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Published: August 26th 2013
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Our 21-hour train ride to Udaipur began with meeting a young guy from the Netherlands in our sleeper car. In fact, he was one of the only other people on the car. He’d already been in India for a month, but had traveled northward from the south. He hadn’t started in India, though. He’d begun in Madagascar and then jumped over to South Africa. When he finished in India, he was planning to go to Nepal, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Papua New Guinea. Not too bad for a solo guy on his first trip. He was friendly, and we chatted and played the Dutch version of Crazy Eights for a few hours. Later, he wowed us with his construction of card houses. It was nice to meet another traveler, but in Jhansi, we had to move to the 3-AC car we’d booked separately, so we said goodbye to him.
We spent the rest of the train ride snacking, watching a movie on Jodi’s Nook, playing cards, writing postcards, reading, and sleeping. We arrived in Udaipur around 6am and made our way to our hostel. It was nice to be out in the early morning—the streets were quiet, the air was cool
Our Hotel--Not!
But we wished . . .
In Udaipur and fresh, and the touts mostly weren’t up yet. Although we couldn’t technically check into our hostel (Udai Haveli, recommended) until 10am, the worker allowed us to nap for a few hours on the fourth floor roof area, which was open-air, but had a roof. From the hostel, we had a good view of the city, and I had a good feeling about it already.
Walking through Udaipur that day, our good impression continued. People generally were either not too interested in us, or seemed to be genuinely friendly, and there just didn’t seem to be too many touts. The architecture was really pretty—a lot of buildings are painted bright colors, and there are also pictures painted on the buildings. We got a little lost while wandering among the different lakes and bridges, but found our way back. We ate lunch at the Queen Café, run by a strong-spirited Indian woman. She was outgoing and friendly and didn’t miss the chance to sell us some of her special curry powders and chocolate treats. The pumpkin curry I had there was definitely my favorite meal in India. We were really happy to see a woman running a successful business, and
it was well-deserved success.
In the evening, we went to see a Rajasthani dance show in a palace called Bagore ki-Haveli. This was one of the highlights of our trip to India. Words will not do it justice, but I’ll try my best. There was a male announcer who introduced different dances in English and an Indian language, and then the women would perform them, while other men played instruments. There were also other, highly entertaining acts interspersed of traditional Rajasthani puppetry. The finale was a veteran dancer who danced with water jugs on her head. She started with one, then would dance, and a person would add another to her head. Eventually the helpers stood on stools in order to place them on her head. It was remarkable that she could move around and “kind of” dance with them. After every one, we thought, “No way! This has to be the end!”. We couldn’t believe her and the other dancers’ talent. It was interesting to see traditional dance and to learn a little more about Rajasthani culture.
Once we were back in the hotel getting ready for bed, we suddenly heard really loud drumming. I went out
to the veranda, up on the third floor, and could see a lot of people walking down the street. An Indian worker told me it was a wedding procession for the bride’s side of the family. They walked through town with their side of the family, making a lot of noise, and at the end of the procession, the bride rode a horse and had a parasol. Unfortunately, we only saw the tail end of it, but it did explain the occasional rackets we’d heard outside our hotels at night.
The next day we visited City Palace and Bagore ki-Haveli. The City Palace was crowded, but for good reason. I don’t know how they got to be so rich, but the owners sure knew how to spend money on architecture and interior decorating. As usual we got some ice-cream during the afternoon, which is one of the small pleasures of traveling in a warm country. A power outage delayed us from buying tickets to Bagore ki-Haveli, but once it returned, we visited in the late afternoon. It was almost empty, which was pleasant. There was a super-creepy section called ‘World of Puppets’ which was just a room full of
puppets, and if you have an overactive imagination, you could expect them all to come to life. It was nice, but wasn’t as restored or big as the City Palace.
We had originally booked only 2 nights in Udaipur, but extended it to 3 nights because it was such a nice break from the chaotic India we’d recently experienced. I should also mention that in most cities we tried to be back at our hotel before dark, but in smaller Udaipur, there was a safer-feeling atmosphere, and we occasionally took nighttime strolls, which were pleasant. On our third day there, we debated about going to either a place called the Monsoon Palace or to a place called Fish Hill, which were both supposed to be good locations from which to watch the sun set over Udaipur. In the end, we decided on Fish Hill because it was closer, cheaper, and less of a hassle to get to.
I would say Fish Hill was better than expected; most people online recommended the Monsoon Palace, but very little was written about Fish Hill. It was a Sunday afternoon, and we walked from our hotel past a park to the base
of a cable-car. A lot of Indian families were out enjoying the park, so it was nice. We bought our tickets, and then were shuttled up to the lookout, where there also happened to be ice-cream for sale. From the top, we could get a good idea of why Udaipur is called the City of Lakes. It was really a beautiful view, but we decided we didn’t need to wait for sunset. So we walked back down for the exercise and sightseeing instead. Again, though, there were many groups of guys and fewer women than expected, which put us on edge. A few times we stopped to “take pictures” so that the guys would be walking in front of us instead of behind us. The gardens at the bottom were really pretty as well, and the monkeys sitting on the walls at the bottom were photogenic and not aggressive (that I saw). We made it back to the hotel, and felt proud of ourselves for yet another successful outing.
That evening, March 10, was a special day for Shiva (Shivaratri), so some of the temples in town had lights decorating them and music blasting. We had a small dinner
Typical Udaipur Scene
Painted building, dog, cow, etc. at Pushkar’s Café near Hotel Minerva, and discovered that it had a really good atmosphere (also, they said they had drinking later (in case other tourists are interested in that), but we had other plans to Skype). We walked over to see the Shiva festivities. A decent number of people were in the streets, and the women were dressed up. The music was upbeat/party-style. Guys handed out cups of bhang (drink made from cannabis) to passersby, but we declined. We also passed some lingams and the female equivalents covered in flowers, which is the religious part of the festival. The next morning we left on the 6:15am train to Ajmer, feeling a bit sad to leave Udaipur since it was so beautiful and relaxed.
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