Udaipur Days 2 and 3

Me on Muval and Sue on Madame

We are having an awesome time in Udaipur! Yesterday we had a leisurely breakfast on the roof top patio of our hotel and then rented a paddle boat and made our way around the lake and got the close up views of it's palaces for 2 hours....followed by an even more leisurely lunch.

They have these fabulous couch/bed like window seats in all the restaurants that you can crawl up on and have "breakfast in bed" we stretched out on one with a superb view and had a relaxing feast.

Then we took a rickshaw to the bottom of a mountain that offers a great sunset view...you can climb up or take these sunshine village like gondolas up. We took a gondola up and the stairs down after enjoying the sun set over the lake in behind the mountains. Then we walked back to the hotel and had ice cream and marsala chai for dinner...no rules in India!

The views from sunset point

Today we went out to a ranch about 25 mins outside of Udaipur up the hills and went on a 2 hour horseback trail ride though the villages. It was really fun. Uta, our guide, who runs the ranch with her husband taught us how to trot and canter...which, while fun, was hard on my bottom! My horse, at the end, tried to overtake Sue's horse while we were cantering and ended up forced into a gully and when faced with a large cactus bush decided to do some show jumping and flew in the air full run causing me yet another startling wildlife encounter! I did survive and somehow didn't fall off and break something! Also traumatic: While we were on our trail ride the farm dog tagged along with us. We stopped at some point to point out a really cute baby goat on the side of the road...it was maybe one day old, black and fluffy with these big floppy ears.....we barely said "awwwww" when the farm dog attacked and killed it right before us and Uta couldn't get him off in time. Very sad. Poor little guy!

This afternoon we took an Indian cooking course! It was very fun and we learned how to make all sorts of the different Indian meals which we have been enjoying so far. I am especially excited about the Marsala chai I learned to make...after drinking a pot or 2 every day out here I may need to make some at home!!

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