Udaipor to Jaipor

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It has been a while since checking in. Think that i last wrote getting to Udaipor and falling asleep. Before I forgot.. and just in case i didn't mention it ..... it is very hot here. Today (Wednesday) it hit 114 F..... but more about that later.

In Udaipor we are staying on the fabulous Taj Lake Palace hotel. It is situated on an island in Lake Pichola and the only way to get to it is with a boat shuttle. This is the only hotel right on (or in) the lake. It was a summer palace for the Maharana of Udaipor (yes i said Maharana not Maharaja).... the Maharajas are lords of their locality (more about that in Jaipor) and the Maharana is a lord and a warrior. The current Maharana is the 76th generation from the same family and still lives in Udaipor. By the way the food has been wonderful... and all included. Because this is an agent Fam trip, we spend part of each day visiting different properties and being fed at that hotel. On monday morning we visited the City Palace in Udaipor which is the current residence of the Maharana and part of it has been turned into a museum which in addition to being interesting because it is a palace also has one of the largest crystal collections in the world and beleive it or not was quite interesting.

After the city palace we visited the Lela hotel on the shores of Lake Pichola which is a beautiful boutique hotel where we saw the rooms (at least i did) and then were hosted for lunch. Susan has connected with Robert Price who is the other spouse of a travel agent (ruth) and they generally hang around together during site visits and talk democratic polities. The Prices live in Chicago and are huge Obama supporters. After lunch our guide Vishal Ghai who i will talk more about arranged for one of the boats to take us directly back to our hotel. There is great competition between hotels and generally the boats have to go to a neutral port before your hotel picks you up. Since it was so hot, we took advantage of some free time just to shower mid day and relax for a bit before taking an afternoon cruise around the lake.

Around 4pm we took a cruise around the lake which is man made and quite large. the water in the lake is the result of monsoon flooding which takes place each year between mid June and end of July. Monsoons are tremendously important for all of India. In the middle of the lake there is another island owned by the Maharana which is rented out of individuals (generally weddings). An Indian wedding is a lavish affair that generally has 5-700 people. there was a wedding going on while we were passing.. but unfortunately we were not invited.

The evening ended with a visit to the beautiful Oberoi hotel also on the shores of the lake where we had a site visit and dinner. Not being much of a travel agent you might think that these site visits must be boring, but they are actually quite interesting as all of these hotels are destination resorts and one always tries to outdo the other in lavishness. The Oberoi hosted us for dinner.

I should say something about our travel companions. They are all serious travel agents and i am the only male in the group. Except for one woman, the group is all quite nice and we have all gotten along quite well. Most of the land travel is in a very large air conditioned bus and since we are only 20 people we have lots of room. i think by this point i must have take 6-700 picture... with about 40 being worth saving. I will continue writing to catch up on my next posting

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