Udaipur

On most holidays we usually end up having one day when things just don’t quite go right. At the time it’s stressful, but usually no on dies, so you can look back and have a bit of a giggle. Past examples include our ‘not so romantic’ gondola ride in Venice, walking off the map in Amsterdam and driving to Cardrona ski-field during a blizzard. Today was one such day.

We got away to an early start from Jodhpur and seemed to be progressing well. A lot of the farmland near the highway appeared to be a bit inundated with water, following the recent monsoon. The country-side changed from flat farmland to large rocky outcrops, prior to giving way to a mountain range.

 The first sign of things to come was when the iPhone GPS reported that we were on an incorrect road, even though we were pretty sure we’d made all the right turns. We turned around and started backtracking until the driver stopped and asked some local guys. It seemed we were on the correct road, but being out of range the GPS and the maps weren’t updating correctly. So, back on the right path, we drove all the way in to Udaipur.

The next issue we had was that there is no main road entrance to our hotel. You have to find a jetty on the shores of Lake Pichola and catch a boat across to the Leela Palace. This was clearly easier said than done. A combination of poor police direction and the fact that google google doesn’t tell you how wide a street is, meant that pretty soon we found ourself in a street in the main market that wasn’t meant for a Toyota SUV to be on. We enlisted some help from the local police and withstood much abuse (in Hindi) before eventually finding our way out.

Our next plan was to drive the car as close to the Hotel as we could and then find the hotel on foot. We found the staff entrance to the hotel and they checked us in, complete with musical welcome and a shower of rose petals, which was all very nice, but we still had work to do to get our luggage from the car and agree a pick up point for the driver the next day. All is well that ends well… I say.

The hotel itself is on the shores of Lake Pichola with a view directly from the room to the Lake Palace, which was the setting for the 1983 James Bond film Octopussy. The film can still be seen over dinner at many restaurants around town. My feeling is that 33 years is an awfully long time to be cashing in on the movie.

We then took a boat cruise across the lake with a stop at Jag Mandir, another Maharaja Palace that commenced construction in 1551. The first benefactor of the palace was Shahjahan before he became the Mughal Emperor. He had rebelled against his father and sought refuge in Udaipur. He later went on to become emperor and also built the Taj Mahal. Much of the palace is still in-tact although a cocktail bar has been added.

The gardens are well kept and quite beautiful as well.

From the lake there are good views of the City Palace, which we will visit tomorrow, so more on that then. There were some great afternoon views across the lake to the mountains in the late afternoon sun.

After the cruise we made our way back to the hotel, but not without catching a glimpse of the palace monkeys.

Overall a good end to a challenging day as we had a room service meal on our balcony to take in the lake views in the night. I think the temperature was down to 26 degrees, the coolest night of the holiday so far.

Until tomorrow