we woke early to meet up with some bollywood folks and head over to elephanta island. that said, amg wasn't feeling 100% and couldn't attend so michael and i headed over to the gateway to meet with the others but no one else arrived... i'm guessing they were all suffering from mild hangovers ;-) the boat ride was about an hour long and we chatted, observed the fluorescent film on the water and watched mumbai disappear into the haze as we got further and further away.
we arrived at the island and had a tour of this fantastic cave dedicated to shiva, an indian god. the carvings were absolutely beautiful, depicting shiva in a number of different tales however many of the sculptures were ruined by the portugese who reportedly used the sculptures for target practise. from there, we checked out the three lesser caves and started heading back to the docks to catch a boat. luckily, we passed amg en route into the complex as we had to head to mumbai to catch our flight to udaipur.
an hour long taxi ride to the airport later, we arrived at the airport with a little over an hour to spare before we caught our flight. i'd booked all of the flights after our all-nighter and unfortunately, one of the flights/airlines i'd written down had to be changed as it was sold out however i didn't write down the new airline. as such, we arrived at the kingfisher terminal and were informed that there was no flight at 4:50pm and no one could advise where a close internet cafe was so i could check to see which terminal/airline we were flying. midly panicked, we managed to get some assistance from a kingfisher employee who checked the computer and then walked us to the correct terminal and checked us in. i was overjoyed to get to the right terminal with time to spare before our flight! that sorted, we kicked back and relaxed until take-off!!
we arrived in udaipur, caught a taxi into the city and found a place to sleep and eat before we headed off to bed. i was up at the crack of dawn to update my emails while amg slept in. from there, we went out to breakfast with these two guys we met in the hotel and then we headed off with a rickshaw driver for the day to see the sights. we started in a garden above the city to see the two palaces in the lake. then we headed off to a local market, then to some cenetophs which were beautiful, some more gardens, a couple of shops (amg spent a fortune ;-) and then he dropped us off at the city palace & museum.
the museum was nothing short of madness!! we had to queue to buy the tickets and then we had to queue to get in the main entrance and then we had to queue every time we changed rooms and on and on and on... i can't say that i have ever attended a museum (or any event for that matter) which was more clausterphobic instigating than this!! all we both wanted to do after the second room was leave but you had no choice but to keep walking forward through these stuffy, non-ventillated corridors with a million of your closest indian friends, hoping to get to the end!! i can't say that we appreciated much of the palace museum because of the quantity of people and the overwhelming heat - it certainly was an experience!!! outside, we had a very expensive bottle of water and waited for the sun to lower so that we could take some photos.
we had dinner at a rooftop restaurant (every restaurant in udaipur is a rooftop restaurant, met a canadian ;-) and then headed back to the hotel to collect our bags before our night bus to jaiselmeer. the bus trip was 12 hours in duration and for some of the trip (udaipur to jodphur), we'd booked ourselves into single sleepers. effectively, this means sleeping in a tiny, narrow, clausterphobic compartment above a seat which wasn't long enough for me to stretch out without hitting either end of the compartment. i got lucky and ended up over the back wheel of the bus so that i was jostled throughout the entire night. this, coupled with the cold and the constant musical horn made sleeping slightly difficult to say the least ;-)
we stumbled into jaisalmeer exhausted, filthy dirty and hungry around 10am the next morning. from there, you'll have to wait for the next posting ;-)
hugs to all!
s
p.s. i'm not sure exactly why but i'm being asked to stand in photos quite frequently with the indian people. on our tour of udaipur, i ended up in four different family photos... i'm pondering agreeing to be photographed for a fee of 5 rupees, just to see their reaction :-)
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