Diwali break and magic streets

The holy festival time of Diwali, the festival of Lights, is upon India. For Indians it means decorations, cleaning of houses, new dresses, gathering of families, eating lots of good food, firering crackers and fireworks and of course religious ceremonies praying to the god Lakshma and others. For Sanna, Airiin and I it means vacation and a nice needed break! We are currently in Udaipur south of Rajasthan, a city 4 hours away from our town Bali in a bumby but beautiful and hilly bus ride. Udaipur is known as the City of Lakes, because it is surrounding a huge lake with a big palace in the middle of the lake. And indeed this is beautiful place. It is a city with all its traffic, chaos, cows walking around in the narrow streets, auto rickshaws blowing their horns to get passed the crowded streets, but it is much nicer and more atmospheric than Delhi. There are many small temples and religious symbols around the city and many of the houses are painted in light blue or pink colours. There are wall paintings of colourful elephants and the Hindu gods on every street corner. All the roofs are flat and we eat our food in a roof-top restaurant every evening with a view over the lake and the the lights of the houses and palace. We can hear the bells from religious ceremonies and small lights of candles are floating in the water in small boats made of leaves.
In the days we stroll down the narrow streets and look at all the colourful clothes such as Rajastani skirts, sarees and fabrics for anything you'd like. They sell bags in many colours, leather bound books with handmade paper, sculpturs and paintings of elephants and the gods, and many other small items from a lost world. Many handicraft shops are producing their goods right there on the street with machines that one can only find in the museums at home.
When we walk down the streets, men are calling for our attention from all sides to show us how wonderful their specific goods are. At times the comments are just intimidating, such as a man that yelled after Airiin, "Which country is suffering without you...". No comment, haha!
I am feeling very alive here and enjoy every moment till the bursting point. We are staying here untill Friday, but right now, none of us are too up for leaving, so perhaps we will extent our stay. But it also feels good to know that we have a place almost like home to return to and happy children to give a hug.
Thanks so much for the comments I have gotten, it means a lot to me! :)
Happy Diwali to everyone who honour me by reading my blog.