Notes From Udaipur, India

So now a full circle has been made – I returned to Udaipur on 18 July. I took a night bus from Jodhpur which was by far the worst ride. Throughout my trip, the quality of taking the night bus with a sleeper kept declining. I don’t know why. It left Jodhpur at 10pm and I fell asleep despite the bumpy ride. But a fellow passenger woke me up around 1:30am and said that I had to get off the bus.

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I looked around and everyone was gone. Seemed that the bus we were on had broken down and we had to wait for another one. We all sat around – about 2:30am another bus came with passengers on it already, but amazingly we were all able to get in. People made sure that I got a sleeper slot. Only after that, they sat on the floor in the corridor, where there was no seat. This was how all of us managed to stay on.

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The temperature in Udaipur had dropped since I visited almost three weeks back. But this time I had to swat at mosquitoes! I stayed at the same hostel, Hanuman Ghat, run by friendly Babaji. Udaipur is well set up for us foreign tourists with bookstores that sell books in English, coffee shops that make great sandwiches (if you are missing western bread and good coffee), and zillions of money exchange outlets that offers a very good rate at 54 R, far better than Mumbai’s 51 R. I found the book Shantaram, a book recommended by many people.

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I ran into the two Swiss girls I had met in Jodhpur, where we had been staying at the same hostel, then again here in Udaipur. They left for Goa the next day. After seeing them off, I went to a corner store to get toilet paper (no, I have not learned how to go without paper). The store keeper was a very friendly woman called Vidhya. She told me about a festival that went on by one of the lakes, and invited me to go with her on the day that was reserved specially for women only: No Gents!  Vidhya told me that it was done this way to prevent “gents going crazy”. Yeah, I understand and appreciate it 🙂

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On the day of the festival, I arrived at her store and found her dressed in a very nice sari. Her mom, aunt, nieces and nephews came along too. The kids were so cute, and kept me in good company. The little ones swung from my arms and climbed on my back and made me into a playground jungle gym. I am glad that my body held up for such a roughing.

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The festival was like a street fair lined with vendors, where people browsed and bought snacks, wind-up toys that made awful noises, and inflated dinosaurs, etc…. A garden, which normally charges an entrance fee was free on that day, and we picnicked there. Vidhya and her family brought home cooked food (aloo, bhindi, chapatti and sweets called sheel). Vidhya wanted to take a boat ride in the lake. We all stood in the ticket line, and maybe because I was with a big family, I was able to buy it at  Indian price (although I was ready to pay the foreign price). I like this kind of inconsistency.

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Udaipur is my last stop in Rajasthan. All in all, it is definitely not a boring place to visit. And the forts and palaces are just so romantic. I thought many times that I would never come to Rajasthan again,but I now think that I will come again if I have a chance, hopefully with company to make it more pleasant.