Udaipur – Shaken not Stirred

A six hour bus shuttled us to Udaipur arriving around 2pm tired and hungry, we were seeking food rather then shelter right away. We’d read that there was an awesome cheap thali place 100 meters from the bus station, so we headed there first for fuel to fight the touts and hoteliers! It should have been a short walk, but somehow we took a wrong turn and ended up walking for an hour, in the heat, with our heavy backpacks, cranky, tired, anticipating it always to be just around the next corner. We eventually had to give in and hail a tuck-tuck to deliver us there ‘This had better be worth it’ was on our lips and faces as we entered the dingy cafeteria type place…and it was. The food was delicious to our empty stomachs and we ate like savages, the proprietors and patrons were amused at the amount of refills we consented to. Yummy and all for the bargain price of under a dollar US each!
Fed cooled and rested we were ready to hunt for a room. Thankfully this didn’t take to long as Udaipur is a haven for tourists. The main bulk of the James Bond film Octopussy was filmed here and the town hasn’t forgotten with reruns of the film playing every night in some restaurants, the quality of the worn discs deteriorated making it difficult to decipher the action, but not the setting. It’s pretty cool actually to watch the film in a roof top restaurant, as you look out across the lake you can see the same Palace as on the screen in front of you. Nothing seems to have changed in the years passed.
The streets of Udaipur are small and winding, the sunsets over the lake beautiful and romantic; if it wasn’t for the ever present dirty cows, crap and open sewers it would be perfect.

Of course money can also buy you a perfect stay (as it can anywhere in India) the iconic Lake Palace Hotel actually out on the lake- you need to get a taxi-boat to reach it- is supposed to be amazing, according to the guide book and Octopussy, the cheapest rooms supposedly starting from a mere $450 dollars a night…. maybe next time (sigh).

While there we visited the City Palace and City Palace museum, interesting, lots of peacock designs, Jagdish temple was beside our accommodation and we had Bagore-Ki Haveli (18th century mansion) all to ourselves as we visited in the evening- thus we may have crossed one or two lines!

We couldn’t quite try on the biggest turban in the world, but you get the effect!

We spent three days and two lovely nights in the colourful Udaipur and once again caught a night train to our next destination, Ahmedabad; a stop over point before moving on to Mumbai.