We arrived in Udaipur after an overnight train and found a really nice tuc-tuc driver
when we came out the station. He advised us to go to one of his friends places (of
course), a haveli (old style house with a courtyard) guest house that looked
out onto the water. The building had white washed stone walls painted with blue
flowers in places. Our room had three windows one with a lovely window seat
looking out towards the main town, the bathing Ghats and the lake. Upstairs
there was a lovely terrace with tables and chairs and also some huge bed-like
structures filled with pillows where we spent many nice hours chilling out,
placing dice games or watching the James Bond movie, Octapussy that was filmed
here in Udaipur. We were very tired from our long journey so the first day in Udaipur was a
dedicated “chill out day”. We spent most of our time upstairs on the roof
terrace or having a little nap. We also went for a walk around town which
became longer than we expected as we got totally lost in the small winding
cobbled streets of the town. At the same time the sky started to become grey
then dark, a little strom was coming on Udaipur (1st day in the
desert and it’s raining …). We were asking our way to people but the
information they gave to us were never really clear, we were just going in
circles under the rain. At the end we managed to find the way to the bridge that
we were looking so hard to find. We came back to the hotel sitting on the roof
top restaurant playing dice drinking beer while the storm raged around us. Then
we just crashed until the next day.
The next morning we went to do a boat ride around the lake, we could
see the Lake Palace (Palace in the James Bond movie Octopussy), the Jagmadir Palace and of
the City Palace from close up and we took a few photos of these grand buildings.
After that and paying to get inside the City Palace and the
hotel inside we could reach the marble pool (also in Octopussy) of the hotel
for the price of 300RPS each. We have a swim and relax in this nice posh and
expensive (169 RPS instead of 25 RPS for a can of pespi) location. After
backing in the sun we decided to visit the museum of the City palace net door.
This palace it’s the biggest palace of Rajasthan. Luckily there were signs to show us the way around because it look
like a labyrinth of corridors, courtyard and stairs. We saw many rooms with
different colours, mirrors, glass, painting etc… at the end our favourite was a
quite courtyard hidden on the top floor. The night at the hotel we watch the
James Bond movies Octopussy (because neither of us had seen it), and we could
see in the movie all the places we had visited during the day.
Another last start the next day found us still at the hotel at midday.
We then set out to take some photos of an unexplored part of town then we set
off to the ayudervic treatment centre for a vigorous Indian head massage followed
shortly by a piece of cake. Next we went to a grand old haveli (old house with
courtyard) and associated museum. There, we saw the largest turban in the
world!!!! It was pretty huge, a little saggy and very pink! As haveli’s are
traditionally associated with performing arts, later that day we went to see a Rajasthani
folk dance show held in one of the courtyards. This was amazing!!! the first
act was a traditional dance where two girls, covered in mini symbols made rhythms
by clashing together the symbols on their toes, legs, arm and fingers. the
second act was no less skilful, a girl performed a dance involving much
spinning whilst balancing a metal pot with fire on her head. the third act was
a more classic solo performance of a gay folk dance. Fourth was a puppet show
where the puppeteer had us all laughing as the puppet gigged about throwing and
catching his own head. Sixth was a fun folk dance performed by six women in
brightly covered dresses and last of all, and le final, was the most
impressive. A small squat lady balanced ten pots on her head as she moved
around the dance floor performing various tricks such as picking up a scarf
from the floor and dancing on (and with!) a metal plate. It was a great show, we
really enjoy it.
The next day we went to the largest fort in Asia (it is possible to see it
from space), in the town of Chittorgarh. This fort was built in the 8th century and has been
taken only 3 times in history. The first time it was taken by the king of Delhi because he
wanted the beautiful wife of the king’s uncle, Padmini. The second time it was
the sultan of Gujarat who took the fort to increase his territory. The third and last
time was X(look in internet)X Akbar. After each defeat all the women committed
juahar (Need to search on internet) it means 13 000 women and the same of men
plus all the soldiers died during the fight, even the beautiful Padmini committed
jauhar after the siege. This fort is an amazing building 4km long and 1,5km
wide. In the middle there is a high tower on which you can see all the area
around the fort, we could really imagine the sentinel at the top of the tower
looking around for an enemy coming. Inside the fort there are 3 temples on each
side of the fort, from the ruins of which we could easily imagine the town and
lots of gardens with a few lakes that the government is renovating. People
still live inside the fort, at the entry there are the few road bordered with houses
and shops.
Our driver for the day was really cool, his name was Rais. He was
always ready for a chat and he was keen to learn a few new French phrases from
Marc. We had some really fun Indian music on the way there and back, the kind
that makes you tap your leg and you can’t help it! Rais was telling us about
his boss – the guy who owned the hotel. He makes a lot of money from his
venture and is building a new hotel nearby. Rais is paid a salary monthly of
2500 rupees (about 42 euros), although the cost for us to hire his driving
services for the day was 1500 rupees, which is more than half his salary! So
his boss certainly makes a tidy profit, but as Rais said, there are not many
good jobs in India “so what to do?”. He prefers to spend his money and “live well,
dress nicely, dress my daughter nicely- not dirty clothes- and enjoy the life
otherwise what do you have? Nothing”.
After a hot day in the sun we went for lunch in an AC restaurant and
afterwards our cool driver took us to a local sweetshop to eat rassamali (milk
puddings in milk sauce) and rassgul (a very sticky sweet Rajasthani dessert). After
this little sweet break Rais wanted us to meet his sister who lives in Chittorgarh,
and then we headed back Udaipur. That night we wanted to chill out in front of another movie but some
tourists had already booked the TV to watch Octopussy so we saw it a second
time.
The next day we left Udaipur for our next destination and it was Rais our taxi driverJ for a second time.
