007 at 7:00PM

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I tried calling the Lake Palace hotel this morning in order to make a reservation for lunch, but I was told that they don't accept reservations from non-guests. This sounded rather strange, but there wasn't much I could do about it, so I suppose I won't be visiting the Lake Palace hotel.

It was a lot cloudier today, but I still wanted to take a boat cruise around the lake. This time, I managed to turn up at the right place in time for the last boat of the day. Oddly, there's no boat late enough to actually catch the sunset. The jetty is effectively in the City Palace, so they also included a cheap entry to the City Palace in the cost of the boat ticket (which seems to be be a much cheaper way of seeing the City Palace than paying the normal entry fee, unless I'm mistaken). Having watched numerous cruises from the vantage point of the hotel restaurant, I knew the best place to sit on the boat and was able to snare a good position.

I chose the 1 hour cruise, which does an anticlockwise tour of the lake with a stop at Jag Mandir (on the other island in the lake - south of the Lake Palace hotel). It was possible to get some different views of the various landmarks from the water, and Jag Mandir had some interesting architecture too.

After the cruise, I decided to take part in what has become an Udaipur ritual, namely the viewing of "Octopussy" in one of the many restaurants that screens it every evening. I chose the Gangaur Palace Hotel as their rooftop terrace seemed to be one of the highest in the area, and was able to get some sunset photos as well as catch "Octopussy". The link between "Octopussy" and Udaipur is that chunks of the film were shot here, with the Lake Palace and Jag Mandir playing starring roles. I hadn't seen the film in its entirety before so I did get some entertainment out of it, not to mention the familiarity of places in Udaipur as well as Jaipur that were included in the movie.

The remainder of my last evening in Udaipur was spent supping a Kingfisher on the hotel terrace. It will be a shame to move on tomorrow, but other places await ...

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