Mount Abu - Udiapur

I spent my remaining few days having the same conversation over and over again (which country, your profession, your salary etc) and with every day having a little bit of a groundhog day feel about it I decided it was best to move on. Having booked a bus to Udiapur through the hotel I packed up, said good riddance to mr squatty and dropped the keys off at reception. On leaving the man called me back and tried to tell me to wait as there was a troll coming too. Having failed to clarify what he was wanting to accompany me i made as hasty a retreat as I could with my seemingly ever increasing in weight rucksac. When i arrived at the 'bus station'/dirt track, i was faced with a line of buses, none of which signed obviously, so I did the only thing you can do, start at the beginning. One thing I've realized over the past few months is that the Indian people really don't like to say they don't know, instead they will, at best, hazard a guess. After having spent hours in the past criss crossing between train platforms and bus stands I chose to ignore his vague pointing towards the back of the line and continued with my systematic approach that was until i reached the back of the line and found the bus the original driver had pointed at. I boarded another stereotypical bus, the familiar musty smell, the wooden boards replacing windows even the ever present Deity fixtures and fitting. I took a seat and to my surprise it was a recliner, even more to my surprise it wasn't actually a recliner, it just wasn't bolted to the floor. At this point the troll boarded the bus, which was in fact the german woman who had been staying at the hotel, she joined me in my lazyboy and we were soon off, every acceleration putting us further into our neighbours laps.

With the thermometer hitting 40 the gap in my plywood window felt like someone blasting a hair drier at me. The conversation flowed easily enough and the german took great pride in her ability to drink the local water, not a feat beyond anybodies grasp really its just how the other end deals with it. Soon enough we had stopped for lunch, meal breaks are sacred here and if you happen to be on a bus for any longer than 1 hour you will stop for around a half hour break (which goes part of the way towards explaining why a 100 mile trip takes 7 hours).

Nearly an hour later and i was back in my chez longe and making terrible time. After all conversation had been exhausted we resorted to ipod therapy (something I've found invaluable on these long trips, for if nothing else to drown out the sound of the horns), and about 5 albums later we had arrived, somewhere, in Udaipur. This appears to be another common situation, buses drop you off not at a bus stand but at the most inconvenient place available, but hey presto just like magic there are always a plethora of rickshaw drivers eager to take your money.

The german girl having a reasonable understanding of Hindi she got us a reasonable rate and we were soon hurtling through the back streets in a very Octopussyesque manner. After negotiating a nuetral location to be dropped off in in an effort to avoid the commission sting we parted ways and i was left to find my half booked accommodation. After wandering aimlessly for 15minutes i finally got directions off a hash dealing rickshaw driver, i set off and seconds later he pulled up and offered me a free lift, i thought that was very kind of him but it wasn't till we arrived and he jumped out and ran into reception did i realise his motive. Angry at him, and myself for falling for it, i expressed to the receptionist i would just go elsewhere, he gave me my original quoted price and the disgruntled rickshaw driver left uncomissioned. The room was nice, with some typical rajasthani murals and fixtures but it would be till later that i would discover that it was actually the hottest room in Udaipur. The rooftop gave unobstructed views over the city and the lake palaces and it also had the obligatory nightly showing of Octopussy (the Bond film was mainly shot here, a fact of which the are immensely proud) the soundtrack of which reverberates round the city from dusk till midnight. I retire for the night to my sweatbox and pray the power doesn't cut depriving me of the fan.