Octopussy and other struggles of good and evil

After finally walking off the effects of our camels we unleashed ourselves on western Rajasthan - the forts, the palaces and the epic battles of tourist v tout. Determined to come out on the side of good we refused to pay anyone's initial price and stoutly resisted all efforts to steer us to various handcrafts emporiums (emporia?) We were not wholly successful though - the retail urge overtook us at times (although in Shaun's case it was mostly the urge to buy food). We also found something Pepsi might want to take a look at ... The forts at Jodhpur and Jaisalmer were the most impressive I've seen so far (there's a photo of Jaisalmer fort in Shaun's last blog entry)- although they had their more sombre sides. Below are the handprints of the widows of one of the 19th century maharajahs of Jodhpur - pressed on the fort wall as they left it for the last time to burn themselves alive on his funeral pyre.
Leaving Jodhpur we arrived in the land of Octopussy - Udaipur - the setting for the James Bond movie of the same name, which we watched twice in 3 days on the roof of our guesthouse. Watching the crowd scenes it is surprising/terrifying how so little in India changes. Feeling all inspired we hired an 'Ambassador' car (not quite an Aston Martin) to cruise the countryside the following day. No champagne on board unfortunately although we did have our own driver.

M