Sightseeing Udaipur

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April 1st 2006

Published: June 29th 2006

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KazzaK

Women washing at the Ghats

We arrived in Udaipur on the first of May, just in time for the Mewar Festival. Udaipur is known as the city of lakes, the town literally overlooks the Pichola Lake and is surrounded by the hills of the Aravali.
Pichola Lake was enlarged by Maharaja Udai Singh II after he founded the city. He built a masonry dam, known as the Badipol, and the lake is now 4km long and 3 km wide. Nevertheless, it remains fairly shallow and can actually dry up - in severe droughts it's possible to walk to Jagniwas and Jagmandir island.
A handful of crocodiles are believed to inhabit the more remote parts of the lake, near the inhabited sections of the shore. The City Palace extends for a long stretch along the east bank.
After we managed to find a hostel and Bengali had another mild heartattack, we set off sightseeing. First we went to this compound of re-constructed tribal villages and huts. It showed all the different Indian tribes and gave an account of their history.
We then visited Pratap Memorial, the memorial is situated atop Moti Magri (Pearl Hill), overlooking Fateh Sagar. There is a statue of the Rajput hero Maharana Pratap,

Ghats

who frequently defied Mughals, riding on his beloved horse Chetak, while the memorial is dedicated to Maharana Pratap, it is really more about the horse and it's lineage.
As you walk up to the statue, you go through these beautiful Japanese gardens where people just hang out and relax. There were a group of students sitting on the lawn as we were walking through and of course they wanted a photo with us in it, there must be a million photos of Irene and I all over India at this stage. The difference this time was that one of the girl’s was particularly fond of us, she even felt Irene up!! They were just fascinated by us and genuinely just wanted to chat, which made a nice change from people trying to sell us things.
Udaipur is a beautiful city - the Venice of the East, we stayed in a really nice guesthouse with these amazing views of the lake and the City Palace. It was brilliant to be able to just sit up on our rooftop and look out over the lake over breakfast!

We went out for dinner that night to one of the Lonely Planet recommendations.

City Palace

This is when we found out that a toasted sandwich is not as you might imagine grilled, but simply fried in less fat than a fried sandwich. Who would fry a cheese sandwich?!! Like why? Irene got pizza which turned out to be a lot of chopped tomatoes with a few flakes of cheese which was quite amusing.
However, we did meet two Israeli’s Guy and David as they wanted us to select the music on their mp3 player - they had their speakers with them! We ended up going back to their guesthouse, which we think but with our sense of direction, aren’t quite sure, was the other side of the lake. We sat up having a few drinks with them and their friends when they suddenly realise it is Friday and they need to celebrate Shabbat. It was hilarious - one of the guys ran down stairs for ribena and candles and Guy made kippah, (plural kippot!), out of white napkins! And they all quite seriously said their prayers and passed around the “wine”. It was a really cool ceremony to be involved in!
Then we had to make our way home, ended up stopping in a shop