Merry Christmas to friends and family alike. Know that we are missing you all and would love to have been able to spend this time with you.

We are spending Christmas in Udaipur, India and have been hunting furiously for a venue that will offer something like our idea of what a Christmas should be. We have failed but we came across a special Christmas Eve function at some of the flash hotels. The flashiest of these is in the middle of town, atop the hill, in the palace. For a small fee (and a limb) we got ourselves an invitation. Now my mother, as she always does, sent me a sum of money to be spent spoiling myself for Christmas. This year it did just that so thanks mum. We got the tickets to the Christmas Eve ball, on the pool deck, at the Shiv Niwas Palace.

Needless to say our backpacking attire did not exactly include formal wear. So we went shopping. This was possibly a good thing as some of our original items were getting a touch aromatic and were in need of replacement. We settled on neat casual…Indian style. Safe to say that for the cost of our splurge tickets we could have stayed at our dodgy little hotel for almost a month. Instead we opted for the all you can eat, all you can drink Christmas Eve gala ball at the palace.

The place was spectacular…as was the food. We ate, drank, chatted and generally had a fantastic night. So much so that Jill claims it to have been her best Christmas ever. We got to have our turkey…along with almost anything else that you can imagine. We steered clear of the Indian food as we have eaten nothing else for about a month now. While I like eating Indian food I also love the variety of being able to have different things.

A couple of things that you need to know about Udaipur to give context to our evening…the James Bond movie Octopussy was filmed here with the evil baddie having her hideout/headquarters in the middle of the lake (images to follow in the Udaipur post). Prior to finding the evil baddie…James Bond, as he does, seduced a Bond girl by a pool. This was the pool that we sat beside having our Christmas feast. As this movie is the big claim to fame of Udaipur, almost every rooftop restaurant plays this movie nightly between 7-9 pm. We will be heading to one of these tonight to refresh ourselves on the movie and to see the sights of the city that we are bouncing around in. For those that own the movie there is an oval shaped pool with a fountain on one side. We had the table directly adjacent to the fountain.

The evening was all about excesses with a list of experiences too long to list (but included floating ice sculptures and flower petals on almost every unattended surface) suffice to say we had a great time. One of the attendees at the function was actually the Maharana (local king) and his family, there was also a lesser Bollywood star who had apparently made it big in the UK and had come back and bought up most of Udaipur.

Missing you all…thinking of you… Hope that you all have a great Christmas.

Arrived in Udaipur and settled in to a fantastic guest house right on the lake overlooking people washing themselves and their clothes in the lake. We could see the palace, the temples, the water, the gates all from our balcony.

The coffee is great and we got into a chat with the manager who was trying to upsell us to another room or another hotel (that he happens to also own). We hit our first lost in translation…the man was telling us his other hotel has cows and mangoes. Now Jill loves a mango daiquiri so we showed interest and described how her Christmas tradition was to drink mango daiquiris. He gave us a very strange look…we talked in opposite directions for a few minutes before he showed me a photo of a mongoose. We quickly clarified that Jill does not in fact drink mongoose. The man was full of character and asked if we knew what India stood for. Which we did not. The answer was…

I’ll
Never
Do
It
Again.

From this time on…all was good…the other gem he pulled out was that “in India everything is possible…but nothing is available”. We did the Christmas run around to find a suitable venue and after that did the tourist thing hitting the main sights. The palace and museum were great but were massively overcrowded (it is peak season) which detracted from the overall experience. The lake palace is now a 5 star hotel that you cannot go to unless you pay the $1000 per night…given that we can see it from our rooftop and we are paying under $10 per night…we are fine not going in…we saw the insides the night we watched Octopussy anyway.

We watched the movie (Octopussy) and apart from some general filth and dodgy wiring the rest of the town looks pretty much as it did in the movie…ignore the fact that the movie showed the Taj Mahal which is so far away it is not funny (650+ Kms). We wandered up to sunset point near the cable car and the boat cruise set off point. When we worked out that the boat cruise was at a 1000% markup for tourists for the 20 minute ride that goes around the lake palace and past our joint we decided not to bother.

We did the 90 km each way day trip out from Udaipur to see the Kumbhalgarh Fort and then across to the Ranakpur Jain temple. It was a full day but a great one. The fort (as they tend to be) was pretty amazing with many a happy snap taken and the Jain temple was incredible with over 1400 marble columns all individually carved. The one at Ranakpur is (arguably) the best of them all but either way it was pretty darn good.

We jumped in and split the costs with a Dutch lady and her French husband. He was a mad keen photographer who was hellbent to get photos of the oxen drawn water wheels. For those of us who grew up in the either the 20th century or civilisation it is a bunch of paint tins on a chain dipping into a well and emptying into a trough all being powered by a couple of oxen getting dizzy. We found a few of these and he got his photos. For a small fee I managed to get Jill driving the oxen around in circles.

This place is a must see for any travellers coming to India. Met a lovely couple (living in Sweden) and teamed up to tour the local forts and a few other sites around the place. The hotel had arranged 2 tuk tuks and drivers for our exclusive use for the whole day for the princely sum of 800 rupees ($14.28). This turned into another one of those silly number of photos days as there was no way to take it all in.

We started at the monkey temple (Galwar Bagh) which was “surprisingly” a temple on a hill with lots of monkeys. The temple was unimpressive but there were many monkeys and a pretty good view over Jaipur. The next stop was a photo opportunity at the floating or water palace (Jal Mahal). You cannot get out to the island but it is pretty spectacular either way and is a 5 min stop on the way to or from the three forts of Jaipur which are relatively close to each other and set along the ridge of the mountain. In addition to this is the 27 kilometre defensive wall that was constructed. The Indians love to tell gullible tourists that it is the Great Wall of China and by all accounts the French and yanks are the ones that tend to buy into this.

The fort run is huge and exhausting to do all in one day and by the end you are suffering from attraction overload so the third of the forts gets a fairly cursory glance. The first thing you hit is the lake at the bottom of the ridge where you look up to the amber fort and palace then across the ridge to the Jaigarh Fort and along the zig zag of walls. This place is truly impressive. The first introduction to this was the snake charmer with his cobra in a basket which evolved into the elephant ride option to climb the hill to the amber fort and palace.

Once at the Amber fort and palace you find yourself in a building that is more of a maze than a palace. You get awesome views all around and keep popping into random rooms and terraces in this maze of a building. There is no natural flow and everything is sectioned off and the biggest challenge is finding the exit when you are finished. When you get to the side of the fort there is a tunnel offering protected passage between the amber for and the Jaigarh fort which goes for about a kilometre up the hill. Upon exiting the tunnel you have about another kilometre hike up the hill to the entrance to the next fort.

The Nahargarh fort is the last of the three and is on the opposite side of the same ridge from the others and is the fort that can be seen from down town Jaipur.

Finally… The India I was hoping for and expecting. Agra shook off the New Delhi blues but Jaipur has made them a distant memory. Had a fantastic 5.5 hr train ride from Agra to Jaipur got to relax and enjoy some really beautiful countryside in a comfortable and hassle free ride. Got off the train and was dreading the usual assault by hawkers, taxi and tuk tuk drivers…and it never came. Got offered a lift to the hotel…asked how much… Got quoted an obvious 100% markup…rejected it and offered the right amount…he added 20…I said the right amount…he agreed.

Got in tuk tuk and he took me directly where I wanted with no round trips and no offers of friends shops or tourist bureaus. Settled in and went for our usual orientation walk. Ran into about 50 tuk tuks offering to take us somewhere. Unlike Delhi and Agra a smile and a wave of the hand was sufficient enough to indicate a lack of interest. We did not get followed down the road for 1-200 meters being asked the usual barrage of questions and statements like…where are you going, where you from, you want bazaar, shopping this way, nothing to see this way, 20 rupees one hour.

Came across a phone store and entered to try and fix the SIM card debacle that was New Delhi. The guy at the shop was awesome and spent 30 mins fixing the problems created by the guy in Delhi. I tried to offer him money for his great service and his response was ” I want one thing…I want a good blessing”. I wished him many blessings and departed fully cashed up and fully connected to the Indian telecommunications network.

Stopped at a rooftop bar for a couple of kingfishers (did watch the rats scurrying along the beams for a while) then back to the hotel for possibly the best meal that I have ever had in my life. Believe it or not, it was 100% vegetarian. For the foodies amongst you it was…mushroom palak (mushrooms in a spinach sauce), aloo mattar paneer (potato, peas and cottage cheese in a vegetable gravy, Dahl makhani (black lentils and kidney beans cooked with cream and butter) and my body weight in a range of Indian breads including naans, roti, chapati and paratha. The mushroom palak was the pick of the bunch but you could not find fault with a single element of this meal and we were in hog heaven.

After a couple of days of doing nothing due to the inevitable gastro hit (Jill) we got back into the swing of things. Hit the City Palace and the Hawa Mahal. The city palace is the home of the maharajah of Rajasthan and is actually in use most of the time (including while we were there). In addition it is regularly used as a set for Bollywood films (including while we were there) so it looked more like a construction site than a palace. There was a weapons museum included as part of the admission that was quite frankly incredible. The range of old weapons and firearms would go close to being unrivalled. Alas there was no photography allowed but Mike H would have been in hog heaven in the museum.

Safe to say New Delhi and I hate each other.

Arrived in Agra and the world immediately changed. Cab driver was honest, helpful and genuinely pleasant, our accommodation is 100 meters from the east gate of the Taj Mahal and a close walk to a bunch of good eateries. The Taj Mahal is the most expensive attraction at 750 rupees per person to get in. We were thinking that this was overly expensive until we did the conversion and discovered that it was $13.25 each. The ticket office opens at 6am and the gates at 6:30 so we headed off to watch the sunrise at the Taj Mahal.

I know many people who have been here to visit the Taj Mahal and every one of them has told me that I must go…the place is amazing…and the photos you have seen don’t do it justice…they were all right…and if you are making a bucket list…what they said. We rocked in at dawn with the early morning mist and hung around watching the building change as the sun rose and the mist burned off. They claim that the best times to see the Taj Mahal is sunrise and sunset…300 meters from our hotel is a rooftop restaurant where you can watch the sun set over the thing and get a great feed.

After the Taj Mahal we headed off to Agra Fort. Now everyone heads to Agra for the taj but the Agra fort loses nothing in comparison. Between the two, we both went snap happy and may have actually taken more photos of these two than we did of the lumps (which is no mean feat). The fort is an incredible sight and is worthy of a trip to Agra just to see it, let alone that pesky taj thing.

An interesting element to this was as we walked into the Agra Fort. Through the gates I saw a bird of prey (not sure if eagle or hawk) with a creature in its talons (not sure if squirrel, pigeon or monkey) flying off. for the ensuing 2-3 hours we watched these birds circling and swooping…a fascinating watch.

We followed this up with a trip to the “baby taj” (Itimad-ud-Daulah the tomb of Mizra Ghiyas Beg, whoever he was), an afternoon of blogging and the evening on aforementioned rooftop watching the sun set over the Taj Mahal.

Met 2 Aussie girls and the 4 of us sat on the roof drinking “big juice” and eating curries. For those who did not pick up on it there are many unlicensed restaurants where alcohol can not be served. So we drank “big juice” that happened to be manufactured by kingfisher a company with the same name, as it happens, of a well known local beer company.

All things considered a fantastic day…and what I had hoped India would be like before we arrived.

The next day we slept in and headed over to the Kanir Bazaar. This place is everything that you ever imagined an Indian marketplace would be and more. Block after block of alleys with a shop every 2 meters and the constant buzz of hawkers, horns, horses, dogs, cows etc.

One aspect that we have not chatted about is the local wildlife. Coming here I had an expectation of random cow sightings on the streets (which happen every few minutes) but I did not expect the other wildlife that abounds here. Coming from a country without squirrels I was overjoyed to see my first squirrel on arrival. The monkeys are everywhere and the range of beasts of burden covers the gambit.

Well I have found my range in India…expect it all to be totally messed up and on occasion you may be pleasantly surprised. We headed out for the HOHO bus that is due to hit each site every half hour…after waiting over an hour we rang the number and were told “yes five minutes”…20 minutes and about three of Richards finest tirades later we abandoned all hope of the bus and headed for the metro to get to the red fort. On the way the phone dude rang jill to tell me my SIM card had been activated and was ready for collection but not for another hour. So after standing on the street corner outside the Nehru museum for 90 mins I had another 60 mins to kill before I could get my phone connected.

We started towards the phone dude but stopped at Indira Gandhi’s house which had been turned into a memorial as it was the site of her assassination. Then off to get the SIM card. Now in Australia we believe (or at least I did) that in a telecommunications sense India is well advanced, and while all else may not be right the comms would be good. So I was quite surprised to find that they had never seen the iPhone 5 and there was no such thing as a nano SIM card to fit it. I watched the dude take to the SIM card with scissors and a nail file for about 15 minutes before deciding I did not want his bodged up job jammed into my phone, never to be able to be retrieved, thereby wrecking both the sim and my phone.

I told him to forget it and that I would once again forego connectivity. At this point he advised me that the SIM card had 250 rupees of credit transferred to it which I owed him money for. I was about to launch into my 5th or 6th tirade of the morning…shut up…paid him the $4-5 and walked away.

On the positive side I have mastered the local tuk tuks and am saving myself much walking in the doing so. Tuk tuk to the metro, metro to the red fort a fort built in the 1y600s out of red sandstone and the site where the indian flag was raised for the first time after independence in 1947)….and a great afternoon had by all from that point on.

The next day we had a cruisy day where I got to fulfil a long held wish of mine. Many years ago my father relayed to me a story where he had a shave from an Indian barber, and he did not have to shave for days afterwards as the man had grabbed and contorted the skin so as to cut off the beard 2 inches underneath the skin. Many years ago I tried it in Australia at a chain hairdressers by the apprentice hairdresser who was the girlfriend of a mate… and it was…surprisingly.. an unmitigated disaster.

We saw a by the road barber and I stopped in for a haircut and a cut-throat razor shave. At the end when I asked for the bill he answered “as you like”. These are frightening words that you hear quite often here in India, as I am certain that I will pay well over the going local rate but the theory is that you pay what you believe that the service was worth. So I ended up paying around 10 times the going rate (I asked when I got back). But this was still about one third of the Australian price for a haircut alone and I was happy. This was not of the calibre of shave my father received but the experience was great. Bottom line is that if I had been really tight I could have had a shave and a haircut and have had change from a dollar. Either way, I left clipped and happy.

We had our first Indian train journey as we did the New Delhi to Agra run. It is about 200 Kms and was to take us about two and a half hours on the super fast train. Five hours later we arrived. As a final parting shot at me for my many tirades New Delhi threw one last curve ball at me before leaving. As we got in the tuk tuk to head to the station we got a flat tyre…while transferring to another tuk tuk I stepped off the gutter to load my bag…foot hit uneven ground…ripped my ankle to shreds… Twisted, swollen and throbbing ankle…

New Delhi and I will never be friends.