7th. Sun. Udaipur, Rajasthan - afternoon

This afternoon we set out to walk around the area on the opposite side of the lake to where we're staying.

en route I did some serious haggling for a cotton skirt ... not the cheap cotton (I'm told) but the superior heavy duty stuff.    I thought I did rather well but as the vendor then made me a 'gift' of a small silk/viscose duffel type bag I guess he go the best of the deal ... but I only paid £3 so I'm not complaining

The skirt - its pretty voluminous as you can see

anyway ... the afternoon walk was much the same as the morning ... except that we were pleased to find we were staying on the better side of lake in terms of what we could see from our rooftop terraces. 

We shared a beer on the rooftop terrace of a hotel on the 'other side'.   This is the view of 'our hotel'- the one just under the tower with a brown banner on the front (top centre-ish)

Despite the green appearance of the water, lots of locals bathe and wash clothes in it.   There are lots of ducks and diving birds finding fish in it too so it must be fairly clean

Lots of monkeys around - this one was very laid back in front of the camera

These lovely ladies were shelling what looked like peas .. they gave me some to try and they were delicious

David (not being one for 'green food' much preferred these local delicacies ... freshly cooked and hot from the pan.   They are called kachori or something similar (must Google that when we have better internet access).    It was like a large deep fried choux pastry filled with a spicy savoury veggie mix - I had a few bites from it and can concur that it was delicious.

I stopped to chat to this machinist in her shop - she is very beautiful.   She spoke good English and we were then introduced to her husband, a local artist and school teacher.   He insisted on taking us into his small 'school' where we were shown into his private rooms.  He made us some Masala Chai and cooked some corn papads which had been freshly made by his wife.

Of course the 'upside' to this is that we were shown lots of artwork done by his students, himself and his son.     We bought several 'postcards' which were quite attractive.   Used postcards with Indian script and postmarks on them, stained brown and with Indian motifs drawn on them.   Nice souvenirs which won't take up too much space in the cases

We were invited to have an evening meal with them tonight cooked over an open fire ... but I made our excuses.    I think we'd have been talked into buying some of his more expensive silk paintings if we spent more time with them!

This is the 'school' and our host

Back to street scenes

This is one which I expect to draw in the future - I have a few photos of him in my folder.  Obviously these pictures are much reduced in size/quality but on the original there's lots of wonderful textures in his top which will be a wonderful challenge for the coloured pencils, to say nothing of the grey beard

What I particularly love about Udaipur is that no matter how dilapidated the beautiful old buildings have become, they are beautifully decorated/painted.  Many of these painting have sparkling stones set into the design which look beautiful in the sunlight ... here's just a few - not easy taking photos of them with so much traffic on the narrow roads

OK that's another marathon post finished.

We've have no internet in our room tonight so I'm sitting down next to the Reception desk where the signal is stronger but it means I've rather hurried everything.  I'm sure I've missed out some of the better pics and put loads in that aren't of interest ... but needs must.

We're off to Pali tomorrow after breakfast.    I think its around 4 hours driving time and I've no idea if we'll have internet there as we're staying in another heritage property in a rural area.

7TH Sun. Udaipur, Rajasthan (Morning walk)

Whilst eating breakfast at the rooftop restaurant this morning a couple of parakeets swooped in and parked themselves on a spotlight and posed beautifully for a few minutes whilst I snapped away.   There is a huge flock of these birds spending much of their time in a large tree behind our hotel - they are extremely noisy but quite beautiful to watch

 Part of the 'Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' was filmed in Udaipur and there are pictures of some of the cast filmed at our hotel on the walls of the rooftop restaurant/bar.    David standing next to one of the pics

and here he is posed in roughly the same spot as the 'stars' of the film.   

We'd made no real plans for today other than to explore the local area.   We set forth after breakfast and I thought it would be fun to follow these two ladies as they seemed very positive about where they were going with their loaded baskets

They soon disappeared in a busy side street so we just carried on wandering and I photographed whatever took my fancy.      We steered clear of the City Palace as there were loads of tourists being brought in by bus and that inevitably leads to loads of hawkers harassing passers-by and I really get fed up with being pestered

Lots of the buildings here are very tall and we figure this is because they open their rooftop areas as bars and restaurants with good views of the Lake Picholo

Street scenes.   The streets of Udaipur are very narrow with many junctions and 'blind' bends which leads to some interesting situations with cows parking themselves wherever they fancy and the usual mix of pedestrians, cyclists, tuk tuks and cars/vans ..... not for the faint hearted.

Here's a cow getting chased off from a local vendor's stall where it had been helping itself to some of the vegetables she was selling

Just as a change from street cows here are some street goats

Girls posing for the camera

David sampling Dagari - pure sugar much loved by the locals

This lovely lady was pumping water from a street pump and was happy to pose for me

Local metal workers making brass serving bowls - here he's hammering them into shape

and here they're being rubbed with various grades of sand to polish them

We stopped for cups of Masala Chai ... here's ours being made prior to being served in small terracota cups

Chai break

Back to the street scenes - they really are quite amazing

We then went back to the hotel for an hour so I could upload the photos onto the computer and resize them ... then we headed back out to cross to the other side of the lake to see what we could find there.