Udaipur - temples, cooking and octopussy

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We had originally planned to spend 2 days here.... ended up spending four and loving it.

Udaipur is sometimes called the Venice of India, and although it resembles it in parts, and is thought to be quite romantic, it is very very different to Venice! It is more commonly known as the city of lakes and this is probably more appropriate.

Our first day in Udaipur was spent taking it easy and getting our bearings. Garry, not able to say no to anyone, ended up in a few tailor stores even though we had no interest in getting a thing made. These touts are relentless. They tell you that they have a brother or a cousin who owns a shop and is the best tailor in town and you must have a look. In reality, they are no relation to the shop owner and are just looking for a commission on what you buy, and commission sales are well and truly alive in Udaipur!

The next day we took a day trip to Kumbulgarh and Ranakpur. Kumbulgarh is a fort that has the second longest wall in the world (to the Great Wall of China) with a palace at the summit. It was built in the 15th century, is 36km long and encloses around 360 temples. There are some temples at the foot of the palace and what is most impressive about these is that every stone had to be carried at least 50 kilometers to be carefully put in place. Turns out that everything was so far removed, and well guarded that the Moghul Empire never set foot on the entire complex. The Ranakpur temple is one of the most famous Jain temples in India, and the complex is made of one quite large marble temple and 2 smaller ones with very intricate carvings all over. And not to worry if you haven't heard of the Jain religion, we hadn't either! It's a religion that is very similar to buddhism, came into existence around the same time, but some say it is a bit more strict than buddhism.

We also took some time in Udaipur to do a recommended cooking class with Shashi. It was absolutely brilliant. We learnt how to make chapatis, naans, parathas, biryani, paneer, masala sauce and much more. The class lasted for over 5 hours and the hardest thing we had to do was eat the massive quantity of fantastic food that we assisted in cooking.

We hired a rickshaw driver for a day and did a city tour around Udaipur. Our driver, Billu, took us everywhere. We went to a lookout point over a man made lake that is in the shape of India, to another Jain temple, a puppet museum, the royal cenotaphs, and at the end we went to a virtual village tour which was fantastic - we got to see some local dancing, arts and crafts, and also the typical houses in the villages in different regions of India. The dancers and displays are done by people from tribal regions all around India. They come to this virtual village for only 2 weeks and then the next tribe comes through so it keeps the performance and the show fresh and different.

As mentioned earlier, Udaipur is the city of lakes - there is a huge lake with many buildings on the water front, including the large city palace. The palace over looks the lake and has beautiful views. Although there is not much to see inside the complex, it is very impressive. We took a boat trip out on the lake and in the middle of the lake there are two palaces, now hotels. One is called the Lake Palace which is actually where some of the James Bond movie Octopussy was filmed.

There is also a beautiful Jain temple in the town called Jagdish temple which we were able to walk around by day, and at night they have a strange light display around it. One evening we had a seat in a perfectly located cafe to watch the light display change from one crazy colour to another. You can get a glimpse from one of our pictures.

Udaipur is also famous for its miniature paintings which nearly every man and his dog are selling. They are painted on usually silk or camel bone and the detail in them is just amazing. We manged to buy a few which will hopefully be on display in our imaginary new house in Sydney!

So as you can see, it was a very busy few days in Udaipur and definitely well worth the visit. We had a hard time choosing photos for this place so make sure you go onto page 2 to see them all!

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