And when we were up, we were up

So today we went up to the top a local mountain to the "Monsoon palace". We left our hotel at 11am and returned at 5pm. It was quite a long walk and hike but well worth the views. We reckon we may have done about an 15km round trip.. All on foot too ;-) Now when I say mountain, it was only 315m above the local level, but it was still high especially as the road was not straight but one of those windy round roads that snakes slowly up the side of the mountain.. On the way there we declined all offers of rickshaw and headed in the general direction on foot. Sadly we left the main road a little to early and ended up wandering around a maze of backstreets (more like paths) through the local villages. You could see the eyes of the villagers thinking what are these two doing here? Just when I was thinking we were totally lost and we should just head on back home, we found our way again. Before heading up the mountain we had to pay a nominal 80 INR fee to enter a wildlife reserve in which the palace was located. Now the entry to this wildlife reserve showed a picture of a tiger but in reality the best thing we saw was a couple of peacocks..We actually saw more animals on the way to the place; Cows, chickens, pigs, donkeys, geese, dogs ect. When we reached the top we were rewarded with some excellent views of the surrounding area and some local monkeys too! Although one of them took a fancy to my fruit platter. He soon went away though when I threw some salt from the saltpot in his direction, followed by some gravel from the floor followed by a mop being swung in its direction by the waiter lol..
One guide outside the palace tried to get our business (and failed) and when he discovered that we had walked up he commented to me that I looked like a soldier and also told Erika the same..That made us laugh..

The way back to the hotel was a lot easier as we had seen the road to take from the top of the mountain. The funniest sight on the way back was a guy walking along the main road with a white rat perched on the top of his head and another peeping out of the armhole of his red tank top jumper.

We also accepted an invitation to the hotel managers house to meet his family and have some food with them. We sat in his kitchen with his wife, son, daughter and him and ate a fish biriyani that his wife prepared with some corn chapatti. I think we gave them a laugh because we didn't eat with our hands and did not mix the fish up with the rice which kind of meant that we didn't have a biriyani at all lol. He also offered us some whiskey, which I declined because I hate the stuff but we shared a couple of bottles of kingfisher instead bought from the local alcohol store (which was very busy as it was closing in 10 minutes). Its strange around here with the alcohol, because most restaurants sell it but it is never on the menu and so far I have been served it in a Harry Potter cooler and today in a tea mug.........Still tastes the same though ;-)