Proud holders of the 'Pushkar passport'...

So we felt, after our last post, that we had pretty much experienced all that Pushkar had to offer. Oh how wrong we were. After our last installment we went and GORGED on chocolate cake and feeling a little 'fragile' we left 'Rainbow restaurant' only to be whisked into the (stilllllllllll celebrating) wedding party. We were quickly encirlced by, thrusting, gyrating, sweaty men, we were entrapped by banging drums that beat our bums (quite literally) and were "encouraged" to join the 'fun'. Which we did... for a short while... until they started getting rather too close for comfort. Ahem.
After making our bid for freedom, the great escape, we headed back to the hotel. Only to find the school, that was RIGHT outside our bedroom window, (it had been 'singing' all day) was still, at 11.30pm, rambling on. India is VERY inconsiderate when it comes to our neeeeed for sleep!
Whiled away the morning wandering through the market (again) and decided to take a little break by the waters edge- a very old (BC) holy lake- which the gap year tradges LOVE. They literally come for miles... which i suppose is what we did... we are turning into them!! We had been warned about, and had successfully avoided, the local 'priests' (scammers- scam you for all you've got) and had decided that should any approach us, we would RUN. Alot easier said than done. We were blessed, oooh we were blessed. A goood 20 minutes of blessing, involving paint and flowers and water... alot of water. Which would have been alright, in fact we would have been rather grateful for it (considering the 6months we have ahead of us)... had the blessing not gone like this; 'repeat after me, for your mother, your father, your sister, your brother, your boyfriend (accompanied with a wink). Ten pounds' He threw it in there so fast... we both repeated 'ten' realised what we were saying, opened our eyes and said bog off. He got offended and started all the 'we only ask for what you have, some give 50 some 50000 rupees... only what you want'. The guilt trip had started. 'Its for karma, you want good karma?' what were we meant to do??!! We gave our money and RAN.... not without obtaining the 'pushkar passport' bracelet... 'so everyone knows you have given already'. Oh the shame- especially because everyone since pushkar, on spotting the passport, has laughed at our foolishness.
Then we got on our BOOKED train, and headed to Udaipur. Arrived at the hotel, with the very camp owner and hit the hay. Woke up and headed to the city palace. We had an intersting guide- a university student who made it very very clear that this was only a part-time job and that he was, in fact, related to the royal family of Udaipur. He had some rather interesting ideas on what should be done with the poverty 'problem' and he really wanted to travel in Europe. But unfortunately he couldnt because he had 'half killed' someone earlier that year. In response to our rather horrified look, he justifed the 'beating' by saying- "whaaaat? he had offended my papa, thats what we do here." is it? really? So alas, apparently he isnt allowed out of the country because his jail sentence hasn't yet been decided. It was a good tour though, and we learnt lots of interesting things...
Later that afternoon, we took a boat ride around the rather depleated lake and saw the MUCH talked about filming place of 'Octopussy'. They loved that! Then, that evening, headed to a fantastic traditional dance/singing/headless puppet show festival thing. It was brilliant.
Turns out there isnt much to do in Udaipur and so spent the next day painting (this may shock some people, but we are now, infact, established artists. Alice in painting peacocks and india in the camels), visiting a village of rather repetitive, infact identical, cenotaphs, and chilling. That was the night of the chicken. That darned chicken!
Alice woke up the next day feeling HIIIDeous. and spent the majority of the 8hr bus ride to Jodhpur concentrating very hard on not vomiting. everywhere. Arrived, found our room and went to sleep. Woke up, both feeling as fresh as a daisy and headed out to breakfast. Within 15minutes we had both, seperately, had to run back to our room, to that beloved loo. We have both, and we are proud to say it, experienced 'delhi belly'. We dont recommend it.
Sadly jodhpur was a bit of a write off, we woke up this morning did a quick tour of the fort which was fascinating, had a fight with another tuk tuk driver and headed to the bus for Jaisalmer.
Thats all for now, hope you are all well.
Miss you all, xxx