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Flying into Night

Last stop in Rajasthan: Udaipur. Rajasthan is known for its palaces, forts, and history. Udaipur is no exception. It doesn’t have a “kingdom” to speak of as Jaipur, Jodhpur, and Jaisalmer did, but there is a City Palace, a museum now, which happens to be the state’s largest with a façade 244 meters long and 30 meters high. The palace was begun by the city’s founder, Maharaja Udai Singh II, and completed by subsequent maharanas. There is a uniformity to the palace and it’s not terribly different from some of the others we’d seen: cupolas, courtyards, balconies, towers. All in all, it’s a nice visit and certainly a “must see” if you have a tourist checklist for this town.

The biggest difference between Udaipur and the previous cities we’d visited is the setting. In southern Rajsasthan, Udaipur (population around half million) is nestled among the Aravalli Hills and is on the eastern shore of Lake Pichola. Now, this lake was always here, but not quite at these dimensions. It was enlarged by Maharana Udai Singh II (city founder) to its current size of 4 km (north-south) by 3 km (east-west) by flooding the village of Picholi. Being manmade (or…man-enlarged), it’s shallow and can dry up completely during severe droughts.

Because of its setting, Udaipur is considered one of the most romantic spots in India and, while I haven’t seen much of India, I can certainly say that I can see how this could/would be a romantic spot. My Udaipur experience began when we arrived via overnight bus around 4:00 in the morning on Friday, October 2.

Udaipur was one of the cities where I was not able to actually reserve a guesthouse, but I did have one in mind (Lal Ghat Guesthouse) and we hopped in a tuktuk and made our way there now. Bless their souls and wonderful Indian hospitality for opening the door before the sun had come up and giving us a comfortable – though like most other places, bare necessities – room. (I’m always pleased and impressed, both in China and India, that hotels allow you to check in very early without charging an extra day.)

Needing a few hours of actual sleep, since the bus sleepers felt more like a sarcophagus than a sleeper, we got a slightly late-morning start to the day. The Lal Ghat Guesthouse is located just north of City Palace and on the shores of Lake Pichola. From our room, if you crane your neck just a little bit, you could see the lake (with some flowers in bloom) and the Lake Palace. More on that later.

For now, the first order of business was to find food. I can’t recall the name of the restaurant, but I enjoyed it so much I ate there a second time on my own. It was a few doors south of the guesthouse and, like the guesthouse, was lakeside and afforded wonderful views. Fortified by a delicious lunch of chicken biriyani and reshmi chicken, we made our way to the City Palace (and Palace Museum) and wandered around there for a while.

It’s a very nice palace, mind you, but I was beginning to become a bit anesthetized to grandiose palaces by this point, having been to Jaipur, Jaisalmer, and Jodhpur in the past seven days. Though this is the largest, it didn’t rank as my favorite. (Jaisalmer Fort was my favorite as it’s a living fort, followed by Mehrangarh in Jodhpur, then City Palace here in Udaipur; Jaipur didn’t really have a comparable palace to speak of, though it’s the capital of the state.)

Though I was starting to suffer palace fatigue, I still did enjoy myself quite a bit, though I know I was rushing a little. I was more interested in finding “unique” here, which was only with views of the lake. Other than that, it was standard fare for palace museums with the women’s quarters, various displays, and so on. However, it is a pretty building, and I’m certainly glad to have gone there.

From City Palace, we walked out the south gate to take a boat ride around Lake Pichola. This is where Udaipur comes into play in pop culture. James Bond fans may recognize the scenery around Udaipur and Lake Pichola in particular as the main setting from the movie Octopussy. (It was said to have been an Afghan palace in Octopussy.) You’d also have to be a pretty die hard 007 fan to have seen that movie, I think; it’s usually ranked among the worst of the Bond franchise. But, I digress…

There are really two islands in the middle of Lake Pichola: Jagniwas with its Lake Palace Hotel (Taj Lake Palace) and Jagmandir with its own palace. I’ll start with Jagniwas. It’s not a private island, but you can only go there if you are a guest of the hotel…with rooms that start from 40,000 rupees/night. (I don’t know the high end, but that translates to close to 4,000 RMB or over $600 USD/night for the cheapest available. I’ve seen pictures and, while beautiful, I’m not Daddy Warbucks, and don’t expect I ever will be…so will just settle for their promotional pictures on their website: www.tajhotels.com .)

Jagmandir, on the other hand, is an island you can visit, and we did. The boat left the mooring south of City Palace, went northward to give a close-up view of City Palace from the lake, along with Bagore-ki-Haveli up to the north end before veering south and around Jagniwas and docking at the north end of Jagmandir, 800 meters south of Jagniwas (and roughly in the west central part of the lake).

Jagmandir’s palace was built in 1620 by Maharana Karan Singh, and was expanded by his successor, Maharana Jagat Singh. Not much has changed from those days until recently when it was convereted into a small hotel (nothing like the neighboring Taj Lake Hotel). For the Bond aficionados, the Taj Lake Hotel was the main palace of Octopussy, and I believe Jagmandir’s palace is where Bond stayed in the movie. There was also some filming at the nearby Monsoon Palace, but we didn’t have the time to visit there.

Jagmandir didn’t offer much at all in the way of things to do. Once you get to the island, you’re pretty much limited to wandering around an interior palace courtyard (where you can have very, very overpriced drinks and possibly a bite to eat, though the drink prices kept me from looking further, so I’m not certain). After staying in the courtyard as long as you’d like – and the views from and in the courtyard are lovely, though don’t require too much time or effort – you can walk outside to the boat dock where there is also an outer garden that’s quite pleasing, and affords beautiful views of the wooded Aravalli Hills in the west.

After an hour or two on Jagmandir, we finally took a boat back to the mainland (a whole 10-15 minute ride, tops), and then tooled around the area near City Palace and the guesthouse. We eventually had dinner at a rooftop restaurant down the lane from where we stayed which had a nice view of the lake with its shimmering palaces (well-lit by night) and a bit of a nice view for sunset. The best sunset views, I would say, would have been from the islands, though – especially Jagniwas – as you could have an unobstructed view of the sun setting over the hills with the lake in the foreground. The food at the restaurant, like most every other restaurant we ate at, was spectacular. It was a good way to end the first day in Udaipur.

Saturday morning came along and we didn’t have much planned. I was actually glad to spend the majority of the day alone. After running a few errands, I went to Jagdish Temple. This is an “Indo-Aryan temple..built by Maharana Jagat Singh in 1651. The wonderfully carved main structure enshrines a black stone image of Vishnu as Jagannath, Lord of the Universe; there’s a brass image of the Garuda (Vishnu’s man-bird vehicle) in a shrine facing the main structure.” (Per Lonely Planet India.) This is one of the smallest temples I’ve ever been to, though the details were delightful. I was pretty impressed with how intricate the temples were both here and at Jaisalmer.

After a quick half hour at Jagdish Temple, I went back to roaming the streets of Udaipur, eventually finding my intended destination, the Bagore-ki-Haveli. This is a pretty large haveli in the Gangaur Ghat area. It was built by a Mewar prime minister and has 138 carefully restored rooms around courtyards on three levels. These days, it’s kind of a klitschy museum. There are a few rooms that have interesting exhibits of Indian musical instruments (a sitar, obviously, and many others that I don’t recall the names of), and exhibits with turbans – including the world’s biggest turban. (This, by the way, was a bit strange; don’t know why anyone would want such a huge turban. Anyway, it was in a glass case, didn’t photograph terribly well, and none of us are the worse off for that.) The nicest part about this haveli is that, like the guesthouse, it was on the water’s edge, so had a few rather pleasant views.

After finishing up here, I wandered back to the previous day’s restaurant for lunch (and would even eat dinner there on Saturday night; they were probably happy with me…). For either lunch or dinner, I had hariyali murg tikka and cheese naan. Now…I would gladly eat murg tikka (chicken pieces generally made in a tandoor) any day of the week. Hariyali…is a coriander-yogurt-mint marinade. It’s heavenly. I really need to learn how to make that one, though I don’t really have any way to make tandoori chicken.

The afternoon and early evening was spent eating very well and relaxing, and really waiting for the last thing I had planned for Udaipur: Dharohar. This is a cultural event at the Bagore-ki-Haveli that hosts Rajasthani folk dancing, singing, performance, and so on. It’s an hour long and pretty interesting, in addition to being in a nice setting.

Before bidding farewell to Udaipur, I returned for the last time to Lake Pichola to try to get a few pictures of the Lake Palace and Jagmandir by night. A few turned out alright, but not spectacularly.

All told, Rajasthan was an absolutely brilliant way to spend a week, and I was looking forward to the last few days in Uttar Pradesh, beginning with the Taj Mahal in Agra after yet another long overnight train ride across the Indian countryside.

Taken on: October 3, 2015

Tags:

India

Rajasthan

Udaipur

Sets appears in: • Lake Pichola & Islands

Camera: Nikon D7100, f/10.0, 1/2000 sec, 56mm (=84mm), ISO 100 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Nikon D7100
Aperture:	f/10.0
Exposure Time:	0.001 sec (1/2000)
Focal Length:	56mm (35mm equivalent: 84mm)
ISO:	100
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Shutter speed priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Center-weighted average
White Balance:	Manual
Light Source:	Fine Weather
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Ver.1.02
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