Alternative Christmas in Rajasthan

New Years Eve Preparations by the Castle staff were in full swing most of the day - they worked so hard to decorate the building with flowers and make everything perfect for later on..... and always with a smile! We had the opportunity to have our hands and/or arms decorated with henna for the celebration. It goes on as a paste which needs time to dry and then it falls off. There was talk that putting lemon juice onto the henna would make it darker and "take" better. In hindsight it seems that this should be done once the paste has come off, otherwise it just dilutes what is there!  Getting into a sari is no easy business and so two lovely ladies came up from the village to help us. Lots of wrapping, folding, tucking, laughing and a few safety pins and it was sorted. There is so much fabric that I was surprised to find I was warm enough as the evenings can be very chilly.                   ...

Agra Getting there! We left from Chittaurgarh station, where there was a cow inside the ticket hall - the Indians thought it really strange that we thought it was strange and were taking photos!    First class accommodation - sheets and blankets provided!       There are no direct trains so we got off at Bharatpur where we were met with a transfer by road. There were two porters offering to carry our bags but for some reason one of them then carried ALL of our bags - nearly 100kgs and then up a flight of stairs - were he dropped them all. The "friend" just walked behind, laughed when he dropped the bags and then, unbelievably, the man carrying the bags insisted that Amanda gave half of the money to the non-doer!!                                           We arrived at the  Bharatpur station very early in ...