Three girls, a guy and a tour guide - Part 3

The next morning half the tour group boarded a train heading to Delhi to finish up their tour, but the 4 of us staying on and Moon went and got a local bus heading to a little village called Nimaj Bagh. The place were were staying was an old palace turned into a hotel, with beautifully painted trims on all the doorways, arches and windows. The place also had a pool which we hung out in all afternoon, making the heat a whole lot more bearable.

We got taken on another village tour, which was quite similar to Tordi Garh, but there was a tiny bit more evidence of western influence and capitalism here, in the form of a few more general store type shops and one place selling tourist trinkets. The kids, however, were just as beautiful and innocent, wanting little more than to see themselves on the screen of our cameras.

We also visited a temple that was decorated with carvings from before the time when Muslims had stated to influence India, with lots of carved women wearing nothing more than a sarong around their waist. It's actually a bit sad to think about the changes in India since that time. People are shocked and offended if a woman wears a singlet exposing their shoulders. The country responsible for the inception of the karma sutra is today inhabited by a generation of men who act like primary school boys, titillated by asking if you've had "the sex" with your past girlfriends and wanting to high five you. Quite frankly it's depressing to see a country that was once so far ahead of the curve in sexual liberation, today being completely sexually retarded and ridiculously conservative.

That evening we drove out to a hill with a lovely view of the sunset, where we had some chai. After the sun set we briefly went to a nearby lake and watched animals before it started to rain quite heavily and we headed back to our jeep and did the sides up before heading back to the hotel for a good nights sleep.

From Nimaj Barh we headed to Jodpur, India's blue city. In the old town buildings are pretty much all painted indigo blue, apparently because it keeps the mosquitoes away. We spent the day exploring the Jodpur fort, which was fort-like, with Jodpur influences. Can you tell that my bullet point notes are lacking detail and my memory is failing?

That night we went to a local bar called Rocks bar, where I tried a bunch of local whiskeys, most of which were pretty alright, followed by a bunch of dancing which even in a very drunken state I had a lot of trouble getting into. Oh, and some local guy serving for the navy asked me to go home with him after the music stopped... just your usual night our in India.

The trip itinerary said the trip to Udaipur was by local bus, but we decided as a group that we'd done local buses already and would be happy to pay more to be able to make toilet stops wherever we pleased, and save a bunch of time. It also meant we'd be able to stop at a large Jain temple, the religion that our guide loosely follows. It's an interesting religion in that it's followers are supposed to shun technology; it's monks take it to extremes and only walk to get around, even bikes are apparently to much technology. I'm told that it means the religion hasn't spread very far around the world, simply because it's preachers won't board planes so can't easily spread their beliefs in other countries.

During the drive it was very interesting to see how the landscape changed, starting off extremely dry and desert like, then becoming mountainous and rocky for a while, trailing into lush green rolling hills.

We finally arrived in Udaipur in the late afternoon and drove around the narrow hilly streets of the old city, where we went up lane way only wide enough for one car. As luck would have it a car was coming the other way and we had to back back down to the T-intersection to let it pass. Helpfully cars coming from the other two directions drove right up to our vehicle, stopped and every starting beeping their horns. Cars and tuk-tuks banked up behind them in both directions while impatient motorcycle rides forced their way through the narrow gaps. There was a lot of shouting, and a silly amount of horn usage as though they believed we were unaware they wanted to get past, and they didn't realise that other self-centred idiots had blocked us in from every side so until one of the honking idiots yielded, nobody was going anywhere.

Eventually cars and tuk-tuks manoeuvred enough for us to get out of the way of the car coming down the road we wanted to go up, and we did a loop around to the hotel where we were again impatiently honked at by a taxi while we got our bags out.

With how impatient everyone on the roads seems to be, how little consideration people seem to have for how their actions are making things worse, and just how bullshit crazily people seem to drive, I'm honestly surprised that I didn't see any real road rage. Everyone is in a needless hurry, but people seem to keep their cool pretty well.

After checking into our hotel we took a quick walking tour of the surrounding area, and then went on a sunset boat cruise on the lake that took us out past the two "floating" hotels that looked very upmarket.

Our guide invited us to come to his home for dinner that evening, where his wife and grandmother had prepared a divine selection of curries. Moon insisted that it was custom for guests to eat before the hosts, so we dug in as they brought the various dishes out, and his little old grandmother who didn't speak any English kept sneaking more naan onto our plates. Desert was goolab jamun, delicious doughy balls soaked in rosewater syrup.

While in Udaipur we did a tour of the very beautiful palace, took the cable car up to a lookout where the girls were swarmed by Indians who wanted to take a photo with them (a few even asked me, it was like they'd never seen white people before), and took in a show of traditional music and dancing one of which involved a woman dancing with an ever growing stack of pots balanced on her head.

There was also some sort of kite flying festival going on while we were in Udaipur, so Moon invited us to his home yet again so would could get up on his roof and try out hand at kite flying, and fighting (trying to cut other people's kite string with ours). Quite a fun afternoon!

One morning we were booked in to do a cooking class but I felt extremely nauseated during breakfast and decided food preparation was probably not the best idea. By lunch I was feeling fine again and came to the conclusion that the nausea must have been caused by the doxycycline I'd taken that morning on an empty stomach, an amateur mistake.

I spent the morning doing research into how to spend my time in South Africa and found a budget tour from Johannesburg to Botswana, which nearly fitted into the time I was there but started a day early. I made some enquires about changing my flight and if there was an seat on the tour, and was soon off trying to get a refund on my overnight train ticket and booking flight to get me to Mumbai sooner to give me a little extra time there.

Moon and the girls still on the tour said our goodbyes and they headed off to get their overnight train back to Delhi, while I stayed on in Udaipur for a few extra days.