Bollywood

Alex is a local celebrity around here...well actually around the whole of India. She is known as Tattoo Lady, Tattoo Fighter, Tattoo Woman and we are going to launch her career in Bollywood at once! I will be her trusty sidekick and carry the bags and cameras and mangoes and chase behind her entourage of Indian admirers. There will be times that people will stop their cars and hand me their severely disabled child to hold and take a picture with, but Alex is the true star! Today was an alright day. We got lost in Udaipur for hours and hours, but this is the theme of our trip..getting lost in random Indian villages. There always seems to be some clock tower to guide us home, and of course Alex, being a celebrity gets many Indian locals to show us the way. Interesting directions given, I must say, but we always make it home. It is important to note that one does reach a threshold when it comes to visiting temples, mosques, palaces and local shops. It took us less than 2 weeks to reach that threshold, but it has been reached and surpassed. The best part of the day is just wandering around spending a few rupee on water and mangoes and some random Indian sweets and just chatting. We have our local Indian oompa loompa at the corner shop down the road that always sells us water and Indian crisps with a smile and his sidekick (like I am to Al) with no legs who rallies around on a make-shift skateboard all day. He lost his legs in a bus accident, but he is surprisingly optimistic. We also had to jump out of the way, as an elephant urinated downhill towards us and it was like a tidal wave...so again, today was an interesting day with many random events. Tomorrow is our last day in Udaipur and we will spend the first 5 hours taking a cooking class in a woman's home near the haveli (old home) we are staying in and we get to eat everything we make and get a packet with all of our recipes on it. Then we will just get prepared for our first of many overnight train rides... this one to Mumbai...I am a bit nervous, as the last overnight train ride I went on resulted in several severe spider bites all over my body, but Alex is excited and will keep me sane and healthy I'm sure. Tonight we are going to a local roof top restaurant to watch the nightly screening of James Bond's Octopussy, as it was filmed here. We will be out of commission for a few days, but keep an eye on the blog for some more interesting updates, as you never know what will happen in India!