Journey to Udaipur

Left at 8am for long days drive to Udaipur. Stopped en route to see embroidery workshop (spend money), to eat snacks (nice gulab jambal - round ball things coated in honey - yum) and to see a Jain temple and Ranakpur (I think that is the right place name). Beautiful carvings. There are two sects to the Jain religion - naked and clothed (did I mention that before somewhere?) Fortunately this one was a clothed temple. Although one of the praying young men was wearing a 'fully air conditioned' sarong thing that I have forgotten the name of. Lets just say it was a little too fully air conditioned for my liking! Martyn is worried now as I had not told him this bit!
Drove through a wildlife park on the way through the Araveli mountain range and saw lots of cute black faced langur monkeys. This resulted in lots of monkey jokes from the group but just to make Claire feel better I had to correct the group when they mentioned Orang Utans in the same sentence as monkey!
Arrived in Udaipur and had best nights sleep of holiday!
Next day was spent in Udaipur. Had a lie in, didn't have to go anywhere until 9am but was awake early so went for a swim in the pool with the local lads. Fortunately their swim trunks were jersey Y fronts and not the thin cotton that other clothing out here is made of. So far today we have seen the Lake Palace Hotel that Udaipur is famous for only due to lack of rain it was more a Mud Flat Palace Hotel. Still, you could see the potential once the rains come! Also visited the Royal Palace and, a very interesting Crystal Gallery which we paid extra for. The crystal was made in Birmingham and ordered by a Maharaja who died before it was delivered so his son unpacked it. We both agreed we were glad we went to see it but the crystal four poster bed and three piece suite were truly revolting!
Tonight off to miniature painting school (I think we are supposed to spend more money but we'll see) and then tomorrow is a long travelling day to Jodphur - the pink city. Getting closer to tigers (excited!)
If anyone is reading this we hope you are all well and will see you soon. Not doing well with postcard sending but will try harder tomorrow as have just realised we haven't yet sent any- oops.