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Other entries in Udaipur

Udaipur, Rajasthan

After Mumbai I took a flight north to Udaipur. Almost all passengers on board were invited to a wedding of two wealthy British-Indians who flew with their guests to Udaipur. When you have money to fly and accomodate all your guests in another country, you know that you are very rich...

When we landed there was a big welcome for them - musicians, cameras, cheering. It was really nice. One of the guests told me they were going to stay at the most expensive hotel around - the Lake Palace (500$ a night with A/C). This is a hotel built on an island in a lake that resides in the middle of the city. This hotel made the city popular after a James Bond movie - Octupussy - was shot there (about 5 minutes of the movie, but still the local people are so proud that they talk about it a lot and show the movie every night in all the hotels...). There were so many guests I thought I should join them to honor the marrying couple with my presence and stay with everyone at the nice hotel but there were only English people around and my accent is not that good...

Udaipur is kind of a vacation zula city. The amazing lake in the middle of town has two small islands. Some old indian rulers built two amazing palaces there and one turned into the hotel in recent years. 

I stayed at the Mona Lisa hotel which was very good. A guy that works there - Rizwan - was extremely helpful. He takes care of everything - what sites to see, tours, food, bus and plane tickets, laundry, shopping, money exchange, etc. Practically anything I needed he arranged and was very helpful and nice. If anyone goes to Udaipur this place is very recommended.

At the night I arrived there was another wedding at Udaipur. This wedding was even more interesting than the rich people's and I was even invited. It was between the son of a hotel owner and an Israeli girl named Avishag who met her husband while staying at their hotel two years ago. She was dressed up so beautifully according to Indian customs and her body was painted with Henna. All the Israeli travellers to Udaipur were invited and it was really interesting to see a wedding like this. The most interesting part was - when it was time for the bride and groom to take pictures with all their guests, instead of running around from table to table, they sat down at the center table and all the guests came to them!. Imagine that!

The next day I went to one of the nicest places in Udaipur - the Monsoon palace - a place some rich ruler built on a nearby mountain so he won't have to get wet when the moonson rains come and the lake floods the city. Its nice to be a ruler sometimes. The place has an amazing view of the city and the surrounding mountains. But the highlight is the sunset there. For some reason the sun looks different in India. It is much less bright than in Israel so you can look at it for almost 15 minutes before it sets.

I also got to see my first Bollywood film and it was very good. Although its in Hindi and there are no subtitles, you can still understand everything as the people insert English words into their sentences. If it were in English, you would think its Hollwood. The acting/filming/soundtrack is amazing. Hard to believe that a country as poor as India can come up with such films.

Rizwan told me of a good tailor shop which has been making tailor fit suits for some generations there. Since you never know when you might need a suit I decided to buy one. Its amazing how cheap things are there. A suit made up of a very fine Indian fabric (as far as I can tell...) costs around 100$. Maybe with the suit I will finally get some respect walking around when I return home... The suit was ready two hours before I planned to take a bus out of Udaipur. Rizwan lept to the rescue again and took me on a motorcycle thrill ride through the cramped streets to reach the tailor shop on time. I don't think that some of the fastest playstation games moved as fast as the scenary while riding the motorcycle there. The guy was riding past cars, people and cows. He took sharp turns, and zig zaged through all the lanes including the ones for the opposite direction. The funny thing through all of this was the indifferent face he had during the whole show. Its like he does this every day...

There are dozens of temples, museums, sites and shows in Udaipur (including an amazing puppet show at Bagore Ki Haveli - a must) but after four days its time to move on. I told myself again and again I wouldn't go to the desert but somehow everyone seems to be going there so I started my way to Jaislamer, the desert city, via Jodhpur.

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