Udaipur's magical lake by night
Udaipur really is a beautiful place, set on a peaceful lake (even if it is a little green) overlooked by a big palace and restored havelis. The town is unlike the other Rajasthani towns, perhaps due to the presence of water rather than sand dunes?
Haveli
It really is a nice place to chill out for a while, particularly as we were staying in what we rated our second best guesthouse ever (after Chengdu). The gorgeous young French Canadian/ Indian couple that ran it were idolised by all other guesthouse owners in the district! We had a view over the lake from our room, rooftop restaurant with good food, fantastic view and loungey cushions to lie about on - what more could you ask for? The little details, like hand painted designs on the ceilings and around the doors, made a very pleasant change from the usual grubby marks and squashed mosquitoes!
The place also had heaps of chipmunks running around, chasing each other so intently that they didn't even notice you and didn't mind climbing all over your table and chairs. Of course these were much prefered to the usual monkeys!
Hobbes kicking back
To make Udaipur even better, there were lots of good places to eat, particularly a German Bakery with REAL bread and coffee - it really is the small things. Hobbes was a little too excited and went a bit overboard on the cake, although unfortunately the daily 3 hour power shortages curtailed our coffee consumption.
A woman's work is never done...
Octopussy, being primarily filmed in Udaipur, is screened in most of the restuarants around town each evening. Thinking that it was 'the thing to do' we decided to check it out... only problem was that we had forgotten that it is probably the worst Bond film ever made, with the trifecta of no plot, bad acting and a fat and flabby Roger Moore. You have to feel sorry for the waiters who have to put up with it everynight!
The only positive was the fact that you could alternate from seeing the Monsoon and Lake Palaces on the screen to seeing them in real life from the rooftop restaurant.
Sari - the perfect construction attire
Unfortunately we took up the offer
Apart from the lake the town has the usual Rajasthani sight seeing, palaces, haveli's and shops selling overpriced, poorly made souveniers. Having seen our fair share of these recently we decided to spend most of our time enjoying the rare serenity...
The ancient 'elephant - autorickshaw' race
Colour in the backstreets of Udaipur
From Udaipur it was on to Bundi, via our first (and last) sleeper bus. At first we thought a sleeper bus wouldn't be a bad way to travel, this was until we saw what our coffin looked like... a musty, mosquito infested velour affair, the upholstery and curtains of which didn't seem to have been cleaned for quite a while. While we must have slept for a majority of the trip (as the 7 hour ride didn't seem to take anywhere near that long), at the time it felt like we didn't sleep for a minute. Despite the squalid conditions, the main problem was that the latch of the window was broken meaning that you were blasted with icy air every few minutes as the window kept sliding open.
Hobbes and a contestant for the 'world's biggest samosa' - aka 'Rajasthani Pizza'?
At least it meant that we were well and truely awake when the bumpy ride finally rolled in to Bundi at the very respectable hour of 4am... fortunately one of the ever present autorickshaw drivers was waiting to take us into town, where we eventually found a hotel with someone awake in it where we could sleep for a few hours.
Where can I find a lock?
Bundi is a really nice quaint Indian town, which despite being on the tourist trail doesn't feel like a town of Westerners with a few token Indians thrown in - as so many Rajasthani towns feel. Walking around town you got lots of hellos, suggesting that there definitely aren't as many tourists here than in our previous stops (where 'hello' is replaced by 'look my shop').
Morning exercise
Bundi's Palace
True to Rajasthan form the town is overlooked by a massive palace... In contrast to other towns, Bundi's Palace is beautifully delapidated, particularly when compared with the magnificent condition of the restored fort in Jodhpur's - going to show the work that has been done there as it was also run down not too long ago. However, the run-down nature of the palace only adds to it's charm, giving it a recently discovered Indiana Jones feel, similar to the jungle enveloped temple of Ta Prom in Angkor.
The palace is full of beautiful murals, landscaped lawns, a mis-match of construction styles, making it seem thrown together - which it kind of was! It also has a great view over yet another blue town with a lake (although the green-ness was a little bit more dominant than that in Udaipur).
Parrot at the Palace
Ceiling mural
Hobbes opted for the Rajasthani pizza for lunch, which turned out to be something resembling an entrant in the worlds biggest samosa competition... so much deep fried goodness!
Arches
From Bundi it was a short bus ride to Kota from where we were to take our train to Mumbai. While we didn't see much of Kota, the train station was imaculately clean compared with all the others we've seen, none of the usual human waste on the tracks and they even had regular announcements saying that 'spitting is a bad habit and is unhygenic'!!
But what does it all mean?
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