Up early so we could eat breakfast in the sunshine on the restaurant terrace.

Off with Ali again, this time to Amber Palace. On the way there we passed streams of people heading for the Palace along with several painted elephants. They were going to the Palace for a nine day festival, resulting in the whole area being very crowded.

We walked up the hill to the Palace along with some of the pilgrims but the sight of the queues for entrance put us off venturing any further. We set off back down after taking a few photos of the views, hoping that Ali would then take us to the nearby fort. Sadly, we had expressed an interest in buying Vic some trousers, so were instead whisked off to a factory/shop where we were given a hard-sell on some bedspreads, pashminas and trousers. We weren’t impressed by the prices, being asked for Rs1,200 for a pair of plain cotton trousers seemed a bit rich to us (and you can get them cheaper at H&M or Uniqlo in the UK!)

Ali seemed disappointed that we hadn’t made a purchase, no doubt he would have received a wedge of commission. We asked to be taken to an ATM where we replenished our cash reserves for the forthcoming trip, as the Diggi Palace doesn’t take credit cards.

Then it was back to the hotel for some more lounging and cold drinks.

That brings us up to date at time of writing. The internet cafe here is a bit more expensive (Rs1 per minute) than at the Hotel Ajanta but I’m hoping I can upload this (written on my Sony UX50 PDA) using my USB card reader.

Later: The card reader needs drivers for any version of Windows before Windows ME. The machines at Diggi Palace are running Windows 98SE, I downloaded the drivers but haven’t had a chance to copy stuff off yet.

In case anyone wants to drop me a
message, I’m turning comments offon the blog as I’m spending too much time in internet cafes deleting comment spam. As a result you’ll need to email me using the link near the top of the bar at the side.