During the last week of September, my family joined me for a brief
vacation in Indore and we made a weekend trip to the city of lakes –
Udaipur.
Udaipur was beautiful and we had some interesting experiences, hence
thought of blogging about it. I have also added a few photos of the
beautiful city.
Udaipur is around 400 Km from Indore and we decided to leave early on
a Saturday morning. Indore had been in the throes of the final rains
of the monsoon season and we were looking forward to a sunny time in
Udaipur (did not realize then just how sunny it was going to get!).
With military like precision, the three ladies in the family got
ready on time and we started at 5:30 AM.
The condition of the roads being excellent, we made good time and
reached the outskirts of Udaipur by around 11:00 AM. Wifey took an
interesting snap of a ‘deluxe’ bus operating between Jaipur and
Udaipur. The caption read ‘ From the city of lakes to the pink
city’ - somehow the caption sounds catchier in Hindi. There didn't
seem anything ‘deluxe’ about the condition of the bus though.
Getting closer to Udaipur and viewing the landscape, one could see
why Udai Singh shifted his capital from Chittorgarh to here. The
whole area seemed to be in a large valley hemmed in by mid size
mountains on most sides. That would have given his troops numerous
vantage points to look out for danger.
I had booked a hotel online after checking out the reviews and
promises of ‘lake facing views’. What had attracted me the most
was the fact that the name of the hotel had the word ‘palace’ in
it and the photographs on the website seemed to confirm that it was
indeed an erstwhile palace. A few reviews were positive too.
It was an anticlimax when we reached the hotel. There was a lake and
a lake facing room all right but the aforementioned lake was nothing
more than a glorified pond! Or Ambalakulam as we say in Malayalam!
You see, there are scores of lakes in Udaipur and the most famous of
them are – Picholi Lake and Fateh Sagar lake. Silly old me had
not checked and hence we got a pond to view from our balcony. The
rooms looked like they had seen better times. I learnt from a
rickshaw driver later that it was indeed a palace and that the hotel
was a well known one in the past, but was currently leased out by the
owners. And definitely not well maintained of late. Having paid a
fortune in advance there was no way we could back out.
Rather than getting bogged down, we decide to make the most of what
we had. By now our two ‘princesses’ were hungry. We decided to
hire an auto-rickshaw for the day and the first request was to take
us to a decent restaurant. After quickly polishing off the thalis, we
visited the city palace by the Picholi lake. The majestic palace was
wonderful to visit and the museum visit meant we could escape from
the midday heat while learning more about the history of the place. A
couple of hours later we came out of the complex, had a quick peek of
the famous Jagmohan temple (from outside) and the contacted our
driver to proceed to the next attraction. A ropeway ride and a boat
ride on Lake Picholi seemed too touristy but we decided to do it
anyway. And… we were glad we did it – the beauty of the city from
the top and from the waters was something indeed. The views were
breath taking!
All we had time for was a quick pit stop for buying trinkets, and
then we headed off to our ‘palace’ for an hour’s rest. We took
it easy after that. We drove around in our car, spent some time by
the Fateh Sagar lake, had dinner (at the same place we had been to
for lunch) and then retired early.
After a reasonably good buffet breakfast, we checked out and headed
off to Saheliyon Ki Bari. This was an exclusive garden/hang out
place made in the early 1700s by the King for his new bride’s
friends (saheliyon). Apparently there were 48 of them and the queen
was also quite demanding. She wanted a ‘rain’ experience. The
kind acquiesced and made a wonderful garden with a set of pools and
fountains that gave a rain like experience all year around. With the
location being downhill, his architects used gravity and hollow
pillars to route the water. They ensured that the fountains never ran
out of water. Cool eh?
Well back in 2017, it was getting hotter by the minute and we decided
to proceed to Sajjangarh palace which is on a hill. It was the summer
retreat of the kings and the views of the lake city from the top were
breathtaking.
It was getting even hotter as it approached midday and we decided to
head back to Indore. Both the car and its occupants had to refuel. We
stopped on the outskirts of Udaipur at a decent looking place for
lunch.
The return journey was uneventful. However one observation made by my
wife was interesting. We passed through multiple villages across two
states during the journey and got a scenic view of rustic life. In
many cases, the cattle had settled in comfortably on the road and
this ensured that speed breakers on the highway were redundant. My
wife’s observation was that in rural areas across India, both women
and men wear traditional clothes – or at least you can see some of
them wearing them. The only exception is Kerala where the attire of
choice is the ‘nightie’ and the ‘lungi’. Come to think of it
she is right – you would find it hard to see someone in a ‘mundum
vesthi’ except during festival season and even then it is typically
the well heeled who flaunt their new clothes!
Anyway back to the trip, the return trip may have been uneventful bit
it was long, we reached home well past 9 PM. All in all, an enjoyable
trip. The kids had fun and so did we. We promised ourselves that if
we went again it would be in winter and of course we would avoid the
‘palace’ we stayed in!
