Rajasthan- Day 3- Udaipur

Today was Carey’s Birthday and we sat on the roof of the guest house and celebrated over breakfast. I had French toast, which was quite tasty, but nothing like Mom’s. After that Stella and I set out with a mission- to find an elephant to ride. We walked allll around Udaipur looking for an elephant to ride and finally found one and chased it down the road, attempting to “hail” it, we were unsuccessfully but finally came back to a plaza where we ran into Dodi, who we saw all over the place. He was from the tailor’s shop, but also worked with an artists cooperative that sold, you guessed it, miniature paintings. We sat in his shop and he had one of his helpers keep an eye out for the elephant we promised would return to the plaza. We looked through paintings and learned that the horse in India stands for power, the elephant for good luck, and the camel for love (because if you can get over the smell and get close to the camel, that is true love). We did finally get to ride an elephant through the streets, but our elephant had a different opinion. Poor guy stood at one intersection for about ten minutes, finally turned around, much to the distress of his keeper, and headed back to our starting place. We said that was okay, we got our picture so could be done. Riding an elephant is treacherous… between gripping on to the sides of the basket and avoiding the low hanging wires and banners across the narrow streets. But it was fun and only cost $1! We then continued to shop, I bought some shoes to go with my traditional Indian outfit, went into another art shop, and finally headed back to the hostel to book the bus for the following morning to take us to Jodhpur. We went back to the tailor for the girls to try on their coats, met huge hassles, and I was so embarrassed I left to go watch the sunset from the foot bridge and wait for the girls to finish up there. We then went a mission for the Sunset View Terrace for a birthday dinner celebration and after more than an hour of misguided directions, we wound up at a lovely restaurant, The Ambrai House, right on the water about a minute from our guest house. We sat in view of the City and Lake Palace, watched some fireworks and enjoyed a quiet dinner. We then went back to the hostel, and I finished my first book of the trip, Next by Michael Crichton. It was a very good read about the potential of genetic and gene patenting, in kind of a scientific thriller.