#udaipor

Our first stop in Rajasthan is Udaipor where the Bond film, Octopussy, was shot in 1983, but the people here still cling to the shred of fame by showing the film every night in almost every restaurant and hotel.

The main part of the town is focused on a lake with a sparkling white palace in the middle and most of the guesthouses, ours included, had awesome views over this with mountains creeping into the background.

The natives here are known for their excellent crafts like book making, carvings and tailoring so I couldn't leave with out getting myself a tailor made Indian style shirt complete with baggy "ali baba" shorts.

The palace here was for some reason home to hundreds of colourful rocking horses

and mini squirrels jumping all over the place.

We spend three nights here and on each, as Diwali (festival of light) draws closer, more and more bright neon lights dress the buildings in preparation.

Before Diwali starts however we move on to Jodhpur where I meet up with my brother (Nick) and Dan (from Luxembourg). Jodhpur is known well for its huge fort sitting on top of a cliff which has never been taken by enemies.

The market here is pretty hectic, centered around the clock tower, buzzing with people and seemingly patrolled by cows and an elephant.

On our first night here fireworks are already going off and Diwali hasn't even started yet. Kids in the streets light huge bangers with tiny fuses and chuck them about excitedly.

Our second night is the first night of Diwali and the moon has totally disappeared to leave a clear black slate for the fireworks to light up. We are staying with an ex-politician who is famous all over the city and she takes us to a media event where we (me and Nick) are interviewed by an Indian television company about our views on Diwali followed by more fireworks and crazed kids with bombs.

The fireworks must have lasted 5 hours and with such a large town the sky always had a colour exploding somewhere.