Christmas

Christmas Eve, Udaipur, post 2 of 2, the dinner

When we checked into the hotel they told us we had to pay for Christmas Eve dinner even if we did not plan on attending. So of course we decided we might as well attend it since we had already paid for it. After watching the hotel staff spend 2 days setting up we probably would have wanted to attend anyway.

If I could even get close to correctly putting the saree on, I planned on wearing it.

I did it all by myself! Thank you, thank you, thank you to all the dear ladies of Delhi who taught me how to do this. It isn’t perfect but it was close enough for me to wear. I am planning on wearing it on New Year’s Eve as well.

Isn’t that a great gingerbread house. It smelled delicious. The evening was magical. The decorations and food were superb.

They launched 2 ice statues into the pool. This pool is where James Bond seduces a woman in a scene from Octopussy.

We started talking to this couple, Jill and Richard, from Australia. They are traveling the world for 2 years living out of a backpack. They are blogging about it, if you want to check their story out their blog address is, midlifeadventure.com. I haven’t checked it out yet, but I plan to when I get the time. It has been a busy couple of days.

I won’t bore you with many more photos of this because on 12/28 I have access to all the photos taken this night. The ones taken by the professional photographer. The Shiv Niwas also gave us a bottle of wine, Christmas cakes, and a memory book as Christmas presents.

On the way out the door they were making beetle leaf beetle juice rolls, stuffed with candied colored pumpkin. It tasted strange but not terrible.

Here are all the digestives to try. I tried all of them, of course. I should have taken notes, but… I didn’t. I was too busy talking to people who thought it was amusing that I would try at least 1 of everything. They run the gamut for salty to sweet to bitter. There is yummy and not at all yummy! Salted ginger for example is less good than a ginger lover like me would guess. My favorite was the tamarind.

The attention to detail everywhere you looked, tasted, or drank was really impressive. Which is what happens when the maharajah, the king, is at the party. I didn’t realize it until he left with his family. I will share a better photo on the 28th.

I did recognize Santa though.

We were the last to leave of course.

Check out part of of this post here and check out yesterdays post here.