Advertisement
Published: March 5th 2011
Edit Blog Post
Udaipur is one of those cities that when it comes to traffic someone should really just say NO. Set around two beautiful lakes the city's buildings tower high above the water and form an intricate network of tangled back lanes and alleyways where impatient moped drivers and horn blasting tuk tuks and rusty old cars all compete to squeeze through the narrowest of gaps between a mixture of shops, pedestrians and cows. I must have nearly had my feet crushed by idiotic moped drives about a thousand times.
On top of this the place was over run with tourists - middle aged westerners who had all watched Octopussy and heard the 'India's most romantic city' tagline and had come flocking in their thousands to take 'romantic' pictures of themselves and their bum bags down by the lake. Ptfff! As 'independent travelers’ (ha) me, Matt and Dodds do not like sharing our Indian adventures with a hundred other white people as a) they are generally annoying and b) we don't get as much attention for being white and thus feel less special. And we didn't come to India not to feel special!
I think it was more the fact that
when we went to visit the palace it was literally overrun with 50 different tour groups all full of idiotic middle-aged westerners doddering around and getting in our photo shots. Maybe that’s a bit harsh - they were not ALL idiotic, just collectively. They just get herded from one room to another like a bunch of cattle and stand around mooing and trying to look interested in what their guide is saying when all they really want to do is push each other out of the way to get a picture of themselves in front of EVERY SINGLE ARTIFACT in the palace, so they can go back to their friends and family at home and display what 'cultural individuals' they all are. Me, Matt and Dodds on the other hand rarely take pictures of the palace, weapons, paintings, cribs, thrones, mustache spoons and each other and have a profound interest in what our audioguide has to say…. whilst trying to find the best place to sunbathe whilst listening to it....much better.............well at least our dress sense is :p
Anyway bottom line is we got pissed off with the tour groups and having to wait to get in each room
so the only thing I really remember about the palace is the wedding. Now, THIS was no ordinary wedding, this was the main palace courtyard being transformed into a spectacular extravaganza of midnight blue and gold hanging mesh drapes and archways with flower arrangements in the shape of gigantic peacocks and massive metal structures that hold hundreds of candles over pools and fountains as well as sparkling crystal lampshades elegantly hung from golden bird-cage shaped stands. There were fairy lights wrapped around the hedges ad trees and long walkway arches created out of beautiful flowing fabrics. Dodds (subtle as a brick) eavesdropped on someone else’s guide telling them that the flowers alone cost 400, 000 rupees. Now THAT's a wedding. We spent the rest of the day discussing ways to be able to stealth our way in later that night but after the distraction of dinner on a rooftop overlooking the lakes, smoking menthol cigarettes and listening to Bob Marley we decided it seemed like too much effort to attempt to get in / we definitely wouldn't have got past security.
Still I'm sure Norway got in - no doubt they met a couple of local royals as they
were strolling round the palace who invited them back later for a night of dancing and drunken debauchery. I look forward to the story....I really do :p
We ended up getting so see our own wedding anyway...well sort of. We eventually managed to leave Bob Marley and the rooftop restaurant and wandered off to find our way back to our hotel paying LOTS OF ATTENTION as we kept getting lost...until we got distracted by some loud music. Obviously we decided to follow this rather than our hotel directions. And man, was it worth it.
The music was coming out of a big building with a large archway and as we turned to walk in we were confronted by a full-on brass band and a weird little truck thing that was blasting out some jingly jangly accompanying music. Behind them was an array of different lights being carried in lines by brightly dressed women in glittering saris, and behind them was a guy in a multi coloured turban and A LOT of bling sat on top of a horse covered in fairy lights in every colour of the rainbow you have ever seen. It was like Christmas gone wrong.
It looked like one of the waltzer rides you get at a travelling fun fair when you are sixteen. Seriously I could have powered my house for a good few months from the amount of lights on this poor sod of a horse. It was like Gaga meets equestrian. Poor love probably felt like a right twat. It just stood there looking mildly unimpressed at the dancing idiots in front of him and the fat man on his back. Bless.
Behind man on Gaga-horse-of-a-thousand-lights, was a procession of about a hundred people all dressed beautifully and immaculately and slowly dancing to the sound of the music from up front. Then right at the back, powering this whole light-crazy shibang was the world’s oldest generator that looked like it might self implode at any given moment. Back at the front end which had now turned on to the main road, the band men were throwing fire crackers onto the floor in front of them and being the three silly westerners we are we squealed and ran to hide amongst the cars. When we came out I got the confidence to follow the parade and being the tourist-letch that I have
become, proceeded to take about a million pictures of man on Gaga horse which are all crap because my camera refuses to work at night.
A man came over and asked me to dance and then another man came over with the cutest little Indian boy you have ever seen and explained that this wasn't actually the wedding but the celebration of the groom leaving his home to go to his wife. In India you get three days of wedding celebrations - they like a good party. I can appreciate this - my birthday is normally a weeklong event. Plus that’s more excuse time for drinking in the day :p
After following the procession down the street for a bit, like moths to a bright flame, we realised we were now completely lost. Shocking. Over the past two days we had managed to get lost several times. I've decided we are the only travelers in the world that instead of getting better at directions, get worse. But with a travel group made up of a blonde, a gay and a liability what can you expect really.
Jasmina Asiapants, over and out.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.081s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0432s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb