Udaipur
Trip Start
Oct 01, 2005
1
12
137
Trip End
Sep 20, 2006
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Udaipur,
India
Sunday, October 23, 2005
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We arrived in Udaipur after a long day's driving and stayed in the hotel for dinner (giving Anil the night off to go and sink a few Kingfishers!). The hotel was playing host to a Yamaha moterbike launch and had a stage set up in the grounds where a few Indian celebs were due to appear that night. Always up for hob-nobbing with Bollywood-types we went along, the only white faces in the crowd! We saw some loud and flashy singing and dancing routines and listend to a stand up comedian who spoke entirely in Hindi but made everyone laugh so we assume he was good. We managed to get a photo of Jono with him later on when I spotted him by the hotel entrance! Oh the glamour!
The next day was spent in the City Palace complex. The City Palace houses 3 hotels, one of them being the ultra-luxurious Lake Palace Hotel which 'floats' in the lake - it was used in Octopussy! The lake has been dry for a couple of years, but this year's bumper monsoon has filled it up so we got the full effect. We weren't able to go to the Lake Palace itself, but we did go to Jagmandir Island which is kind of like a floating garden in the lake and you get a lovely view of the City Palace from there.
In the evening Anil took us to a tacky tourist place where we could hear music and watch dancing from the different regions within Rajasthan. Semi-interesting but we were hassled pretty much the whole time to buy stuff and tip the performers so not the most relaxing evening!
