Jheel Guest House Udaipur

... away as it was on a train (and after seeing it I can understand the whole going on the tracks thing a lot more) and today wasn't going to be the day said person was going to try one. I say to Martin we will stop at the restaurant of the nice hotel which faces the palace (you need security clearance and a double platinum credit card to get further in) and get a drink while the said person partakes of the services. After a much needed break, said person turns up ...

... better feeling about Udaipur than we did about Jaipur. After a bit of small talk, our taxi drive presented us with a brochure for a hotel that was not mentioned in our guidebook. Normally I am very skeptical about such offers as the driver will of course get a commission - to be paid out of our own pocket. Tony, however, convinced me that we should give it a look - because what is important is how much we like the hotel and how good a value it represents to us ...

so, i realise im already a week behind, having just spent a week in udaipur which seemed to be swalloed up very quickly, so let me try sum up a pretty nifty couple of days.

me and my new travel buddy Jonno arrived into "Abu Rd" at around 10am and were told it was a short bus journey onto udaipur, which in typical indian fashion was infact a 4.5 hour bus journey, which i guess is relatively short for india.
we found a nice we room and headed out for a donder, its the low ...

... we've arranged to stay in Udaipur two more nights, since tomorrow we're teaming up with a Quebecoise couple to visit some of the closer villages and a crafts collective. For now, we're attempting to get our energy up to procure a rickshaw to the Monsoon Palace, half a mile above town, before it closes in an hour. Off to get further sun damage! Well, the Monsoon Palace was not on the cards. Instead, we went to tourism central to see some ...

... we all left the hotel. This morning while all the others went walking and exploring, I chose instead to attend an Indian cooking class held nearby. One guy picked me up at the hotel around 9:30 am (though we waited 30 minutes for 4 people from Denmark at the same hotel) and then we walked to a shop nearby that sold spices but also held the cooking class. There were a total of 7 people - 2 other American girls (from New York ...

... confused when we landed, because the area appeared to be completely flat. That was because we had an hour drive to get to Udaipur. After the big cities and traffic of Mumbai and Delhi, it was a nice contrast to be in the more rural area. Our driver took us directly to our B&B, the Hibiscus, which was still under construction in the oldest part of the city. The narrow streets had barely enough width for one small car, and we had to zig zag like rats ...

... a price of about US$8 a person for 4 hours we learned how to make chai, prantas (potato, sweet, and plain), pakora, eggplant curry, vegetable palau, naan, and chapati. Shashi was the woman who taught us and she was amazing. She was so patient with us and let us make everything. She was explaining that most classes they go very quickly and just show you every ting without letting you do it yourself. As we cooked she told us her life story which I won't type ...

... of these types...go for the skantily clad look rather than the rich tourist look...much to the enjoyment of the local men. Besides that, it's slightly more quite then the places I've been so far, mostly owing to slightly wider roads which means less use of car and motornike horns (it's still loud). The palaces and lake are pretty. There are lots of miniature ...

... and going the wrong way down a dual carriageway that really worried me.

We stayed at the Mewar Haveli - and this is a little gem. The staff were once again helpful and the restaurent really nice. We had opted for a lake view room which quite small but well decorated.

We arrived at sunset and got up on the roof for the best view. The lake is the thing in Udaipur and all the hotels cluster around the water's edge ...