The Last of Rajasthan

After our camel episode in Jaisalmer Jusfa took a deep breath and another bumpy, 6 hour, staring filled bus to Jodhpur (yes, where the riding pants were named). We arrived at the bus station ....oh, oh wait, did I say bus station? I meant gas station - that's what they are here and I became truly Indian when I started bartering for a hotel room. That's right, got it down 50 rupees. Remember: in India you can bargain for ANYTHING. After some Fanta's and a nap we explored the old city, saw some cows, and contemplated the blueness of the "Blue City". Our hotel had a rooftop restaurant with a great view of the blue and the gigantic and looming Meherangar Fort built a long long time ago with someone in it! Alive! As the ultimate sacrifice to the Gods! Was this guy crazy?

We decided to take the tour of the Fort. Now, please understand. Rajasthan as a whole is chalked-full of old Forts and Palaces. Don't get me wrong, they're pretty neat, but after the 44th Fort and 87th city Palace they begin to get a little repetitive. Well! Who knew a deep voiced British-Indo accent could change my ways? An audio tour with my personal, seductive, non-staring friend who I could start, stop, fast forward or repeat when ever I wanted changed my mind, that's who. The fort, with or without the audio accompaniment, would have been amazing but Mr. Information just made my day.

Besides the blue and the fort and the bank machine we made use of Jodphur didn't have a whole lot of other stuff to offer to a weary traveller. We moved on to Udaipur, where this time we were dropped on the side of the road instead of any sort of station. Ok fine, it didn't seem to phase us as we were sugar-high off cheese crackers and makeshift biscuits. We did some wandering until we found a place to stay for the right price and settled in to become romantic in the wedding capital of India.

Udaipur is white (mainly) with rolling mountainy-hills surrounding two lakes (which are only full during and shortly after the Monsoons). It's very romantic - for India. In the middle of the largest lake is a super-duper swanky expensive hotel where all the rich white people stay and look out at people like me and Lifa wondering how we survived in such a savage environment. Oh how we wished we could stay there!

Although Laura and I weren't celebrating our anniversary, or getting married, or honey-mooning we did spend our time gazing into each other eyes and doing romantic things. We watched the sunset from Monsoon palace, watched the sunset again from a rooftop restaurant, and yes, one more sunset before our EPIC overnight sleeper bus journey to Surat. Along with our sunsets we also watched Octopussy, the 1983 James Bond flick filmed partly in Udaipur - right where we were (and in the super deluxe lake floating hotel). We enjoyed our curry and lassis (shaken, not stirred) in front of the T.V, atop a roof, atop Udaipur and I'd be happy to tell you to watch the movie, it's somewhat entertaining and totally unrepresentative of our experience there. Bond, Jusfa Bond.