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| From Udaipur |
After a few short hops in Jaipur and Pushkar, we arrived in Udaipur. It was 9:30 in the evening so we didn't plan on much; only a quick rickshaw ride to the hotel and sleep. When we arrived at the hotel (first hoodwinking of the trip for me, more on that later), we were immediately struck with our first views of the town. Being my Applewood smoked bacon self (meaning I like everything, including bacon, to be fancy), I persuaded Stacey for the sweet upgrade to a room with a view of the lake and both lake palaces. We decided to head to the roof top restaurant for a late dinner and some quiet time (no inneuendo there). As far as eye-popping landscapes go,Udaipur has been the best so far and offers every traveller a little something soft for the eyes. I encourage you to look at the entire album of the pics (follow the link under the picture), but I will post a few here before proceeding.
Our first morning began with a jolt....of vomit! Looks like we picked up a little something from either Pushkar (we think that's it) or Jaipur. Stacey had spent the majority of the early morning hours in the bathroom and pressed the panic button by beginning her course of antibiotics. It appeared that I was once again on my own in one of India's cities. I decided to take it easy and made for a few quick stops trying to pick up some home comforts for the Mrs. A little whole wheat bread and some lime soda for the tummy. I spent the rest of the day at the rooftop restaurant of our hotel reading up on the grand city while Stacey rested.
She rebounded quickly with a little Cipro and by the evening we were once again taking in the views from the roof. We decided that the nightly tourist ritual of a 7 o'clock showing of Octopussy (the James Bond film was partly filmed in Udaipur, so every single restaurant and hotel shows it nightly) would be the best for both of us as I was also starting to feel the effects of an unwanted stomach visitor. But whereas Stacey's sickness was bad, mine was celebrated! I needed a few pounds off the bottom line and this stomach disease would give me the quick route to the destination. I had been eating everything off the street vendor's cart and Stacey was always the lucky one.
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| From Udaipur |
She rebounded quickly with a little Cipro and by the evening we were once again taking in the views from the roof. We decided that the nightly tourist ritual of a 7 o'clock showing of Octopussy (the James Bond film was partly filmed in Udaipur, so every single restaurant and hotel shows it nightly) would be the best for both of us as I was also starting to feel the effects of an unwanted stomach visitor. But whereas Stacey's sickness was bad, mine was celebrated! I needed a few pounds off the bottom line and this stomach disease would give me the quick route to the destination. I had been eating everything off the street vendor's cart and Stacey was always the lucky one.
Day two came and we were ready for a great day of sight-seeing. Believe it or not we were planning on seeing some city palaces and forts. We begin with the City Palace which was the usual: a steep fee and views of the Maharaja's undergarments. "This pajama pant worn by the Maharaja is inlayed with purple silk. This pajama top is inlaid with gold". This palace did have stunning views from its balconies and balustrades, so that was well worth the price of admission.
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| From Udaipur |
We continued our day by stepping away from the tourist crowds and decided to rent a two-seater paddle boat for an hour around Lake Pichola.
It took on a minimal amount of water (mainly because I had only had the stomach bug for only a day and not two weeks) so an hour was a good time. The white palace or Lake Palace is the highest end hotel in the city with rooms around $450+ per night. There is no getting off or on without a reservation in either the hotel or restaurant. Lake Palace hotel hosts very fancy weddings and parties which are featured in Octopussy. We would have liked to have seen the hotel, but were not, under any circumstances, shelling out $60 a person on a buffet lunch to see it (that is about 10 times more than we spent PER NIGHT in our deluxe lake-view room). However, in an ironic twist of Indian fate, we met one of the workers our last night in Udaipur who assured us over bottles of Kingfisher that if we were to stay ONE MORE DAY, he would personally take us on a tour. Alas, we have to be off...
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| From Udaipur |
It took on a minimal amount of water (mainly because I had only had the stomach bug for only a day and not two weeks) so an hour was a good time. The white palace or Lake Palace is the highest end hotel in the city with rooms around $450+ per night. There is no getting off or on without a reservation in either the hotel or restaurant. Lake Palace hotel hosts very fancy weddings and parties which are featured in Octopussy. We would have liked to have seen the hotel, but were not, under any circumstances, shelling out $60 a person on a buffet lunch to see it (that is about 10 times more than we spent PER NIGHT in our deluxe lake-view room). However, in an ironic twist of Indian fate, we met one of the workers our last night in Udaipur who assured us over bottles of Kingfisher that if we were to stay ONE MORE DAY, he would personally take us on a tour. Alas, we have to be off...
Day 3 in Udaipur was time for a little exploration outside of the city. We decided to give the city streets a little test run and rent bicycles. Directly North of the cities main lake is another that is bigger and probably dustier. It was 5km around and we had an enjoyable 90 minute ride with relatively little traffic to deal with (there really is no price that can be put on that) and flat roads. One of the humorous things about this is that the road had the best surface we had seen all trip and hardly anyone ever uses it. What up with that, I say what up with that?
We returned and put Stacey's shopping muscles to the test for the afternoon while walking around the hills of the city's main bazaars. We had selected a great restaurant for the evening sunset and met a really cool French couple that had been traveling south after some trekking in Nepal. It was a very mellow evening with some great stories.
We decided to say goodbye to Udaipur on the fourth day and headed out by bus. First a quick stop for a few hours in the city of Johdpur (more forts), then onto the western desert town of Jailsamer, 150 km east of the Pakistani border.
PS, This monkey tried to kill us on our balcony!
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| From Udaipur |
Wait, so your deluxe view-room was $6/night? That's freakin ridiculous! ...and I bet it didn't take much convincing to get stacey to spring for that one :)
ReplyDeletereally verhoben lassen!
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