Leaving Udaipur

Today we headed off to see the local produce markets. Pretty boring really, similar produce to the rest of the world, same story - women selling the very fresh produce, men standing round. 

Just as we were leaving we heard music and went to investigate. It was some sort of probably and old traditional practice whereby one person was taken over by the spirit of another. Firstly his hands started shaking and just as we were leaving he started to convulse and attacked another member of the congregation. It was spooky and I’m glad we left. 

On the way to our next destination Baggy took us up a narrow staircase to a Jain temple, very ornate and adorned with mirrors. Jainism is one of the many religions practiced in India and followers adhere to strict traditions. 

Our main activity today was a cooking class with a very lovely lady in her cooking school above her shop. She showed us a number of recipes and we got to participate in the cooking of most of them. Lunch was the fruits of our labours. 

A delicious chickpea masala curry thickened with boiled potato was my favourite until she bought out the little puff balls of lusciousness. Little dough balls fried in ghee then soaked in sugar syrup Gulab Jamun, Indias version of loukoumades but beat loukoumades hands down. The first bite through the crunchy shell to the fluffy inside released a gush of sugar syrup than drizzled down my chin. Oh. My. God. This is so good. So was the second one. 

Lunch over we return to the hotel, collect our bags and pile into the car of Mr Ali for our drive to Aburoad to catch the overnight train to Mumbai.   I expected the train station to be insane but it was incredibly quiet and peaceful. Dinner was at the station in the form of an excellent Biryani, sadly spoiled when I took a mouthful of someone else’s meal and scored the chilli.   I do pretty hot but that was insane. I recovered in time for us to board the train. 

Watching people squash in to train carriages made me wonder what we were in for but I was pleasantly surprised when our train arrived and we boarded easily. There was none of the pushing and shoving we had already seen.  

Our beds for the night were bunk style; three high with us four occupying top and middle bunks facing each other. 

On one side a very elderly man occupied the bottom bunk and on the other two little kids whose parents were nearby. 

I chose a top bunk and soon my clean sheets, pillow and a blanket were provided and we were ready to hunker down for the night. 

To start with it seemed insane but this was quite normal and soon we were settled. We watched the craziness happening on another train where the train started moving off before everyone had boarded. They were obviously used to jumping on board a moving train as it had gained some momentum before the last passengers had jumped off. 

Lights out and almost immediately I started saying to myself I had to go to the loo. You know that feeling when you cant sleep because your bladder is full. Then I couldnt get comfortable so squiggled here and there for ages. I have to get up but knew getting off the top bunk was going to be difficult. Eventually I HAVE to go. 

Gingerly I crawl along the bed to the step end of the bed. Holding the hand rail my feet find the first rung of the ladder, then the second. But for my feet to get to the third meant that I had to let go of the hand rail. And so I did. Bad move. 

I was aware of hitting something on the way down and then fortunately found myself on top of soft shoes between the bunks. The thing I hit was the face of one of our girls. Sorry Camilla. Shes traumatised but otherwise ok. 

But I should have done this earlier; my bladder told me so on the way down. Without going into the details I will say that once I was back in my bunk I had to strip off waist down. Im glad it was dark. Ha ha. 

Then with a suitably empty bladder I fell into the deepest sleep.