Udaipur & Jodhpur

We arrived in Udaipur at 2:30am in the morning, after a long, cold, miserable, though not quite as hellish bus ride, only to find our hotel completely shut for the evening. Our banging on the windows managed to wake the entire neighborhood, all except for the hotel's receptionist. We ended up staying at a guesthouse right next door that night, without heat or hot water. Sabrina, Jia and I literally had to huddled together for warmth. Lack of indoor heating has made our trip to India almost unbearably cold. The next morning, we quickly checked into our hotel where a hot shower made us feel so much better.

Udaipur is often called the Venice of India. Several man-made lakes surround the city, with a system of canals of some sort feeding them. Lake Pichola, right by Ganguar Ghat where we stayed, is the largest of the lakes. In the center of the lake is the Lake Palace, an ultra-exclusive hotel that you can't even visit unless you are staying or eating there. Luckily for us, there were several other palaces that we could visit, including the City Palace and the Monsoon Palace. Part of the City Palace has been converted into a museum open to the public. The palace, right by Lake Pichola, was beautiful. The other half of the palace has been converted into several exclusive hotels that you can't visit either unless you were staying there. We were allowed to walk through the grounds (although we had to pay for the privilege) on our way to the City Palace jetty where we caught our boat for a boat ride around the lake. In the center of the lake was another palace on Jagmandir Island. It was lovely, with a cafe on the open air garden and terraces that had with fantastic views of all of Udaipur, including the Lake Palace and the City Palace. There is a restaurant there that is probably incredibly lovely at night, although we did not eat there.

The Monsoon Palace is perched on top of a hill overlooking all of Udaipur. Jia and I went up there with her friend Anuja. Our little autorickshaw definitely had a bit of trouble making it up there, but we made it in time for sunset. There is not much to the palace itself, but it is, without a doubt, the best place to view the sunset over Udaipur. We sat atop the stone walls of the palace overlooking the city as the sky changed colors from blue to shades of orange, red and yellow until finally the sun disappeared over the hills. Afterwards, we went to Anuja's place where her cook whipped us a delicious, traditional Rajasthani dinner of dhal with wheat balls.

We left for Jodhpur by bus early the next morning. The supposedly 5 hour direct to Jodhpur bus ride became a 7+ hour ride with multiple random stops in between. But we nonetheless got here in time to visit the amazing Mehrangarh Fort. The fort was perched on top of a hill which we climbed. We had a fabulous view of the oldest section of Jodhpur from the fort, which is painted almost entirely in blue. Thus, Jodhpur is known as the blue city (Udaipur is known as the white city, Jaipur (which we skipped) the pink city and Jaisalmer (where we are going next) the Gold City). The palace within the fort was surprisingly amazingly well maintained, with intricate and detailed architecture, and a really well-done museum complete with an informative audio guide. Jia and I had to zip through the fort since it was about to close but nonetheless, we were glad we had the opportunity to see it.

We are heading to Jaisalmer by train tonight. In Jaisalmer, Jia and I are going on a camel safari where we will be spending a romantic Valentine's day with each other - in the Thar Desert. We are almost certain we will freeze to death since we don't have the right clothing for the weather, but I did pick up a sweatshirt at the fabulous price of 50 rupees in Udaipur, which will hopefully make it a bit more bearable.