The Venice of India

Trip Start Oct 01, 2005

158

Trip End Jul 21, 2007

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Flag of India Udaipur, India
Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Udaipur is a really lovely romantic place with bags of water features, set as it is on the banks of Lake Pichola. The Maharana who have lived here for hundreds of years are so rich that they have built no less than three palaces. The main one, a huge majestic edifice on the edge of the lake, one for the summer which floats in the middle of the lake, and one for the monsoon season which is way up on the top of a mountain overlooking the whole of Udaipur.
We bagged a cool whitewashed room in one of the hotels hidden amongst the steep winding streets next to the lake, the window overlooked a hindu temple and had a seat where we sat chilling and playing backgammon. We soaked up the atmosphere of the place by wandering around. There were a lot of stalls selling traditional Rajasthani paintings or carvings, with eager beaver attendants, but we've perfected the look of non-interest so are immune to their ruses by now and they in turn are much less vociferous than in Jaipur or Mumbai

Fullard in local garms

. They did little to hinder the general tranquility of the place which we bolstered by a boat ride on the lake, sailing past the summer palace and taking in the beautiful aspect of the city from the water.
There are a lot of excellently preserved Havelis (traditional old houses) with loads of stained glass windows and sandstone lattice work around the doorways and balconies. In one of the more palatial ones we witnessed a demonstration of Rajasthani dancing which was fairly impressive, albeit a tourist trap. One of the other highlights was the Yoga lesson we went to. It was interesting and quite strenuous but the teacher was brilliant and guided us carefully through the different asanas (positions). We finished with some meditation and having thoroughly enjoyed the class had some quality fodder at a restuarant called Savage Garden.
We went round the main palace and on the last day walked to the next lake along and caught a rickshaw up the mountain to the monsoon palace which has amazing views of Udaipur. Oh by the way, Octopussy was filmed here as well. Like we could forget! They show it nightly in every restaurant and guesthouse!
Another interesting thing we did was to check out the main Hindu temple at seven o'clock which is when everyone goes down to make Puja (offerings) to the gods. This particular temple is dedicated to Shiva and the main Brahmin or priest unveils the image of the god every night. All you have to do to get in is to buy a chain of marigolds, take your shoes off and present the offering to the Brahmin who takes it into the sanctum for you. We were taken around the temple on the previous day and given a bit of a tutorial on the different meanings used in the temple architecture and some background on Hinduism which was fascinating, so it was doubly interesting to return when the place has come to life and active worship was underway.
Overall it was a breath of fresh air to enjoy Udaipur and we spent most of the time just wandering round and soaking it up. It left us with a nice feeling and we moved on to Jaisalmer content and ready for some serious desert missions.