Udaipur - land of Octopussy

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After a week of enjoying Goa we plied ourselves away and travelled to Goa Airport for our flight to Udaipur. Travelling for most of the morning we made it to Goa airport for our 2pm flight to Delhi where we had a 2 hr stopover and then a connecting flight to Udaipur. Arriving at Udaipur at 7pm we found an empty airport, no people, and no public transport for the 30km journey to the city, so we begrudgingly paid the overpriced airport taxi fee. Once in the tourist area we went straight to a rooftop restaurant for some food and it had a lovely view of the Lake palaces. It was very clear we were no longer in the tropical southern state of Karnataka, but in the arid, desert land of Rajasthan, and Udaipur was very enchanting. By 10pm we found a hotel and tucked up for the night.

After a relaxing breakfast on the beautiful roof terrace our Hotel Minerwa boasted we were off to visit the ‘professor’, the father of our hotel manager. I had hurt my back at my last yogi session in Goa and was after a remedy. After a short ride on the back of a motorbike through the narrow streets this self proclaimed professor, yoga teacher, and herbalist sat with us and chatted over chai. He shared stories with us whilst constantly referring to his pc to see the spot price of gold to see if he would trade. We arranged an afternoon yoga session. After our brief meeting we headed to the imposing city palace, it is the largest in Rajasthan and a conglomeration of buildings created by various maharajas. The interior was really spectacular from what I remember, but we opted not to pay the outrageous fee for taking photos and now the imagery escapes me!
As things were heating up, we found a recommended cafe and discovered some really nice dishes including the Navratan Korma, a blend of fruit and nuts in a curry.
Later in the day the professor took us for a yoga session on his rooftop, it was in the hatha style and interesting yet not physically demanding, which suited my back fine. The breathing techniques were particularly interesting, including the dragon breathing, and the thyroid massage.

Another day in Udaipur, and storm had a prearranged day of study for her level 2 reiki course, and I had agreed to go with some random travellers I met in the palace the day before to visit some sites a few hours north of Udaipur. A two hour taxi ride to the incredible Kumbalgarh stone fortress at altitude in the Aravalli Hills, once used as a retreat by maharajas in times of danger. The forts wall length is second only in length to the great wall of china. The view was spectacular and the fortress imposing, but the interiors were nothing compared to that of the city palace.
Another taxi journey and we arrived at Ranakpur temple, devoted to the Jain religion, carved using milk white marble it has a forest of 1444 columns no two the same, and is the finest temple in Rajasthan. It has to be one of the most ornate and well preserved temples I have ever seen.
Not only the sites were interesting but the rural landscapes were captivating too, the rolling hills have been terraced and a lot of grain is grown in the harsh climate thanks to irrigation networks using simple channels and water wheels to elevate the water and it was harvest time. By the time I returned to Udaipur it was dark.

This morning, needing something to do we went off in search of a Pichola lake cruise and found a cheap option that the local Indians used. The only difference to the expensive tourist option was it didn’t stop off on the the Jagmandir Island to see the island palace up close. But it did circle it along with the Jagniwas, another lake palace hotel island which is the ultimate in luxury hotels and featured in the bond film Octopussy. We never made it to the Monsoon palace on the distant hill to complete the scenes out of Octopussy.
With the new found friends I made in the taxi the day before, they invited us to a dinner party hosted by Pleasure guesthouse. It proved to be a really good night with a party/cooking class with a fiery tomato potato eggplant masala curry and our energetic host Jeetu who we keep fond memories of.

Up early in the morning we checked out and were off to ride horses in the arid countryside. It got pretty dam hot that day on those stallions and we welcomed the shade and lunch afterwards. Storm was somewhat disappointed she couldn’t gallop off as my horse was keen to follow and I had no idea what to do. The tour guide could not return us to our hotel as there was a religious procession heading down the main street, so we bailed and followed it until we had enough of the landmine style fireworks being set off and fear of being trampled by the elephants.
We killed some time in the afternoon chilling outside Jeetu’s juice stand, sitting chatting, drinking chai. And then collected our gear from the hotel to catch yet another night bus to Pushkar.

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