Udaipur to Mt Abu

Udaipur is in the county Rajasthan, which is the desert county of India. But even here global warming and climate change is taking its toll here. The monsoon has been very dry. If you look at tourist pictures of the lake in Udaipur and the beautiful floating palace in the middle (some might recognize it from the Bond movie 'Octopussy') you see a full blue lake with mountains in the background. The mountains of course are still there, but the lake certainly has seen better days. It's more a grey-green soup.

If you walk through the streets, you are constantly approached by shop owners and vendors who want to sell you stuff. Most of them you better just ignore, but some of them opperate more tricky. They first engage you in conversations about where you come from, how long you will stay ect. In the middlde of the conversation then you are being asked if you want to see some crafts and of you go to some workshop having chai (tea). I am usually being left alone, but Paul is a favourite target. So far we have ended up looking at fabrics, carpets and miniature paintings. One offer coming from the staff in our Udaipur hotel however was really good. His brother is a tailor and off we went to his shop. After some chai and samples of his work, Paul decided to get a suit made for himself out of beautiful Kiwi Merino wool and for a price! An Irish or German tailor wouldn"t even open the door for that money.

The day after we collected Pauls new suit, we got on a bus and made our way to Mt. Abu. This is a pleasant hill station and high up at 1200m the temperatures are bearable at last. Even though it is still in Rajasthan, the landscape is more tropical. Lot of green and hugh dense forrest covering rolling hills and mountains.

Again there is a lake in the middle of the village. It's in better shape than the one in Udiapur and on the first day we got a paddle boat and explored it. Over looking the lake there are lots and lots of rock formations. Mainly lava washed out by the rain some of the rocks have taken odd shapes. The most interesting one looks like a turtle.

Apart from the turtle and the usual stray dogs and cows there are lots of other interesting animals. Mountain goats, squirrels, colourful birds and butterflies and monkeys. They are everywhere. As I have never seen wild monkeys before I always get pretty excited when we come across them, but the Indian children around me just laugh and shrug their sholders. Tourists!

You probably can guess what comes next.... With so much rock, Paul figured there has to be climbing! We don't have any equipment apart from our rock shoes and when a guy running a trekking business approaches us in front of the hotel, Paul arranges a rock climbing session with him. I wont go into detail, but the methods with which people here climb and consider it save are very odd to us. There are no harnesses used, abseiling is done with gloves, belay plates are unheard of. I descided to stay on the ground most of the time and watch. Too much adrenaline otherwise.

Paul (right) climbing in Mt Abu