing we did was  have an early morning bike ride through the streets of the old city of Udaipur, which was very random, but a lovely way to get a feel for how people travel in India. The bikes were traditional Indian bikes, and the brakes on my one were a bit dodgy, but it was fine to pootle about stopping off at various places as the guide explained to us the way of life in Udaipur while dippng his hands into every shopkeepers stock and letting us taste, gratis, the various Indian delicacies they were trying to sell!!

Market in Udaipur, our guide kept grabbing foods for us to taste

The roads are narrow, but it was cool at that time of the morning and, because shops didn't open until about 11am, it was relatively quiet at that time of the morning (apart from Sarah moaning that i had woken her up as silly o'clock to go on this tour!!). It only took an hour and so we were home in time for breakfast, which we had out by the water garden. It is a feature of this hotel that you can tell then where you want your meals and they will set up a table and chairs and make it happen for you!

Sarah waiting for breakfast at the Lake Palace!

After breakfast we went and sat by the pool as I mentioned, before packing up our stuff ready for the early start tomorrow (up at 4am!). So, after 10 days of touring, we are finally leaving Rajasthan and heading to our final destination in Goa, where the pace of life (and this blog) will slow down, as there is not much to do there, apart from relax!

The Maharana's palace, as seen from our room!

But before that we sat and watched a traditional Rajasthani performance that the palace puts on every evening. It is clearly popular with the guests as the staff all set up lots of extra chairs to cope with the demand for seating. Sarah and I inadvertently stumbled upon this because we were at the bar when the performance was scheduled to begin, and we were captivated by the lady dancer.

Not only could she dance, but she could do it while carrying a load of pots on her head and then to make things a bit more of a challenge, she decided to stand on the rims of a couple of whiskey glasses (how on earth she found out she could do that will remain a mystery!) and then if that was not enough she decided to stand a couple of knife edges too!!

The woman who delivers the curry to your table.....;)

In all, I am sad to leave the Lake Palace, this place is the most amazing hotel I have ever stayed at, and that is purely down to the impeccable service! But now we are making our way down to Goa, via Mumbai. The Leela has a lot to live up tomorrow.

Jain Temple and the road to Udaipur

A bit of a lay in today meant that we caught up on some well needed sleep, even if it meant that we didn't get to see the village of Narlai as planned. The weather is a balmy 38 degrees here, made deceptively cooler by the air conditioning in the car.

On the way, we stopped off at a Jain temple in Ranakpur, which was a brilliant example of Jainist temple architecture, and had over 1000 columns, all intricately detailed on it. Never one to pass up this sort of detour, I eagerly accepted the offer of being driven here to see it, and I was not disappointed. It seems to be a tourist mecca though, as it was one of the busiest places we have visited whilst touring around Rajasthan, and for a change it was busier with foreign tourists than Indian nationals (unlike the forts, which was the other way around).  Entry to the temple means you have to adhere to strict codes of acceptability, like wearing trousers rather than shorts, taking your shoes off etc., and Sarah unfortunately couldn't enter the temple, which was a shame, but I think she was secretly happy with not having to traipse around another temple!

Jain Temple at Ranakpur - wonderful architecture, that reminded me of Cambodia

Once I got inside, I was soon taken to one side by a monk who "could feel my spiritual energy", which the cynical side of me took to mean he thought I might give him some money, and so he performed a chakra chant on me, giving me good health and strength (I think) - he was left slightly disappointed though when he asked me for a donation though, as all my money was in my leather wallet, and owing to no leather products being allowed in the temple, I had left all my cash in the car!! Still, his chant might well have worked, as I am feeling fine and dandy today, with no signs of the unpleasantness of 24 hours ago! So, I hereby promise to pop a few rupees into the next Jain temple I visit.

There were lots of columns at this temple, and idols too (but we werent allowed to photograph those)

After that visit we made our way to Udaipur. It is a smaller city than Jaipur (and even Jodhpur) so seems a lot more relaxed. However nothing could quite prepare you for entering the Lake Palace. To get here you have to go through the Maharana's (I think that is a step up from a Maharaja in terms of royalty) palace, which the mere mortals are not allowed past, and on his road there is no tuk-tuk beeping allowed, so it is a idyll of quiet and calm. our car drove us up to the jetty, as in order to get to our hotel, we have to use a boat taxi (it is a free 24 hour service provided by the hotel for its guests).

The Lake Palace - I was slightly disappointed we didn't approach it in a hollowed out crocodile a la Bond!

The Lake palace itself is unlike any hotel I have stayed in, it is not often you get to a hotel and your entrance to it they arrange for people to rain rose petals down on you from the roof! We then got a traditional greeting where they mark your head with a bindi, to bring you health and happiness, before giving us an orienteering session about the hotel.

Everything about it says plush. We have our own butler, who will help us out with anything we might want or need at the hotel (we are not that precious, so I am guessing she will have an easy time of it). We have a lake view room, which is lovely but they have upgraded us to have a lake view room overlooking the palace, which is the side you want to be at!! Also outside our front door, is the water garden, which is used in the film Octopussy (I may have mentioned that this palace was in that film before ;) ).

Our room! this is the way to live!! :D

The Water garden is outside our front door. Was used as Octopussy's swimming pool in the film!

Upon entry to the room, there were some people hastily arranging some pretty flower petal patterns on the floor (to welcome us) and also they presented us with a lovely cake and an umbrella for Sarah.  The flower petal business is the thing to be in in this country, judging by the amount of petals the Lake Palace get through!!

Beautiful petal arrangement on our floor to welcome us!!

Wonderful cake depicting scene from a Hindu love story.

Me doing the gentlemanly thing and holding the umbrella over Sarah.....

Nothing is too much trouble for the staff here, we can have food when we want and where we want it, drinks anywhere we like, they will be delivered to us. In all it is very relaxing here!!

A coincidence? Octopussy was on the telly when we arrived!!

We even get a menu for our duvet and pillows!

Things could get a bit Narlai!!

I really did tempt fate yesterday by mentioning that Sarah was feeling a bit of heat exhaustion, as in the early hours of the next morning, a case of Delhi-Agra-Jaipur-and-Jodhpur belly hit me and I have decorated the porcelain at the Raas with several days worth of curry, cokes and alcohol! Not pleasant!

Normally I don't mind just riding this out, but at 9:30am we were due to be getting into a car and driving for three to four hours with no adequate toilet facilities en route. Thankfully I always bring my own loo roll, which I am sure Sarah thinks is a trifle unnecessary, but after my experience at Lamin lodge in The Gambia, a loo roll is like American Express; I never leave home without it!

Thankfully, prior to going, my trusty friend Mr. Immodium came and saved the day, meaning that I have made it to Narlai without any mishaps along the way!!

Anyway, enough about bowel movements, and more about Narlai. The village is small, and set at the feet of a humongous rock which goes up several hundred feet above them (on top of which I am told there is an elephant monument). As I mentioned in the previous post, this hotel is a former hunting lodge of the maharajah of Jodhpur, and part of it is still used by the family. It is a lovely boutique hotel, and the staff are incredibly friendly and welcoming.

The swimming pool, and the big rock which overlooks the hotel - Lush!

Once again it is so nice to be out of the hustle and bustle of a city and in the middle of nowhere, just listening to the sound of wildlife and a lot of drumming from the local temple. When asked, the guard at the entrance said the reason for the drumming was the village celebrating a festival called Sadi or Saadi. I have not heard of any festival called that before (my own ignorance, rather than doubting the fellow!), but from the sounds of it, drumming and chanting into the night are an integral part of the festival. It was a  great sound to hear as we are drinking cocktails under the stars!!

The hotel is impressive, and there is a lot of attention to detail taken here, with little nooks all around the place for people to relax, and it shows just what Bijaynagar will be striving towards (in fairness to them, they are only just setting off on that road). The room we have is once again spacious, and we have a dressing area, as well as a nice little balcony for sitting out on. One of the best things is the key and lock - it is a very old lock system, but we have the biggest brass elephant keyring to ensure that we don't lose it (maybe they have heard in advance that I tend to forget stuff or leave important things behind me!!).

Our room, lovely and spacious!

You are not going to forget this key in a hurry!!

The staff are clearly proud of their village, and on several occasions people who work here have wanted to take us on a tour of it and take us inside a family home. I just don't think we are going to have time to do that, as we are really starting to feel drained from all the travelling around (it will be so nice to get to Goa and be able to unpack properly), and so tomorrow is going to be spent having a nice lay in before heading off on the final stretch to Udaipur.

Anyway as i say, the staff are great, all in traditional dress and very happy to help with every request. As a case in point, a local delicacy they have here is corn puffed poppadoms, which are just wonderful! When one of the waiters discovered that we liked them, he said if we wanted he would go and get us some to take with us for our journey. We readily accepted this, and off he went into the village, returning some 15 minutes later with a *kilo* of poppadoms for 230 rupees (about £3). I don't know if you can imagine a kilo of poppadoms, so I have taken a photo of them!!

Anyone for poppadoms?? These are precooked, so might last the journey in our case!

The people waiting on us here are just lovely. When we finished our meal, they asked if we would wait for a minute, and then came out and presented Sarah with a birthday cake (which I think was a honeymoon cake) and then sang Happy Birthday to her and got her to cut it. We were full from our meal, so we shared the cake around with everyone else in the restaurant (and said the staff could all have a slice too!). There were even some Indian families coming over and congratulating Sarah with hugs, which was such a lovely welcoming feeling, you can't help feel endeared to them all and wishing we had more time here.

That just about wraps up things here, I am going for a well-earned sleep, seeing as I didn't have much of one last night!! Udaipur here we come!!

Jodhpur - The Blue City

After a relatively peaceful night (there are town-based monkeys which decided to howl and make loads of noise in the early hours), we were up nice and early looking to have a bit of a tour of Jodhpur.

This is by far and away the hottest we have been on the holiday so far. We were dining in the hotel last night and at 8:30pm the temperature was still 33 degrees. There was a whole lot of sweating going on, and to dispel a myth, eating a hot curry did not cool this blogger down, it just made me sweat in a different way!! However, it is slightly churlish of me to be complaining about the heat, especially as that is one of the reasons we came to India, but this is probably the hottest I have been since Luxor.

The roof terrace of our hotel, who would want to go anywhere else!

....and the view of the Fort from our room - heavenly!

 

OK, today we have had an early morning tour of Jodhpur, taking us to the impressive fort we can see out of our window (Mehrangarh Fort). Jodhpur is known as the blue city because in the old city particularly, large sections of the housing is all painted blue. Our guide was very good at explaining  why they people did this. There are two competing theories 1) It is to do with Brahmins (priest caste, which is the highest caste in Hinduism) wanting to differentiate themselves from other, lower castes and 2) The blue buildings have helped to keep away the bugs and flies. Whether there is scientific proof of this, I don't really know, but I can confirm that we have not been bitten half as much as we were when we were staying in Delhi! Although that might be down to the large number of bats that are flying around our hotel at night rather than the blue colour!!

Jodhpur - the blue city, as seen from the fort.

Anyway, we wound our way up to the fort, but before going there we visited a mausoleum for the maharajahs, which is on the way. This was called Jaswant Thada (which translates roughly as Jaswant's mausoleum), and it was built using the white marble akin to the mausoleums in Agra. Bearing in mind that sort of marble doesn't exist around the local area, it was being shipped from Jaipur it was a seriously logistical exercise to get enough marble here to build this mausoleum, so we were impressed - as well as with the detailing! There were a couple of men in full dress dotted about the place, who when seeing a tourist began playing music (in the expectation of getting a few rupees). I do love this sort of thing so was very happy to part with some lower denominational notes for taking their pictures (after asking first of course!).

Jaswant Thada, very intricate and fit for a king (which was handy!)

Man blowing his own trum-erm-flute

Wonderful sounds of India at Jaswant Thada

From the mausoleum we made a short trip further up the cliff to the fort, which we had seen on our first night from the hotel room. The guide explained that the fort stands over 400 metres above the city and gives an impressive and imposing view of the city! We made our way around the various rooms, enjoying our  guides narration, as he loved saying "the ladies" (or more precisely I loved the way he said it!), and we saw lovely silks, some beautifully ornate rooms where "the ladies" would entertain the maharajah, and a few elephant carriages (that is saddles for people, not a carriage for elephants!).

Mehrangarh Fort, as viewed from Jaswant Thada

Mehrangarh Fort, impressive!

Place where "the ladies" entertained the maharajah - no wives allowed apparently!

Tiny wedding carriage. The guide explained that brides always fit in it before marriage, but not after!!

Man showing me how big his turban was.....

The temperature walking around the palace was insanely hot this morning, and according to the man in the shop I was changing some currency at, it was over 43 degrees today and so this really sapped our energy. It meant that we didn't have the guided tour of the old city, but instead we just retired to the sanctuary of the pool, which was a welcome relief!

Later that afternoon, while Sarah was having an afternoon nap (I think she got a touch of heat exhaustion), I walked down to the old city to have a look at the market there. It was all very reminiscent of Marrakesh for me, but a lot less intensive with trying to sell you things. Indian people are friendly and respectful, if they see you lingering over their shop they will invite you in, but there is no real hard sell in the market. It was similar in other ways too, namely the narrow labyrinthine streets, which you could easily get lost in, if you didn't have a reference point. Thankfully I did (it was the old clock tower). I didn't buy anything from the market, partly because we didn't need any more mangoes or children's plastic cricket bats, but mainly because our baggage limit for the internal flights we are undertaking in a couple of days is already at breaking point!!

The clock tower, which is the central point of the market

Anyway, that is Jodhpur done, although I could have quite easily stayed at that hotel for a couple of days more. But time is pressing, and tomorrow we start making our way down to Udaipur, stopping off at another former hunting lodge at a village called Narlai on our way.

National Lampoon's Indian Vacation

Short post today, as not much has happened. Well apart from leaving the plane tickets for Udaipur to Mumbai and Mumbai to Goa in a safe in Jaipur that is!!! I put them in the safe to make sure they were, erm, safe! I can't quite believe it really, but it wouldn't be a Mouseburger blog if it all went smoothly. Anyway, I have spoken to the hotel we were staying at in Jaipur, and they have sent me faxed copies on email, which my current hotel has kindly printed out for me, so I am hoping that covers us really, as they are just e-tickets.

We have had a bit of a lay in this morning, which was a welcome relief from the early starts, although that said, my body clock woke me up at 5:30am as I could hear all the birds singing. I haven't got much to write about as we have done little today apart from being in the car for about 4 hours driving from Bijaynagar to Jodhpur.

The journey is long and there were the usual cow obstacles to contend with and the occasional herd of goats, but otherwise it was a drive through the Rajasthani countryside. Some things have changed though, there are more hills to negotiate and drive over and there is a strong wind blowing across the open expanses.

For a while I worried that the wind meant we would be greeted with a Gambia weather scenario (see the Gambia blog) when we got to Jodhpur, but these fears were soon allayed when we stopped off for a comfort break and I opened the car door to be blasted with a wind which could have come from the fires of hell!! It was scorching out there, and I had been lulled into a false sense of security, even thinking it a bit chilly in the air conditioned car we were driving around in!!

 To help pass the time when driving (Sarah was having an in car snooze) I started looking at the shop signage as we were driving along, and I noticed a curious thing. Cement is big business in India. I guess when we want cement, we just pop to B&Q or Homebase, but in India there is a whole gamut of choice. I then started doing an Eye-Spy of cement brands I could see advertised to help pass the time on the journey. There is Wonder Cement, UltraTech cement, Bangur cement, Rockstrong cement, Jaypee cement, ACC cement, Lakshmi cement and Ambuja cement. There is a hell of a lot of building and development going on around India from what I have seen, so I guess cement is big business here!

Finally, we approached Jodhpur where we met up with our local contact (Singh), who had a most impressive handlebar moustache! He was very enthusiastic about Jodhpur and welcomed us to the city and explained what we were going to get up to in our time here.

We are staying in the old part of Jodhpur at a boutique hotel called the Raas Haveli which has views of the fort. I have to say this place is spectacular, we have a balcony overlooking the fort, and the room is superbly cool, which is a relief as the days here are just getting hotter and hotter (42 degrees)!! This is definitely one of those hotels rooms which you will always remember, it is that plush (we even have a bath which has views of the Fort!). Anyway other than settling in, we have done very little after getting to Jodhpur apart from dipping in the pool and drinking beer!

I will however give you a couple of snaps, to whet your appetite. 

View of the Fort from our room

The Fort at night from the Roof bar! I will never forget this view!

Tomorrow we do a proper tour of the city, so we will need be mindful and pack plenty of water as it is supposed to be even hotter again!

Jaipur - The Pink City

As I write this post I am in a lovely air conditioned car driving away from Jaipur having spent the morning touring the city and seeing some of the lovely sights. The car has Wi-Fi so I can catch up on all the trivial little details of life (i.e. Football results) too!

We are off to a place called Bijaynagar which I think is halfway point between Jaipur and Jodhpur, so a nice rural place to get a feel for the real Rajasthan! But before all that let me tell you about our day so far. The tour started at 9am and we went off to the Amber fort (also known as the Amer fort) which is a fair way outside Jaipur. Our guide was Davinder and he was very good entertainment making us smile with his views on life and making note that almost everything in life is good with a nice scotch (apart from yoghurt).

He was very informative, but also gave us some flexibility to wander and take some time to explore the fort. It is impressively perched looking down at Amer which is a part of Jaipur, but slightly outside the city from what I can tell - there are also impressive walls stretching over the mountainside (according to the guide they stretched over 13km). There are three things to see in the fort really - the audience hall of the king, which seems to be a theme in all the forts I have been to thus far in India, the palace of mirrors, which must have been built by a load of crazy magpies and finally the harem.

The Amber (Amer) Fort - blooming big!!

Main courtyard at Amber fort

Ganesh Gate (he is above the door) - make a wish as you walk through

The Mirror Palace - Sarah wants our bathroom decorated like this!!

No Fort/Palace is complete without a Harem for the porcupines...

The fort is impressive in its scale and so I took a panorama shot of it (I like my panoramas now that I have discovered them!!).

Panorama of the Amber fort, plus some of the fort walls (and some cows sitting in a lake to cool off)

After the fort we drove back down and got a photo of the Water Palace - a pre-Udaipurian hors d'oeuvres, before we go to the Lake Palace. The Water Palace is now owned by the government and nothing seems to be being done to utilise it, which seems a shame to me.

A great Bond villain lair, if only the government would allow it to be used!

From there we moved on to the Jantar Mantar which is the name of the observatory built by Jai Singh, the founder of Jaipur, which I have to say is both surprisingly interesting and amazing - the sundials are accurate to 2 seconds apparently and to test my guide I asked him to tell me the time using the sun dial. He looked at it and said he thinks it is 11.08am - he was wrong - according to my phone it was 11:09am! I was still suitably impressed, although a part of me replayed the scene in Crocodile Dundee where Mick checks Walter's watch before going over to the girl and impressing her with his sun positional skills....

The guide used this sundial to predict the time to within 1 minute - impressive!

Me next to my starsign's sundial

The observatory was a mishmash of steps and triangles and was like some crazy Escher drawing, or the ending of the film Labyrinth, but you couldn't knock the genius of the mathematics behind it all! The emperor was a big fan of mathematics and astronomy and there is even stuff here to help work out people's horoscope - so you could say he was a 18th century Russell Grant. It, along with the Amber Fort, are both World heritage sites, taking our tally on this tour so far to seven!!

After the observatory, we went to see the royal palace, I think Sarah is reaching her palace limit now and just wants to relax a bit more (I haven't told her that Udaipur is known as the City of Palaces yet, so keep that between you and me!) . Anyway, the palace was very nice but the main feature of it was probably the courtyard with the four different gates and the reception room with the solid silver chairs which unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos of. Someone tried to surreptitiously do this with an iWatch, and judging by the commotion and the amount of guards that appeared and escorted him out, I figured it prudent I kept my camera in my pocket.

The Royal Palace, Jaipur

Finally, we visited the Palace of the Winds, called Hawa Mahal. I was expecting this to be a curry house offering particularly spicy curries, but it was a facade linked to the royal palace which allowed the women (concubines) in the palace see what was going on in the Main Street. It is just a facade really, but is very beautiful and one of the signature buildings of Jaipur.

Palace of Winds - You might think I'm being arty with this shot, but it is just a facade

Now the countryside is flying past and we are weaving in and out of lorries on the road from Jaipur. I can't believe how fast the time is going - we have almost been away for a week and so are a third of the way through the trip! That is all for today, hopefully we will get to our hotel at a decent hour and be able to relax by the pool!

***Update**

We have arrived at Bijay Nawas Palace by mid-afternoon and the weather here is getting hotter, I mean really hot!! The first thing we did after check-in was head straight to the pool!! The hotel is a former hunting lodge of some minor Indian royalty I believe, and they have kept the period features so it is a real step back in time to how things might have been. There is no Wi-Fi here which means I am writing this offline and will post it when i am in Jodhpur (hopefully).

Back to Bijay Nawas. I think we are the only people here, and they have given us the best room in the hotel. I feel like a Maharajah with the size of our room, it is just a shame we are only staying for the night, as this is a stop over to break up the long journey from Jaipur to Jodhpur. We have a spacious lounging area, a lovely big bedroom, our own dressing room, and a bathroom. On top of that, we have a large balcony on which to sit out on, but unfortunately due to this being rural and they are currently harvesting, it means that if you sat out there for too long, you would be bitten to shreds by mosquitoes and flies.

Our bedroom - spacious!

The lounge area

The balcony - we didn't do it justice!

All that said, it is way too hot to be sitting outside anyway, the temperature at 10:30pm is over 30 degrees (don't feel jealous, it is uncomfortably hot!!). All I want to do is lie on a bed of ice cubes in a room with the fan on full blast.....