Highlights of Udaipur

1. The jewellery shop. We arrived a little drowsy but ready to hit the town. We dropped our bags off at a guest house situated right on the edge of the lake and ventured out only to be lured almost immediately into a jewellery shop about 10m up the road by the jewellery seductively glistening in the display case. Magpies that we were we couldn't resist. THREE HOURS LATER we reemerged completely exhausted from painstakingly deliberating and ineffectually bargaining over the equisite pieces. Needless to say we completely blew our budgets.
2. The Crystal Gallery at the City Palace houses the rare crystal Maharaja Sajjan Singh ordered from England in 1877. The maharaja died before it arrived, and all the items stayed packed up in boxes for 110 years later to reveal excess such as a crystal table, couch and even bed!
3. The Rajastani Dancers at the Bagore-Ki Haveli reminded me of bright parakeets with their bright colours and graceful moves
4. The biggest turban in the world is vaguely reminiscent of a large piece of pink boerewors
5. Dinner in a cuppola overlooking the lake with Octupussy playing in the background. The movie was filmed here more than twenty five years ago and today it is still played nightly at all the rooftop restaurants. The full moon joined us for dinner. This is possibly the most romantic place I have ever had the pleasure of eating dinner. I would have quite liked to have swapped Coreen with Brian for the evening although she still made very pleasant company
6. The cooking course at the Spice Box. I can now cook chai masala, paneer, aloo ghobi and biryani with the best of them
7. Learning to play the tabla