temple tuesday

we had another amazing day today. we are really loving udaipur and i am so happy that jennifer "discovered" it while we were researching places to go. while the city itself is large with over 300,000 people... the old town around the lake is very low key and small feeling. complete contrast to delhi and agra. the streets are narrow, hilly and windy. perfect for exploring on the moped. you share the streets with hundreds of other mopeds, small cars, cows (they are everywhere), stray dogs, and the occasional elephant. often traffic will come to a complete standstill as around the corner two cars are blocking each other's path or people are having to go single file around a cow laying in the middle of the road. pretty funny. the other great part about riding a moped is that people talk to you. people on the street say hi. people passing you on mopeds ask you where you are from. it's great.

we started the day by going back to the train station to book a sleep car for our trip back to delhi friday night. of course... the only seats left were wait list tickets. not having very good luck with train reservations. so we got on the wait list and figured that it would work itself out later.

on the way back to old town we got lost... mostly on purpose... and ended up in the "real" old town of udaipur. spent the afternoon exploring a market... where we ended up being mobbed by a bunch of "slumdog" kids who said we could take their photo but then demanded chocolate afterwards! we did some shopping and then took a nap back in the room.

the highlight of the day for jen was our art lessons. loads of fun. you can tell by the photos that jen has all the artistic talent in the family and i hope our kids take after her. i attempted to "draw" a holy cow while jen mastered an elephant. the instructors were nice and lots of fun.

the highlight of the day for me was going to a hindu temple. the temple was located right in the main square and built in the 15oos. we bought some flowers to offer to genish... explored the outside of the temple before going inside and sitting for a while. hinduism is a beautiful religion. flowers... candles... bright colors... saffron face markings... idols. quiet the experience. hung out watching people come and go while a woman sat on the floor next to us and sang. she must have sung (it was all in hindu) for twenty minutes non-stop. a very moving experience.

we finished the night by finding our way (we had to ask for directions 8 times) to a thalis restaurant. thalis can be described as a indian hometown buffet (jen's words) where waiters come by with a smorgasbord of food. mainly rice, curried potatoes, onions, pickled cabbage, nann, limes, other unidentifiable food items, and tons of sauces. you eat... and as soon as your plate is empty... someone comes along and flops (with his fingers) more stuff down on your plate. it was different... but good. we didn't know till later that you aren't suppose to leave anything on your plate as we got up to leave all the waiters kept staring at us and our plates. how were we to know... they kept serving us! the most suprising part was that the entire dinner only cost us $2.10.

my jeans had tore during the trip (or maybe it was from the all you can eat dinner) so before heading home we found a little shop where they could get fixed. as i wasn't wearing undies... they offered my a wrap to wear while they fixed my jeans.