A Royal Shindig

Wow. One night there was this party at the (very flash) hotel my geckos friends were staying at in Jaislamer. We went along to see if the rumours of free alcohol were true and turns out it was none other than a local prince's 25th!! This guy (the one in the photo who looks 25) is one of the owners of the hotel (it's not a bad life being young rich elite in India) and the party was so cool - free foreign alcohol, traditional music, everyone all dressed up and A BRIGHT YELLOW RACING CAR CAKE! (see close up! haha).

The Maharaja of Jaisalmer was in attendance as he is the uncle of the birthday boy! He is the middle aged, not-so-royal looking man in the pic. We all got very excited. I suppose it is sort of comparable to meeting an Australian premier, except that have never seen local New South Welshmen kiss the feet of Morris Iemma as he entered a room.

A drink or two later a group of us decided to meet him. Good idea until, after saying "hello", none of us could think of a single thing to say. So it was up to Alana, queen of small talk, who asked such appropriate Qs as:

"So, how many cows are there in Jaisalmer?"

"How many rooms do you have in your palace?"

and

"What's wrong with your eye?"

All class!

PS the next day Simon from Adelaide stole the hotel's turtle, "Speedy", and it made it all the way to the next stop, 8 or so hours away, before being escorted back to the hotel.