Yes Miss Moneypenny

Or, rather, No Miss Moneypenny.

Udaipur, the setting for some of the Octopussy film, sucks.

Honestly, I cant even be arsed to bag it. It's too much hass.

So please just take the usual tirade and insert it here.

Anyway, at the time of writing, we are actually in London. We have been really slack with posting, which is partially due to us being over traveling - and especially over India.

So I will bring you up to date.

Jodhpur, the Blue City

(check this post later for some added photos!)

Jodhpur is more what I expected India to be like: snaking alley ways, old mud brick houses painted various shades of blue or white, and of course, the ubiquitous cow wandering around eating cardboard.

We ended up spending about 4 days there in which we managed to pack in lots of nothing, and going to the fort. The fort is this massive, rambling creation set on top of the hill (as forts are), and was great fun to explore.. just not in the heat of the day! The fort also has a brilliant audio tour, complete with pompous Englishman narrator, which points out interesting features along a set path including the museum.

Generally, we were pretty disappointed with the food at most places we ate at in Jodhpur, however we did find a guest house/restaurant called Amar Niwas that was homely and acceptable. That sounds harsh doesn't it? We're getting tired of sauces on everything, so it's difficult to impress the flashpackers at the moment.
Give me a fresh salad that doesn't just consist of tomato/onion/capsicum, and I'll inhale it quicker than you can say, "do you want balsamic dressing with that?". Having said that, they did make us a superb goat curry that melted in our mouths (the little bugger was killed that morning for us), and their version of palak paneer (spinach and Indians' version of cheese) actually had discernible pieces of spinach in there, rather than the pureed green goop one usually gets served in restaurants.

The city really was a joy to walk around, we found the people to be really friendly - especially the kids. I think their English teacher at school must encourage them to go up to westeners and practice, because we found ourselves constantly talking to excitable kids about where we come from, what our names are, what our houses are made from, and do we have any pens/chocolates/rupees for them.

On The Up Side

I feel that I should retract at least some of that last post. We have now traveled to Rajasthan, and we are both loving it. It can still be dirty and smelly, but it is so much better than Delhi.
And that, I guess, is the point. All of the things I said are 1000% accurate when talking about Delhi. It is the festering boil in the armpit of the Universe, but that doesn't necessarily apply to the rest of India.