India, Jodhpur to Mumbai

These last two weeks we spent in the south and west of Rajasthan.

The larger than life Mehrangarh fort dominates the city of Jodhpur. It was never breached in its history so the palaces inside the walls are still beautifully preserved giving you an insight to the life of the maharajas. The views from the battlements are vast, showing the "blue city" in all its glory. The city looked alive with every boy and girl up on the roofs flying kites to celebrate the riki festival. We bought a paper kite and joined in although it was soon clear these kids were 

expert flyers, you could hear the little paper 

kites whipping through the air litlle birds.

Bundi was a lot quieter than the busy throngs of Jodhpur. It is soaked in royal opulence with its fairytale palace and many steps wells, some of which were commissioned for the royal ladies to bathe in. The intricate carvings and ornate arches tell of a time of grandeur. Bats are the only residents in the palace now and monkeys roam the rooftops often coming down into the gardens in search of food. In our case one quite aggressive male mistook flip flops for food and ran off with one dangling from its mouth. Howard was soon jumping over the wall stick in hand chasing after the monkey.

"The city of lakes", Udaipur is one of Rajasthans most romantic cities, where every rooftop and window looks out over Pichola lake with its glamorous lake palace where some of James Bonds Octopussy film was set. The locals love this fact, showing reruns of the film all day long. We had our best curry here in an outdoor restaurant on the lakeside. We weren't too thrilled about the prospect of going vegetarian for these 5 weeks, but the curries are so full of flavour we've hardly even noticed there's been no meat in them. Local Indian barfi (fudge-like sweets made from milk) were a nice treat after dinner.

We arrived in Mumbai after 16 hours on an overnight train from Udaipur. We stepped out of the somewhat derelict railway station to be met by dirty busy streets. Prices in Mumbai were much higher than anywhere else we had visited in India as we discovered when we payed over double what we usually pay to end up with a cell like room. Spent most of the days out and about in town exploring some of the local architecture and bazaars and took a train out to one of Mumbai's largest slums. 

Don't get lost in the maze that is Dharavi slum,

a city within a city. 

Our rucksacks had grown so big over the past 9 and a half months we had to spend a bit of time throwing what we could out and jiggling it all around before getting on our flight home.