11th October - Today we headed to the city of Udaipur, Southern Rajasthan - an 8 hour bus journey. The journey quickly turned into a longer trip in true Indian style we were diverted onto a road big enough for just one car which wasn't the best in a massive coach. We reached Udaipur at 9pm after a rather stressful journey.

12th October - Udaipur has been described as the 'Venice of the East'. It is set alongside Lake Pichora, on which sits the 'Lake Palace' - where the Bond film Octop**** was set. The Palace is now a luxurious hotel and is really beautiful - needless to say we didn't make the journey across for lunch at 60 plus dollars a head...overlooking the lake is the City Palace which is a very imposing piece of architecture. It has been built and built upon by various Maharaja's (royal rulers of the city) along the years yet still manages to look uniform as if it was built all at one time. The current Maharaja lives in quarters of the Palace, and other sections have been transformed into two more luxurious hotels - some of the most expensive in the world. We visited the palace museum and saw some very well restored parts - the decoration was extremely ornate with colourful tiling and mirrors everywhere - enough to make you go dizzy. India is very colourful indeed, whether it is spices, clothing or buildings. Just like at the Taj, our group were mobbed by Indian tourists wanting pictures with us. We obliged with a large group of school kids from Gujarat and they were most pleased, or should i say excited about it all. If you have white skin you are a god send to them and apparently they display these pictures in their homes with pride - let's hope that's all they do with them!

In the evening we attended a cookery class and learnt how to cook a selection of Indian dishes. I might add Indian food is very different to what it is in thw west - we seem to have made up our own idea of what food from this part of the food should be like... The class was amazing and we all got chance to try out what we had learnt by cooking the dishes from scratch at the front of the class! We made everything from chapatis to Palak Malai...I have learnt about so many new foods now since my arrival in India I would copy them all down onto here but I would probably bore you! I will definitely be cooking up a real Indian meal when I get home though for those of you who are lucky enough :p Dad I have bought you a selection of spices which are the essentials to the Spice Box in any Indian kitchen...so I'll look forward to you making use of them back home :-)

13th October - Nat and I had rather a lazy day and sacked off the culture for one day - oops. In true Lauren style I got my first bit of burnage from sitting by the pool too long. I carried on the lazyness by having an hour long full body tradtional Ayurvedic massage. Thanks to Nat for buying me this for my birthday :-) Ayurvedic therapy began in southern India and uses special Ayurvedic oils and methods in a 'science of healing'. The massage was one of the best i've had; the only difference was it was all done fully naked - I was a little taken aback at first however it was worth it in the end for sure!We finished off the day with an evening rooftop party on the top of our hotel - most hotels have rooftop restaurants and bars over here. They laid on a 'DJ' for us to play some Western music...there were a few tracks repeated that was about it! We all preferred the Indian music though and were joined by some Indian girls staying at the hotel who showed us how to dance Bollywood style!

14th October - Today we took an early morning bus up to Mt Abu which is a hill station sitting 1,200ft above sea level. The place is a well loved holiday destination for Indian tourists, especially honeymooning couples...still hoping I get taken somewhere a little more exotic for my honeymoon though! The Maharaja's of Rajasthan traditionally came to stay in Mt Abu for several months of the year when the weather in the city got too hot thus there are many palacial buildings around Mt Abu. There are no auto rickshaws here, instead they use hand pulled carts which idealy fit two people in and are dragged along by the poor Indian man making not very many rupees out of you. If you don't fancy a cart you can choose horse back. Very environmentally friendly compared to the city!

15th October - Today we visitied some temples in nearby Dilwara which were built by the Jains (the oldest religion in the world) in the 11th century. The temples are truly breathtaking. They were built by thousands of artisans over 14 years. The artisans were parid according to the amount of dust they collected while carving the marble, thus the temples are so intricately carved you just want to touch all the pillars and as lonely planet describes it 'break pieces off and eat them'. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures so you will all have to go and see for yoursevles! Jainism is a really interesting religion, similar in its concepts to Bhuddism they believe in achieving complete liberation by purity of the soul which they try to reach via meditation, fasting etc. The most strict Jains (difficult to come across) are not even allowed to own any clothing and can only eat once a day.

For dinner we tried some Rajasthani Thali which is similar in concept to 'Tapas' just with Indian food. It's great for learning loads of new types of foods and that we did...I'm shocked at how vegetarian India is, for example 90% of Gujaratis are vegetarian. Many Indian speciliaties do not involve meat but are so tasty - India is heaven for any vegetarian i think, as long as you can handle a bit of spice anyway!

This evening we took the overnight sleeper train to Mumbai - a total of 14 hours. The station platform was filled with stalls selling freshly cooked foods - mainly Indian snack foods like Kachoris, Samosa's, Lassi etc. We have now seen many trains like those you might have seen in 'Slumdog Millionaire' - with passengers PACKED in like cattle. They don't shut the doors and people basically hang out of the train without a care in the world - it would be a health and safety disaster back home! Our own journey was much nicer since we were in '1st class' (still the Indian version - I abstained from using the toilet all 14 hours - despite now being used to asian toilets one toilet for 72 people didn't sound the best to me). The journey was pretty comfortable really but something went bump in the night in the form of a skanky Indian man :-(...

16th October - I woke up this morning to disciver that my camera had been nicked. All 800 pictures from my Indian travels over the past 2 weeks gone - not impressed. I won't say anything more about this little incident as it would make for a depressing read. I had been excited to see Mumbai - the Bollywood capital - however my mood had been seriously tainted...

17th October - Today involved an internal flight down to Goa. A couple of hours later (extremely quick for Indian standards) we arrived at our hotel in Calangute. We have all been so excited for Goa after the sometimes stressful travel through the 'real' India but we all knew we wouldn't be staying in Calangute too long after the end of our trip... I would describe Calangute as the bucket and spade Blackpool of Goa. It's full on Indian tourist who love it, which we discovered when we got down to the beach which was packed full of them. Women in saris only come to the beach from the late afternoon which i'm beginning to think is very wise since i'm rather burnt as im writing this entry...

This evening we celebrated a group member (Pedro) 30th birthday. We ended up in a rather weird Karaoke bar with the strangest atmospherere and even stragner collection of people...there were Indian transevestites, young Indian guys thinking they were way too good at singing, hippie western types...and us. All i could think we roll on finding the real Goa!

18th October- We actually managed to find a quieter bit of the beach this afternoon and did our first spot of Goan sunbathing - it was boiling. I was accosted by sari cladden girls trying to sell their many sarongs/dresses/jewelrey. They always seem to pick on me! They are a true part of what it is to come to India though so it is nice to chat to them and do aa bit of shopping (it's ssssooooo cheap) however they are the most persistent people i've ever met so after a while of saying you're not interested in buying anything youre patience wears thin...

19th October - This morning it was goodbye to our travel group as everyone was now going their different ways. Nat and I shared a taxi with a few of the girls (Ellen, Alex and Elli) further up north to Arambol. We were all keeping our fingers crossed to discover some more undiscovered beaches in northern goa. Arambol is the most northerly of Goa's developed beachs, it is still home to several beach front restaurants and bars and a large market. Despite this the beaches are still quiet and attract a different crowd. There are loads of ageing hippy types here - too many of which i've seen wearing thong type speedos today :-s There is a much more relaxed feel here and the beaches are more like the Goan ideal, so we are happy bunnys. We found ourselves a few beach huts to stay for our first night....the huts are pretty basic and there is a shared shower/toilet which we don't mind after our experience in Africa. The price at 2quids a night is not too shabby either :-)

Nat and I had a gorgeous meal at a beachside seafood restaurant and had our first taste of Goan cuisine - which specialises in fish - yum! I had 'Kingfish' and Nat had 'Shark' - kingfish was particularly tasty so I think were going to be on a 'seafood' diet for the next 10 days!

Also I have discovered the joys of skype today (yes i realise i am massively behind times in true technophobic fashion) however add me on there please if you fancy...

20th October - Wow i'm actaully writing a days post on the same days - shock! We had a suprisingly good sleep last night in our little shack and i woke up with no mozzy bites at all despite only being sheltered by a bit of bamboo and a rather suspect looking mozzy net...I went for an early morning walk up the beach from our shack in search of some secluded sand...i walked for 30 minutes past early morning joggers, people doing bits of yoga and meditation, the odd sea snake/jellyfish on the sand and parked myself up and a secluded bit of white sand with hardly a person in sight - yay! This was Mandrem beach - one of the more undiscovered gems of the north. I am now sat here however pretty burnt - mainly on my bottom which is not the most comfortable! We are going to be moving on from Arambol tomorrow afternoon I think, going to a few more places on our way to the beaches of southern goa...Anyway over and out for today, I'll try to write again soon...