Another 5am start to catch a train to Udaipur, some 7.5 hours away. And another opportunity to watch a red ball appear at the edge of the sky and turn into a yellow sun, all within about five minutes. Glorious.
These train journeys are great fun. Almost every seat is booked and the travellers board by up to 30 minutes before the train leaves, unless of course the start point is after the train’s. This seems to be about storing your luggage near to your seat, as opposed to further down the car. The trains are a mixture of pretty smart to most things not working, but we’re not travelling in the third class areas which look most uninviting. A chi walla walks up & down the train; you can buy a small paper cup of pre-sugared chi for 10 rupees, about 11p, and after the induction period it’s …….. ok. Then there’s a guy selling omelettes, another yesterday selling Dominoe’s pizzas, and we are still to travel on an overnight train; that I’m sure that will introduce a new range of vendors. But we’ve yet to see passengers hanging onto roofs or windows, though we have seen monkeys so performing ‘in station’.
Udaipur is located on Lake Pichola, so has a bit of a resort feel. However, with a population of about 450k, this is another multi-traffic-charged complex of narrow roads, lanes and ways narrower still. After yesterday’s town introduction, we went to a “traditional folk music” performance and the dancing and singing were fine. The show stopper was at the end when a 70 year old lady balanced up to 12 dishes on her head and still managed to dance. The crowd went ballistic.
So that was yesterday. Today a visit to The City Temple, complete with chanting Hindus, and then The City Palace. The Palace is the biggest in Rajasthan, second biggest in India and is HUGE. It includes three hotels and a conference centre, which, together with seven other hotels in Rajasthan, enables the owners, The Maharana and his family, to give the entrance ticket fees to charity. The Palace has a number of internal squares and many narrow passageways and has a special ambience. Our favourite Indian palace so far.
We’re here for two nights and (most of) three days, so some time to feel a little settled. Kath has discovered painting workshops (this afternoon) and cooking classes (tomorrow morning). I have visited the Maharanas’ car collection. It seems every time they bought a new car they hung on to the previous one as well, hence a collection of Mercs, Rollers (one used in a James Bond movie), Moggies, a Cadillac, a Buick and some jeeps. Was stylish.
We’re taking an evening boat trip on the lake to watch the sunset and then to another, outside, restaurant, constantly led on by Prado, our tour guide. He’s quite shy but we’ll organised and agile. One of our party has departed for Mumbai today, three days early, to attempt a passport replacement – she lost the original yesterday. We’re impressed with Prado.
Chris & Kath's Travel Time 