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Thankfully today was going to be a relaxed day. If that is possible in India...
First thing was first. The females of the group wanted their palms read by a recommended reader. This was a process that the males were not interested in in the slightest! Soooo one by one the returned from the table across the room with inked up palms to enlighten us with what they had learnt. Some came back happy from the experience including Emily, others were told bad things like Erin, and some were the bearers of potential future problems like Marie. Stuart looked unbelievably worried about the future news she had put onto him, I feel this wasn't helped by the fact he had been running back and forth to use the hotel toilet.
I had looked in a recommended jewellery shop and found a ring I wanted. Onyx and silver. Nice. Unfortunately Stewart was feeling the effect of dodgy curry and unfortunately had to resort to leaving me Marie and Emily to venture through town so he could be in close vicinity to a western toilet. The moral was quite low at first, so we thought to overcome this we would go into some shops and try some ridiculous clothes. We went into a few Indian clothe shops. Eventually we found a very camp Indian who we would choose as our haggling victim. He wasn't expecting the experience we were about to impose upon him. The girls started trying ali barber trousers on whilst I was photographer. After suggesting to Emily to try on some ridiculous looking ones, she actually slowly fell in love with them... This was going to be her purchase. Marie on the other hand had spotted some outside the shop which she had liked. On closer inspection they were slightly ripped and had bird poo on them. Let the haggling match commence (NB 75 rupee is approximately £1)
-"How much?!"
-"450 for Emily's and 300 for Marie's"
-We proceeded to laugh in his face!
"Haha good one mate no seriously?"
-"Its very good design and stitching"
-"Hang on there is bird poo on these!!"
-"its ok it comes off, watch this!"
-"Its not coming off at all... We'll give you 100 for Marie's"
-"200 is a good price"
-"and the pocket is ripped!! We aren't giving you more than 20 for these"
-he proceeded to look at us in disgust haha
-"I know 250 for both!"
-"What?!"
-"Ok 300 for both and we take a photo of us all as well!"
-"No chance"
-"Fine then, let's go guys..." We started walking out
-"ok ok let me ask my boss!"
We got them both for 300 haha!! And we got a photo.
We then proceeded to go to a shoe shop as I wanted some ridiculous shoes. The previous haggling victory had obviously gone to Marie's head as she started to haggle for MY shoes with the man! She had to calm down... Eventually I did get my ridiculous shoes and picked up my new ring which had been re sized. Then it was the rush to the cooking lesson we had booked ourselves in for. We picked up Stuart on the way who had completely ceased all bowel movement after taking god knows how much immodium.
There were two English girls at the lesson as well who seemed rather more serious about cooking than us. One of them asked soooo many questions that the teacher ended up just ignoring her or saying "paaatience. "The teacher was named Shakti who sounded rather mechanical english voice which would always go from high to low. He had actually given a lesson to Jamie Oliver's personal chef. One thing that has stuck in my mind is "when oil is on top, curry is going ready" which brought far too much enjoyment to us all. We all took it in turn to make various dishes over the stove and it was very good. If you ever want chai masala or chipati's or koftas or other standard indian food come to us. After about 2 hours the lesson was complete and the food was ready to eat. I must admit it was delicious. So we noshed that down and headed to meet the others over at a restaurant overlooking the lake. Previously we had noticed the amount of "pimped out" tuk tuk's in Udaipur, so we went out to find one to take us to the others. We found one. Flashing lights, sub woofer, neon green inside and some heavy bangra. This was soooo much fun driving through the busy side streets! We took a video which I will try and get off stuart.
Overall everyone had seemed to enjoy Udaipur A LOT, the people seemed nicer and we were getting very used to being bothered. I hope the rest of the trip was going to be like this but I wasn't hopeful...
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