The night bus sleeper compartment was pretty dire, nice to have your own space but was bumpy as hell…got thrown all over the place all night and hardly slept. Got into town at 6am and teamed up with an Argentinean guy and Brazilian girl from the bus to find cheap rooms….we got a rickshaw to the Lal Ghat area of town and proceeded to look at about 6-7 different hotels before we found one that was suitable. While walking around got a chance to take in the beauty of Udaipur’s setting. Ringed by green hills the city is built around a still lake that is flanked by Ghats, temples and Palaces. A stunning setting!
After checking in, had my first hot shower in 3 weeks…amazing! Then chilled out for a while before exploring the town…. To be fair there wasn’t that much to do in town with the main attraction being the lake shores, City Palace and Lake View Island Hotel. ( The Bond movie Octopussy was set in Udaipur) . The city palace was awesome lots of amazing glass inlay work and a great view from the top. Spent a few hours there enjoying the sunshine before my cold started to bother me again. Had an early dinner that night and then retired to my hotel room and dose up on paracetomol before catching up on the sleep I had missed out on the previous nights rollercoaster on wheels.
Things didn’t quite go to plan….the house hold next to the hotel were testing there PA system for a wedding the following day until around 11pm. It was while the music was blasting into my room that I realised the poster on the wall opposite my bed was actually covering a hole in the wall Shaw shank redemption style…not great…still managed to doze through the worst of the noise and then slept soundly after it had finished….
The next morning I slept in until around midday and had a slow start to the afternoon….felt a lot better. I spent the afternoon reading in a café near the lake shore and enjoying more sunshine (even more enjoyable as I had just checked the Uk weather forecast …looks damn cold…..think I got a bit sunburnt today ha-ha). That evening I walked for about an hour to the sunset point on a hill above the Palace and lake…the views were incredible ( see photos ) spent about 2 hours on the top feeling very philosophical as the sun slowly set behind the hills casting magnificent colours across the lake.
On the way back to town splashed out on a good meal in a pricy restaurant and spent nearly my daily budget on food ( has to be done sometimes when your felling ill). That evening I jumped on a night train to Mumbai. Had got lucky and got the last tourist quota ticket going but had to leave a day earlier than I planned as there was no train on Fridays…
Overall Udaipur was awesome , short but sweet the view from the sunset point was the best I’ve seen in India…felt pretty rough for the 2 days I was there but managed t o nurse myself back to health pretty quickly and felt relatively good by the time I left ……wish I had an extra day to climb some more hills, but am close to having just one month left in India and want to get down south asap…..first a quick pit stop back in Mumbai though…..
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