I arrived quite early , and at that stage was very keen just to keep moving through heading north to Punjab. The train had been long and tiring but momentum was driving me onwards. I spent some time at the ticket office - but couldn't get the right connections or the right time so gave up and braved the crowd of autorickshaw drivers hankering for my business. They are trying to get this under control, so there was a "prepaid office" that meant I had a fixed price and the next "cab of the rank" allocated to me. The drivers name was Salim - he was nice and friendly, he had all the usual lines offering me tours and visits to his "brother in law's" art gallery. But he was pretty upfront about it - he obviously well versed in the Lonely Planet as he kept quoting things in it as a source of authority.
I stayed at the Lal Ghat guest house in a very small, cell like room that was fine for what I needed. The guest house was well equipped for the backpacker crowd and had a fantastic sitting area with a lookout over the lake with its "Palace Hotel" taking up every inch of a little island in the middle. There had been plenty of rain in the last few years' monsoon seasons so it was all very beautiful. The only problem with the looking is that it seemed to be a favourite place for the smokers to relax - so when I did try to sit there to read I found the smoke too annoying to stay.
The area around Lal Ghat is very touristy and every shop owner or assistant is standing on the street saying "Hello, where you from.." "You come look in my shop you don't have to buy anything".
In the afternoon I took a guided tour of the city palace/ museum. This is owned by the Maharana of the area who is (I understood) the last independent ruler in Rajasthan. He has turned his palace and castles into luxurious and expensive hotels - and this grand palace into a museum. According to the guide it costs 1 million ruppees ($300,000) per night to rent out the crystal ball room for your wedding or birthday party. The palace is built on a hill - so has trees growing in a garden on the fourth floor, it has magnificent views out over the lakes and surrounding areas and has been well maintained in the most part.
I had a fairly simple Indian dinner on a rooftop restaurant. It had a beautiful view and was reasonably priced. I was the only one there at the start was soon surrounded by a group of American tourists all talking on their mobile phones describing to their relatives how lovely the view was and how much they missed them. Not that I was deliberately eaves dropping - rather they were just talking very loudly and it seemed to echo around the area and I could not avoid but overhear.
I went to bed fairly early after my first experience with a squat toilet on this trip - it was surprisingly problemless.
And that was the first day in Udaipur - it ended much as it had started with me wondering what I was going to next and having about 10 options each as appealing as the other, but some with big consequences in terms of making other options impractical afterwards.
So as usual my motto was "when in doubt, don't commit to anything" so I went to bed not what I would be doing the next day.
