Coming to the Venice of the East- Udaipur

We started from Deogarh at 9:30 and drove the 3 hours to Udaipur. The route took us through Nathdwara where there was a huge statue of Shiva sitting on the Himalayas.

Along the way I saw some sort of bird of prey - maybe it was a vulture. It was brown with a white underwing.Hawk.

We made it all the way through the Udaipur traffics to the palace grounds, turned in through the gate and hit another car. They were nice enough to let Manoj drop me off at the pier and return (2 minutes away).

The Taj Lake Palace is located in the middle of Lake Pichola which is about 25 feet deep. In the early 2000s the monsoon failed and the lake dried up. That meant the romantic boat ride you take to the Hotel was replaced with a Jeep ride.

We docked at the hotel and as I step off the boat I am shielded by a big red shade umbrella and walk through a shower of rose petals as we were welcomed into the hotel lobby for checkin formalities. This hotel was a summer palace of the royal family and in 1971 the hotel rights were given to the Taj Hotel chain. You might recognize it from the James Bond film Octopussy (most stupid name ever). Several scenes were shot here, including one using the beautiful lotus pool.

My hotel room was phenomenal- much better than Dev Shree.

I decided there was time to go to the City Palace Museum, so walked over (really nice to be alone). I looked at the trees and thought there were a lot of dried leaves until I realized these were bats, and big ones. Kind of creepy….

The City Palace Museum is just that, a museum set inside the old palace which is also split into 2 different hotels.

The palace was built and added on to by each of the Mewar rulers from about 1550 and over the next 400 years. Below is a film which shows some of the amazing things inside the Museum.

I guess when a palace or building had golden spiers it meant the owner supported being part of the Indian Union and independent from The British.

In the evening the hotel arranges a sunset lake cruise which goes around Lake Pichola and docks at the Palace located at Jackmandir Ghat which was built by the ruler for parties. There was something odd about the cruise and finally it occurred to me that a) I was not the only guest and b) I wasn’t the only foreigner. This cruise took us by houses used in the movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. They didn’t look at all like I pictured.

After the cruise we were treated to a folklorical show which featured different dancers. Here are some examples. It’s amazing how some of the moves resembled belly dancing.

To end the day I went to the Indian specialty restaurant here. I was amazed that I preferred the food at Dev Shree. Here the flavors were rather muted. I’ll have to get the exact names tomorrow, but it was a broccolli starter, a fish main and a sweet and an aperitif. The poppodams were also amazing.