Udaipur

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Udaipur was our final stop on our trip through Rajasthan and the day we arrived was also New Years Eve. We arrived in the early afternoon after driving through some very, very narrow roads through the city (if you held your hands out the window you could touch the walls of buildings on the side in some parts). Udaipur is a city built around a lake, and this combined with a bunch of romantic looking palaces on islands and along the shore has given the city a reputation as a lover’s city; assuming of course you don’t mind stepping around cows and beggars on your hand-in-hand stroll along the crumbling pavement around lake.

Despite the romantic reputation of the city, there wasn’t much loving happening in our hotel as I had woken up feeling sick that morning and after the drive to Udaipur had checked straight into the hotel and gone almost straight to sleep for the next few hours. Bianca took the time to catch up on writing blogs and reading until about 11.30 that night when I dragged myself up about ten thousand flights of stairs to the roof of the hotel to watch the fireworks. The city put on a decent fireworks display (even though I’m pretty sure most of them were private and coming off hotels, some aimed pretty badly) until about 12.15 or so when it all ended and we both headed back to bed.

The next morning I felt pretty much better so we ventured out to explore the city on a fairly aimless walk. As it is a small area we quickly stumbled across the majority of the cities sites - the Lake Palace Hotel - a mere $2000 a night, the City Palace and a large (and fairly average) temple near the middle of the city. Though there isn’t much to see in Udaipur it is still a nice place to just wander around and then stop for a break on one of the many rooftop restaurants around the place with views of the lake.

The following day we set up camp with books on the rooftop of our hotel overlooking the lake and spent a few hours reading and relaxing. Eventually we were rudely pulled from our semi-conscious warm sun stupor by our ex-driver who had just delivered his new clients and had come to say hello. He offered to take us to the monsoon palace with his clients so we figured why not. The monsoon palace is built on top of a hill and has a fantastic view of the city, however calling it a palace is just a tad over-eager. In reality the monsoon palace is a large, crappily maintained house on top of a hill that is in major need of a clean and a renovation.

For our last night in Udaipur we headed to a restaurant called Ambrai. For the first time ever we had to make a booking to get a table as we had been turned away the night before. The restaurant is a garden on a corner piece of land just across the lake from both the Lake Palace Hotel and the City Palace. At night both of these buildings are lit up and it makes for a great restaurant venue. The food was nice, cheap and the staff even seemed slightly competent. A lot of restaurants in India could learn a few lessons from this place as it is very common for places to have heaps of staff all doing nothing, dirty floors and tables and crap service, so it was a change to go somewhere nice (and still cheap!)

On our final morning in Udaipur we had no plans but met a nice German girl and a French-Canadian (both of which we never learned the names of). We spent a few hours sitting in the hotel restaurant talking over breakfast about travelling experiences. The German girl had been volunteering in Nepal for 5 months out of a total of 10, but had had to leave the country to renew her Nepalese visa before she could continue. She was working in an orphanage in Pokhara and had been enjoying Nepal. She was tall, blue eyed and had blond hair and because of this was not enjoying the attention of Indian men who would constantly stare and comment and she was looking forward to heading back to Nepal. We ended up having lunch with the Canadian until it was time to join Vipin one more time for the drive to the airport, just in time to sit and wait a few hours for our delayed flight to Mumbai.

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Photos

The Lake Palace Hotel
At a mere $2000 per night this hotel costs more than twice what the average Indian earns in a year

Low water levels
It has hadly rained for two years

City from our hotel
The high building is the City Palace