July 6 - Udaipur
Early morning, as usual, after a not-to-be-remembered breakfast in a desert breakfast room
(only guest also here, as it seems) we get ready to visit Udaipur, the city on a (dried those days 
) lake.
First of all we pay a visit to an Hindu Temple dedicated to Vishnu, so we go downtown with the car then Gajju leaves us alone in front of a great staircase leading to the Jagdish Mandir Temple.
The staircase is very steep and high. On the first steps, at each side of the stairs, women selling flower garlands mixed to beggars and orange dressed sadhus. We climb together with the other faithfuls and, at the top, we take our shoes off, as usual, and enter barefooted in the Temple enclosure. The courtyard is quite small and tight. In front of us, a brass Garuda statue. Garuda is the half-eagle half-man divinity acting asa vehicle to 
Vishnu. Climbing to the second stairway, we land into a circular room. Someone is banging into a brass bell, suddenly people gather around, sit crossing their legs and start a singing prayer. We enjoy the moment, we don't understand what exactly is going on, but prayers and the religious feeling charms us. As usual we walk the Temple space clockwise, we get to the cell containing a black statue of Jagannath, we drop a little offer and the brahmin blesses us. I get my eyes off the people and I look aroud. Decorations are
... blooming, as if the tropical rains affected not only plants, but also stones, proliferating in a thouseand elephant, nymphs, dancers, and other odd characters...
Reluctantly we go away and we reach the City Palace nearby; it's the gratest of all Rajasthani Palaces. It's a neverending sequence of rooms, courtyards, cloisters, studios, terraces and windows. Fascinating are the jalis, the lacework windows. Beautiful are the ancient paintings and miniature paintings displays, but also the more recent gallery collecting portraits, drawing and curios of the current Maharaja's family. The walls are obviously decoreted with inlaid colourful chinas, and the abundance of gold, mirrors and colorful glassworks gives the scene that oriental fairy-tale appearance we are getting used to in this trip. When we get to a window glancing over Udaipur, the White City, the view is not bad...
After our official Monument-and-Temples tour, we devote our afternoon time to shopping. Udaipur is renowned for miniature paintings, ad we try to find something fit for our home. Gajju tells us he knows a place where miniature painters are very skilled and prices are low (and he probably gets some commission, but this is the way it goes, here). So, in the meantime, we wander through the maze of little alleys, full of small shops selling jewels, clothes, handicrafts and curios.. A guy with two thumbs (in just one hand!) sells us a couple of very fine pendants in silver and semi-precious stones, then we buy some other stuff nearby (earrings, necklace, a pearl pendant, a tiny laquerware bottle for our tiny bottles collection). But what will really fascinate us has yet to come. A very small shop near the Jagdish Mandir stairway sells decorated camel bone boxes. They are really beautiful, and we get some of them as a present for our best friends in Italy. The best one, anyway, is a present for ourselves! It's a quite big box, finely painted, meant to keep jewels and precious things. It's calle a "secret box", it has some tricky false-bottom and hidden spaces, which can be opened only with some skill. Whae we tried to pass the customs at Paris airport, a young police lady wanted us to open every hole of it. I don't think she was trying to find out if we had drugs or diamonds hidden in it (it would have been a very poor move, indeed), but she was 
fascinated as ourselves with the ingenuity of the artifact, and when we opened everything she whispered "C'est genial!" to our pride! Well, the box wasn't cheap for Indian standards, but when at home we think we paid it no more than 150 Euros, we're more than happy not having left it there.
I would have staid there for hours, strolling among the little shops in the alleys, but it's getting late so we rejoin Gajju who drives us to the painting atelier. It's a cooperative workshop of young artists who sell their paintings directly to customers. The shop is similar to many others we visited on the streets, but since Franco wants to buy some miniatures to use at home, we decide to buy them here (if they are fine and cheap), so that maybe good Gajju gets something... We choose the three finest miniatures we can choose, and for the price of the miniatures they will also frame them for us. So we choose the framing, the paintings and we go away. In a couple of hours the job should be done and we'll get our framed paintings for our home in Italy. While getting back to 
the town centre we realize we'll naver make it in fitting everything we bought in our luggage cases, so we ask Gajju to find a bag shop to buy a new case for our shopping stuff. After buying a new piece of baggage we relax with a beer in front of the lake, waiting for the evening to come....
Another short stroll downtown, enjoying those little moments and day-by-day life scenes: a girl is washing her dishes at a public fountain, the vendors call us loud inviting to get in their shops, we try to avoid getting trampled on by cows, bycicles, people. We know there's just two 
days to go for our vacation, and we try to breath every little moment of this experience. After collecting our framed miniature paintings, we have a very good dinner at Berry's, a good restaurant not only for tourists: There's a lot of local prople here, eating with their fingers (as traditional here), and you can easily recognise being in the right place from the loud burping indicating people enjoy their food very much!!
