The city of lakes - Udaipur

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!