Udaipur... pretty white building in a lake, but great hunting lodge!

LIfe is good at the Maharajas Hunting Lodge

The next morning we were up and on our way for the long 7 hour drive to Udaipur with the now common road-side stop for lunch. This place was the best of very few. Not many tourists drive from Jaipur to Udaipur as it is much easier to fly. The food was strange and not that good, but when you are hungry just about anything will do and we didn’t get sick at all! We fed some of the stray puppies with our left overs, some of them are so adorable you want to play with them, but this is not such a good idea here. We made it into the city an hour and a half before sunset and pulled into our hotel at the Maharaja’s old hunting palace. This heritage hotel (Shikarbadi) was beautiful and tranquil. It is surrounded by the Maharaja’s horse stables, complete with many of his prized horses, his own private airport, a deer park, peacocks and lots of monkeys in the trees. After supper, while trying to feed one of the horses, we apparently disturbed a monkey who was sleeping in the tree above us. In retribution, he tried to pee on us from the top of the tree, but got out of the way before getting hit because we heard the rustling in the tree.

The city of dawn, Udaipur, is surrounded by what were once azure lakes (Lake Pichola), hemmed in by the lush hills. Udaipur has a long history of being the inspiration for poets, painters and writers. It is also known as the jewel of MEWAR – a kingdom ruled by the Sisodia dynasty for 1200 Years who never succumbed to the Mughal or British rule. The modern Udaipur is a small (by Indian standards) city that has surprisingly clean, tiny winding streets in the city center.

After the temple, we went to the City Palace. Standing on the east bank of lake Pichola, is a massive series of palaces built at different times from 1559 A.D. The balconies of the palace provide panoramic views of "Jag Niwas" (the worldwide famous Lake Pichola palace hotel), Jag Mandir on one side and on the other the city of Udaipur. The palace is like many in Northern India, filled with many arches, series of courtyards, terraces, corridors and gardens. The Krishna vilas is a palace within the City Palace that was constructed in memory of a princess of striking beauty who poisoned herself to avert a bloody battle for her hand in marriage by two rival princes. The palace now contains many antique articles, paintings, decorative furniture and utensils. The Mewar rulers have been known throughout history for their contributions to charity and the downtrodden. At certain ceremonies the king would weigh himself on a giant scale and give away his weight in gold coins to the masses. Presently the Palace is still occupied by the royal family and much of it is cordoned off to the public, but they allow many artisans to take residence in the courtyards to sell their goods.