My bedroom in a castle

Not such an early start today meeting for a 6.30am breakfast.  I'm still opting for bland food at breakfast when I can and so far have successfully avoided the dreaded "Delhi belly".  I'd got my bag ready for the porters to pick up as instructed before 7am and then had a last minute panic when I realised I'd left my money belt complete with passport and cash cards under my pillow back in the room with the door wide open!  Fortunately a very honest porter handed it over to me as I ran towards my room!

We got on a minibus to the local bus station and then onto a "local" bus for our 4.5 hr drive to our "homestay" experience.  Fortunately I'm like a child when it comes to transport, unless I'm driving, if I'm in a moving vehicle I fall asleep so poor Mark who was sat next to me didn't really have much of a conversationalist!  We stopped once for a comfort break and then headed towards Bassi which is where we were staying for the night.  We swapped from the bus into a minibus and by this point I'd woken up so started to read "Dark a Places" by Gillian Flynn and glanced up from the page to see the fortress that was to be our hotel!

After arriving we were given our rooms at random and as I write this I'm lying on a bed set into a marble alcove like I'm some sort of Indian princess.  It's almost unbelievable.  We ditched our bags and then had the tastiest lunch yet with some amazing cumin potatoes.

We had some free time and despite all the snoozing on the bus I felt exhausted so went to read more of my book and have a rest before meeting the rest of the group back at 4pm for our village tour.

We walked down from the fort observing peacocks, green parakeets, pigs, cows and other native birds which I forget the names of on the way.  As we entered the village we were approached by several groups of extremely cute children with requests of "one photo, one photo" they wanted us to take their photo and let them see their images - they were delighted with the results, but we could barely move without additional requests!  

Our guide Raj accompanied by the mayor showed us some village people weaving cotton as well as a bangle maker and we encountered more children including one moment where Joe from our group was convinced into playing cricket and the boy batted the ball all the way over a nearby building - I can see why the Indian team are hard to beat at cricket!

We wandered back up to the fort and met up at the top of a minaret for drinks. Popadoms and Bombay mix (actually called something else!) and then were offered the chance to dress up in a sari.

Once again (last time was in Bali!) I became aware of how much bigger the British "frame" is compared to other countries as the poor woman battled to find a top that would encase me and some of the other ladies into traditional Indian attire in between several power blackouts!

We enjoyed the experience, but escaped quickly from our outfits to enjoy dinner which was a delicious buffet of mostly vegetarian food - 4 days in I'm not yet missing meat!  

We had a couple of beers (Turbourgs) and chats and then retired to our ceremoniously grand bedrooms for an early night!