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Hey guys, thanks so much for all the birthday comments etc. Was really nice.
Udaipur is awesome and we have fallen in love with the place. We arrived on Tuesday at our supposedly lush hotel to find that it was booked out (the 6th, 7th and 8th Feb are wedding days and rich people come to Udaipur to get married and everywhere gets booked out basically!) So we got transferred to a room in another hotel that stunk of piss and had no windows. But it was only for one night so we didn't complain too much. Lazar dropped us off at the train station so that we could get our tickets to Mumbai. It's all a bit confusing at the stations, but we managed to get on nevertheless. We said goodbye to Lazar, which was quite emotional actually- he had bought me a lovely silver necklace for my birthday and we gave him a big fat tip and our e-mail addresses, home addresses and phone numbers (God knows why- he asked for them all) in a home made envelope that Hols had made in the car.
He then left us to drive back to Delhi and we were suddenly alone. But, we could manage! We found cadburys chocolate 2 minutes after he left! We wondered around the streets and down to the beautiful lake that surrounds Udaipur, and basically bummed about for the evening.
The next morning was my birthday! Whooooo! We got up early and headed to the main area to find somewhere nice to stay that night. Everywhere was booked out still but one room remained untaken. We were a bit dubious as a result, but we took it and it's ok. Nothing to rave about, but certainly nothing to complain about. And, it only stank if you left the toilet door open. Dumping our stuff, we went to an internet place, which also had chocolate. I asked if they had any cadbury's creme eggs (I'm craving them massively) and the guy apologetically replied, 'I am sorry, we only sell vegetarian food here', which tickled me! After lunch consisting of icecream and pancakes (it was my birthdayafter all), we wondered down to the river side and got a pedallo for an hour. Oh the fun! The guy was telling us about something; not to go in a certain place, but we were too excited to listen. So, off we pedalled in to the lake. In the middle of the lake is the famous Lake Palace, a hotel that costs about a million pounds a night to stay there. So, of course, we thought we would pedal over there to check it out. We were admiring the views when all of a sudden, two men were shouting at us and waving. We couldn't really hear and started panicking that there was a shark or something in the lake. One of the guys got out on his speed boat and pulled up, creating large, unwanted waves that caused our little pedallo to lean right over. He told us we weren't allowed to go anywhere near the hotel, that we had to keep 50m away from it. So, off we pedalled again. We had life jackets but we weren't wearing them and they were getting in the way, so while Hols was pedalling, I thought I would take some photos but the jackets were obscuring the views, so I chucked it down by Hols' feet. Suddenly the whole thing was caught up in the pedals, we were being shouted at to move and we couldn't actually do anything. It was all tangled up and took Hols about 7 minutes to untangle it all. I thought it was hilarious; Hols didn't as much.
Anyhoo, after perfectly reverse parking in to the docks, we decided to split up for a bit to do some shopping. I went one way and Hols the other. I got some nice things and then went on a wonder and got horribly lost. So much so, that I found myself surrounded by Indian homes, men lining one side of the street shouting to me, 'Oh, so you've come to look at our poor homes, have you?', prostitutes lining the other side, shooting me looks that could kill, poor children begging for money everywhere, and to top it all off, weird men kept approaching me with their hands filled with pills, powders, 'marijuana drinks', opium biscuits...etc. I was crapping myself! Luckilly, I turned back and managed to trace my way back out! Fairly scary for a while, though! I went back to our room and when I walked in, Hols had decorated the whole lot with brightly coloured balloons! While I had been refusing drugs, Hols had found some poor guy and got him to trapse through India to find balloons. And boy, did he find balloons- there were packs and packs of them! We got ready and headed to Sunset View terrace; quite a posh bar that, according to the Lonely Planet, is 'the place to be at sunset'. And it was very nice. We sipped cocktails, the sun setting turning the whole sky pink, and behind us, the City Palace looming. At about 7.30pm, we left out cocktails and got in a tuk tuk to Savage Garden restaurant. It was amazing. The restaurant was painted a lovely dark blue, and there were giant palm trees towering over the tables. This American couple were also celebrating a birthday, and we felt a bit guilty because we had brought loads of balloons with us, and Hols then produced more- these were in the shape of corn on the cobs and were amazing! This American couple (that Hols, after a few glasses of wine, determined not-so-discreetly that they were gay) had nothing. The food was delious, wine was great and we spent a lot of the time pondering on whether the cricket noises that seemed to be coming from the wall were geniune or not. After dinner, feeling a bit stuffed, a giant birthday cake was placed in front of me! Hols had chosen a chocolate sponged, chocolate iced cake, and the restaurant even wrote on it, 'Happy Birthday Els'! There were loads of candles, but unfortunetly, they weren't lit when it was brought over. This just added to our amusement. We each had a giant slice and then Hols scraped most of the icing off with her fork. Shocking. We headed back to the hotel at about 10.30pm, to find the doors just shutting on us! We were very lucky!
So, it was a great birthday- very different to the normally freezing birthdays in England! We're feeling a bit worse for wear this morning, however, so apologies if this entry does not live up to previous ones! We head to Mumbai tonight and leave northern India forever!
Hope everyone is good, lots of love xxxx
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