We arrived in Udaipur from Jodhpur and it was a nice change from the city as it was set on a lake and seemed alot cleaner and less crowded. We spent a lot of time on rooftop terraces over looking the lake, just reading and keeping cool!! We had a cookery lesson and also watched James Bond Octop**** which all the hotels showed every night as parts of it were filmed there!! We also had a boat ride round the lake and visited the Monsoon Palace and the City Palace. After a few days we took the overnight sleeper down to the big city of Mumbai.

Our first impression of Mumbai was not a good one, because the bus through us off in the middle of a flyover without a clue where we were. After about 45 minutes we haggled a taxi from 1500 rupees to 500 and he took us to our "hotel". Our cell was up 4 flights of stairs in a building with no air conditioning so after carrying our bags up in the 34 degree heat we just found a cafe and drank water and watched England lose the Ashes for the rest of the day.

We found that a lot of central Mumbai is like a decaying London in that all the buildings are huge and are very similar to what you find in central London. We took a boat to Elephanta Island which is about an hour out of Mumbai and has some very old caves with carvings of Hindu Gods. It also had the most evil monkeys as we found out when Jess made the mistake of having a banana near them!! We found it quite strange in Mumbai as we were able to go out to bars and restaurants where inside it felt like we were at home. We even had steak!! It is lot more western than anywhere else but with the pollution, slums, beggars and thousands of people and traffic everywhere, we couldn't forget we were in India as soon as we stepped out again!! We ended up leaving in a bit of a hurry due to buses being full as EVERYONE comes to Goa for the holidays so we packed up and got the 12 hr cockroach infested bus to the beach!!

We decided to stay in the South of Goa in Palolem as it is a lot quiter and cheaper and nicer than the North. We got ourselves a little beach hut and unpacked the swimmng costumes and coated ourselves in sun cream!! The beach here is gorgeous and the weather is even better! It makes Spain look like blackpool!! The sea is so lovely as well, even Heather has conquered her fear and been swimming!! We did have a slight panic as one morning we were eating breakfast and saw a fin in the water which wasn't more than 10 feet from the shore where people were swimming. After watching for a few minutes and being close to tears we saw it jump out of the water and realised it was a dolphin, not a great white shark as we'd first thought! Apparently it's really common for the dolphins to come right up to the beach here!

We've only been here for a few days so not done much but after Christmas we have a boat trip planned and a couple of days out. For now, we're just going to get ready for our Christmas turkey and roast beef dinner, then may have an afternoon swim before hitting the parties!! We're planning to leave Goa just after New Year but now we've arrived we're not so sure! Merry Christmas xxx