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Published: January 16th 2012
Udaipur
The view from our guesthouseFollowing a mission briefing from M and after picking up a few gadgets from Q, we followed in 007's footsteps and checked out the lake city, Udaipur, film location of Octopussy.
Our guesthouse had an impressive view of the Lake Palace (Bond's hotel), the Jagmandir Island Palace (Octopussy's lair) and the hilltop Monsoon Palace (the baddies place). It was fun to recognise all of these locations whilst watching the film from the rooftop terrace of a restaurant and then taking a boat trip the following day to see them close up. We also visited the City Palace, the largest palace in Rajasthan founded in 1559 and to which each successive ruler has added to over the years.
Another James Bond themed moment was seeing the 1934 Rolls Royce Phantom used in the film, which is part of the current Maharaja's collection of vintage classic cars. Included in our admission was a delicious thali with an excellent selection of dishes which the waiters insisted on topping up every few minutes.
During our final day in Udaipur we discovered a quirky museum housing a room full of hundreds of creepy puppets, polystyrene copies of world monuments and the world's largest
Udaipur
The City Palace turban. We returned to the museum for an evening of traditional Rajasthani dance performances, the highlight of which was seeing a woman balance 9 water pots on her head whilst spinning round and stepping on broken glass.
From Udaipur we traveled on to Pushkar, which is said to have been created when Brahma dropped a lotus flower on the earth and is therefore a holy pilgrimage town for Hindus, especially because it has the only Brahma temple in India. The town is meat, eggs and alcohol free and visitors are expected to adhere to these rules. We therefore thought it would be a calm and quiet place to relax and observe the pilgrims bathing in the holy ghats. However, on arrival we found it to be the dirtiest, smelliest and most fly ridden place we had been to that far, with cow dung at every other step. To make matters worse it only had one main street which was jam packed with tacky tourist stalls, barefoot hippies, hawkers and supposed holy men trying to give us and our entire families a blessing for a large fee! The overwhelming hassle didn't stop when we entered the Brahma temple as people
Udaipur
The main entrance of thew City Palace, where you can see the 8 torans. These arches commemorate each time previous rulers were weighed against gold or silver and the equivalent value was distributed to the poor. followed us around, even there. After about an hour of the above, we were so fed up that we decided to leave Pushkar as quickly as we possibly could!
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Antonetta
non-member comment
Turban & palace
Yes Jonny the turban suits you, maybe the saggy turban would look cool on!!!hahaha The thali looked lovely my mouth was watering Okay take care & enjoy the rest of the week Hugz Aunty Antz x