Happy Birthday at location of a James Bond film
Trip Start
Dec 05, 2004
1
11
25
Trip End
Jan 17, 2005
Udaipur,
India
Sunday, December 19, 2004
Our hotel in Udaipur was gorgeous - a heritage hotel Jagat Niwas. The red bereted staff bent over backwards to make us welcome. There were little courtyards and a stunning rooftop restaurant with little cushioned balconies for us to sit on and drink in the spectacular views. The food was also excellent. I spent the rest of the afternoon in a nearby beauty parlour (about the size of my bathroom) with men popping in and out, whilst my 'beauty therapist' gave me an interesting but effective facial, threaded my eyebrows (if you ladies haven't tried this you should!) and washed my hair - I then ran out of time for my massage, so went back the next day (again interesting experience!) - all for a mere 12 pounds!!!! My birthday present to myself!
We went to see a Rajasthani show lasting 45 mins, but really worth it. Dressed in traditional sequined saris and tribal arm bracelets, women danced as they balanced pots of fire on their heads, swirled and turned and did some curious things with cymbols. Then a puppeter came one, followed by the star attraction - an older lady who balanced about 9 pots from huge to tiny ones on her head, whilst walking on broken glass and on swords!
We finished the evening, with a lovely meal in our hotel overlooking the very luxurious and expensive Lake Palace Hotel, where Octopussy was filmed, floating in the middle of the lake (well actually it is not surrounded by water any more as the huge lake pretty much dried up this last year as the monsoon was not very good.
Ambassador car
It is now like a large green pasture roamed by cows, elephants, camels and goats). Dale had arranged a cake for me, which was meant to be a surprise, but unfortunately the waiter didn't understand the element of surprise and asked Dale if he should bring out the cake now!!! One big surprise of the night was the firework display we watched from our balcony - it was in honour of a special group at the Lake Palace Hotel, but we pretended it was just for me!The next day we visited the Maharana's (King) palace, not that intersting and I spent the rest of the day browsing the shops and being hassled by shopkeepers. The next day was prety much the same, but is was great to be staying in a lovely place and just relaxing for a change. In fact I don't think I ate anywhere else other than at the Jagat Niwas as the views and food were so delicious, especially the Malai Kofta (which I've sampled in quite a few places).
On the evening of 21st, we got rickshaws down to the railway station and got an overnight train to Jaipur. This time we were not in a private sleeper car, we were in a 3 berth (i.e. 3 'beds' on top of each other) carriage with probably about 21 berths in total open to a corridor (everyone including the Indians chained their bags to the seats). The beds were totally hard and it was cold, noisy and stank of toilets! The train took 12 hours to cover 400 km, stopping regularly. All the same - an experience to experience!
