What a day! We had an early morning orientation walk around Udaipur before being left on our own. Between trying to not get hit by a car in the narrow streets and trying to remember how to get back to the hotel, I had the unfortunate experience of stepping in a nice big fresh pile of cow diarrhea. It got all over the inside of my jeans, which then spread all over my shoe with each step. Really lovely. Craig was a doll and stopped to help me clean off (he used a few alcohol wipes to clean up my pant leg and shoe). We fell behind the group when we stopped so we missed most of the orientation walk and had to run to catch up. We got to an intersection and didn't see the group anywhere, but a local was able to tell us which way a group of white people had gone, so we finally caught up. After the walk, the group decided to go for a tour of the temple. You have to take off your shoes to go in any temples and since my pant leg was wet with cow shit I wasn't keen on taking off my shoes (and suspect they wouldn't appreciate me dragging my mess all around the temple). Craig and I decided to leave the group to get changed. We had a fantastic lunch at a restaurant Bish had recommended and spent the afternoon wandering Udaipur - we found a tailor to sew my silver suit, and went into City Palace and took the "60 minute boat cruise" which was actually 20 mins before dropping us off at the island in the middle of the lake. This island turned out to be the biggest rip-off ever - it cost 300 rupees each to get there, and the whole island is just an overpriced hotel (up to 60,000 rupees a night - almost 10,000 quid!!) Since we had paid to get there we figured we should stop for a chai and sit by the water. What a disappointment when we paid 200 rupees for a glass of chai! Normally a cup is 5-15 rupees and a pot 40-50. Oh well.
We got a boat back to the mainland and came across our fist wedding - there wax a parade of people going through the street, headed by a portable sound machine blaring music, along with some men in marching band suits playing brass instruments and drums, followed by a bunch of dancing mend surrounded by boys carrying a string of chandeliers, and finally a bored man riding a decked out horse - the groom. One of the dancing men grabbed us and some nearby Israeli tourists and pulled us into the dancing, which we tried for a while before a man (the father?) told us to go away.
We headed back to the tailor to pick up my silver suit and talked with the shopkeeper for an hour while the tailor finished up. The shopkeeper had a Swedish wife he had met when she was touring India, and they now split their time between the two countries - what a change to be moving back and forth between such different countries! I ended up wearing my fancy new suit out of the shop.
Everyone in India wants to talk to the white people. Many of them want to sell you something, but a lot of them are just interested in these strange people (Alpa's son on the train had thought I was an alien) and some like to practice their English. On the walk home, a guy made a comment about how nice I looked in my traditional Indian outfit and started talking with us. We ended up going for a chai with him and he told us loads about Indian culture (did you know that you aren't supposed to wear a saree or extravagant jewelry - bangles, earrings, etc - until you're married?), religion, weddings, and life in India. He also mentioned his good friend was getting married the next day and invited us as his guests. A real Indian wedding - awesome! He even gave us a ride back to our hotel on his motorcycle - three of us on the bike, a true Indian experience!
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