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Published: March 25th 2006
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I noticed again this morning that Udaipur seems to be a bit of a fly magnet. Sitting at breakfast, I was constantly having to brush them away from my food, my book, me, etc. They're also tenacious little blighters - a half-hearted brush at one isn't enough to scare it away, you need a full-blooded slap with intent to maim.
This morning was dedicated to the City Palace and I think it's the most impressive place I've seen in all of Rajasthan. It's the largest royal complex in the state, and for most of its history was occupied by members of the Mewar dynasty, who have ruled Udaipur for over 1,500 years (making the Mewars possibly the oldest dynasty in the world today). In the many rooms, connected by low twisting corridors to hinder invaders, are numerous miniature paintings, sculptures, and glass mosaics. Stained glass windows cast multi-coloured light on the exhibits, and the views across the lake and the city from the palace turrets were astounding, especially in the piercingly bright sunshine. One of the most magical parts of the palace is Mor Chawk - the peacock court - containing 3 peacock mosaics, each comprising 5,000 pieces of glittering
glass.
In just over 3 hours, I took about 200 photos, i.e. 1 per minute.
Over the course of this trip, I've been used to being the tallest person virtually everywhere I go, so I was quite surprised to see an Indian guy today who must have been about 6 feet 8. His friends clearly wanted to see how he measured up against me (a dwarven 6 feet 3 by comparison) so, for part of my wanderings through the palace, every time I looked up from an exhibit I'd find him standing about a foot away, and his friends sniggering close by. I don't usually walk around feeling that I'm tall, but I definitely felt like a midget with a really tall person in the vicinity.
In the late afternoon, I again tried to get on a boat cruise around the lake. The hotel told me that getting to the jetty required a roundabout route and it would be simplest to go via auto, so I grabbed one from outside the hotel. Sure enough, the route to the jetty required skirting the entire City Palace and then going up what looked like a private road. Part way
along was a ticket booth, at which I was told I had missed the last boat of the day. I then asked why there were still so many boats out on the lake, to which the answer came that they were all private boats from assorted hotels - which explained the anomaly I'd noticed yesterday.
With my plans for a cruise scuppered, the auto driver made the first useful suggestion I've ever heard one make, namely that perhaps I should go to the Monsoon Palace and watch the sunset from there. The Monsoon Palace is on a hill overlooking the lake and is reachable via a steep road that can defy some of the older autos - in fact we passed one auto that was belching out clouds of smoke and weaving backwards and forwards to try to lessen the incline. The Monsoon Palace itself is quite dull, but the views over the surrounding countryside including Lake Pichola are panoramic. It's also a popular spot from which to view the sunset, as an enterprising chai-wallah and his set of folding chairs attested to. Unfortunately the distance to the Lake Palace was too far to get any good photos and
the sunset, though pleasant, was decidedly average compared with others I've seen in Rajasthan.
For dinner, I decided to try out Savage Garden, more for the name than anything else. Disappointingly, the owners had chosen the name for precisely its novelty value rather than any love of Australian AOR. The food turned out to be an interesting Indo-Italian hybrid - I had a tasty farfalle pasta with tomato chutney. The rest of the evening was spent back at the hotel restaurant enjoying the lake atmosphere.
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Adam
non-member comment
Looking for 6'8" guy in Asia
John I heard that George W. is also looking for a 6'8" guy in your neck of the woods - you might want to let him know how to get where you are , so they can have a chat. Was he carrying an AK-47 by any chance? Crazy A