Delhi, Udaipur, Ranakpur

We had hard time to find internet caffee in Delhi. It is huge city and easy to get lost in it. After the fresh air in Nepal it was a bit of a shock to find ourselves surrounded with the overwhelming crowds of Delhi, even though we mentally prepared ourselves for it.
Even though the experience in Delhi wasn't the most easy one, it still has few impressive sites such as the Humayun Tomb which we stared at (literally) for two hours and we could go back for some more.
We happened to be in Delhi during the last day of the Durga Puja festival, one of the largest festivals for the Hindus, so we got to be part of the festival's culmination - burning the 10 meter high doll imitation of the bad monster and celebrating the victory of Lord Rama. Really interesting experience and we were lucky to come across some friendly police man to let us be part of the festival gathering.
We find that as much as we find Indian people beautiful and are tempted to take photos of them, they are equally interested to take photos of us :-) We get asked all the time to take photo with them, and then if language allows, we try to make some acquaitances.


Then we traveled to the refreshing Udaipur, starting our journey through the state of Rajastan. Udaipur is very romantic city and was a real refreshment after the noise and crowds of Delhi, even though we come across that disorder, mess, noise here as well, which we expect will follow through the rest of our trip... somehow we start to find it charming :-) Udaipur is rather recent city which was raised in 16th century by the Maharan (title for a king) who was moving his kingdom to escape the Mughal invasions. Udaipur continues to have the royal family today (the Maharan), even though besides their beautiful castles, they don't have any political power, but for sure they are "responsible" for the tourism in Udaipur. The city is marked by a lake which has two "floating" castles on it, and one park. The architecture which is mix of Hindy, Muslim and local Rajasthan style of the Maharanas, is really capturing... another one of those in which you can't stop staring at.
We came across a local wedding party, when the man on the horse was all decorated and was going with his family to pick up the bride... sounds familiar? Well, Pierre got pulled into the dancing party with bunch of other man (there were no woman dancing) and being well trained in Skopje, he didn't resist some more dancing :-)

The surrounding of Udaipur is equally impressive. On the road to the Jain temple (Jain religion is like a stricter version of Budism) in Ranakpur (impressive marble temple with amazing detailed carvings) we had some interesting encounters with the villagers and a taste of their seasonal activities with the cattles, sheap, goats, farms... continuing our discovery of Rajastan by train trip to Jaipur.