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Published: August 6th 2013
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We took a train from Jaipur to Kota, and then hopped on a local bus, which cost 20 rupees (or about 40 cents), for the one-hour ride into Bundi. We liked Bundi immediately. It is a smaller, walled city that is built into the hillside, with a large fort and palace that hang high above it. The buildings are all painted blue, and as we drove into the city towards our guesthouse, we could see large langar monkeys jumping across the rooftops. We stayed in another great place; again with a rooftop overlooking the city and with a view of the palace behind us. From the rooftop you could sit and watch dozens of monkeys jumping back and forth between the buildings, walking casually along the railing right in front of us. Very cool! After checking in, we walked through the narrow streets to the city square where hundreds of farmers had set up a huge vegetable market. We watched a cow steal a stalk of corn from a farmer’s table; the farmer smacked the cow on the head, and as we walked by, feeling bad for the cow, I pet him on the head. The cow swung its head angrily
to the left and plowed its small horn directly into Lisa’s hip. Lisa developed a large bruise, along with a new lifetime fear of cows.
On our second day in Bundi we went to check out the old palace and the surrounding fort. As we approached the palace entrance there was man with an assortment of large bamboo sticks in front of him. He said,“10 rupees to rent”.
“What do we need a stick for?” I asked.
“To fight off the monkeys in the fort, very aggressive” he informed us.
Well of course the sticks were to fight off the monkeys! What a stupid question! So I rented a large stick, and we headed towards the palace. The palace was amazing. It was built 400 years ago and it was quite run down, as it has not really been maintained since the last maharaja left. The palace is perched above the city, with gardens and seating areas where the maharajas would have sat overlooking the city in the evenings. The royal garden, and royal lounging area were quite well maintained, and there were original paintings on the walls giving us a glimpse into the lives of
the royals in years past.
After the palace, with stick at the ready, we headed further up the hill, into crazed monkey territory, towards the old fort. The fort and surrounding city walls were built 700 years ago. Rudyard Kipling, who spent several months living in Bundi writing the book “Kim”, described the fort as being built “in uneasy dreams- the work of goblins rather than men ” as it is quite rugged and is carved right out of the hillside. It could not have been raining harder during our whole fort visit, but it was very peaceful, and we had the whole fort to ourselves. The far side of the fort overlooked untouched jungle and a large lake in the valley at the bottom. It was quite a cool experience to be completely alone in a 700-year-old fort, overlooking pristine jungle in the pouring rain in India. I managed to scare off any hostile monkeys with a lot of stick banging and yelling. We saw groups of them in the trees, but clearly they knew it wouldn’t be much of a fight if they messed with me, and they stayed clear.
The next morning we
caught a train to Udaipur. Usually when you exit a train station in India you have dozens of tuk-tuk drivers, cab drivers, and rickshaw drivers, all hounding you like paparazzi on Brad Pitt and Angelina (the closest visually accurate celebs I could think of) so it is always such a lovely treat to see a driver standing there with “Mr.Nelson” written on a white sheet. The hotel sent Billu to pick us up and drive us to the hotel for free. Billu was very nice and spent the entire drive hyping his “city tuk-tuk tour”. He had testimonials from tourists, maps, pictures, the works, and we agreed we take the tour with him on our second day. Have we learned nothing!? (more on that later…). Udaipur is a clean, beautiful, lake city that is filled with many cool cafes and boutique shops that fill winding alleys. Our hotel room was ridiculously nice. It had a balcony that overlooked the lake, the city, and the palace on the opposite side. It could not have had a better view. The hotel restaurant had an equally impressive view, and served delicious food and cheep beer to boot! In the evenings, as you sat
in the restaurant watching the sun set, thousands of giant fruit bats (6 foot wing spans!) filled the skies over the old palace and flew right in front of you over the city for 20 minutes. It is quite something to watch and we enjoyed it every evening we were there. We spent our first day strolling the streets and shops of the city, and touring the city palace. I got a lovely 3 piece suit tailored for 100 bucks, and I could not be happier with the finished product. That evening we ate dinner at “Ambrai”, one of the fanciest restaurants in the city. This time we actually stayed and ate! It was a beautiful setting, right on the lake, directly across from the summer palace, and the food was delicious. A lovely evening.
The next day we hooked up with Billu for our fantastic, world-renowned, city wide tuk-tuk tour! To put it nicely, the tour was rather upsetting for us. We started off paying an entrance fee to get into a museum that had models of old forts. The models could have been constructed by some of my students, not a great start. He then took us
to the remnants of the first house in Udaipur. This might have been cool, but the house was just a shell of old bricks, and it just wasn’t that cool. Billu then pulled out the big guns. He took to a museum of marionette dolls? Again we paid an entrance fee to view the museum and also to watch a live marionette show! The 10-minute show was mildly entertaining, and only mildly when compared to the model fort museum. Also, apparently Lisa has a dark fear of clowns and puppets that I was unaware of, so things were a little tense in there…. At this point I was downright pissed off. We realized we were being screwed over and old Billu was just taking us to places where we had to pay admission fees, probably taking a kick back from each one. Oh well though, we had already agreed to the 5-hour tour, so lets see what else you got Billu! He then took us to a garden. The garden was dismal, and not even joking, the garden in the back yard of parent’s house is far more impressive. We walked in the ‘garden’ for 5 minutes and headed back
to the tuk-tuk, straight faced and silent. I said, “So what’s next Billu?”, he told us he was taking us to view a memorial with many placards on the ground… at this point I said, “I think we have had enough, maybe just take us back to the hotel.” In Billu’s defence, it was pouring down rain the whole time, so maybe he was taking us to museums because they were inside? The entrance fees were nominal, usually 50 rupees (1 buck) for both of us. Either way the tour was very disappointing. It lasted an hour and a half, when it was supposed to be 5 hours, and it cost us 400 rupees (7 bucks!- a small fortune in India terms). Oh well though, another interesting experience in India, and another lesson learned. By the end of this trip we are going to know about all of the scams and will be completely prepared to travel India!
Aside from the tuk-tuk tour, Udaipur was an amazing place and has been our favourite stop in India so far. We have enjoyed every destination more as we have gone along and are excited to continue on to Jodhpur!
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Auntie Marg
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You made me laugh!
The cow-petting was funny....that's what you get for trying to be nice! Enjoyed your adventures with Billu, and also the part about the monkeys not messing with you, and your Brad-Angelina comparison. Also the guy with the white 'Mr Nelson' sign...lol.