The City of Lakes
After the ride in the big old Ambassador into town, we checked into a room at the beautiful Jagat Niwas hotel in Udaipur. Udaipur is an incredibly picturesque town, with winding streets and steep narrow lanes. Known as the City of Lakes, the town is built around Lake Pichola, a lake made by Maharana Udai Singh when he founded the city. With the lake full, it is a fantastic setting and we spent most of our spare time sitting in rooftop cafes looking out over the lake, admiring the gorgeous Moghul architecture.
Our first hotel was gorgeous - our twin room had its own little verandah where we could sit and look into the open garden courtyard in the middle of the hotel. White walls, ornate arches and colored glass windows set the scene perfectly. Dinner was in the rooftop restaurant, in a window seat which literally opens onto the lake - the windows don’t have any glass so we sat on a day bed, leaning againts the low window frames about 3-4 storeys above the lake. Bit of a rush for someone who is a tad afraid of heights! :-/
The next day we had to move hotels so we checked into a budget hotel, Lake Ghat. A third of the price of the other hotel, the rooms were comfy and the owner really friendly. After waking up two mornings without power, we soon realised that the breaker was flipping overnight so we quickly worked out how to fix this each morning, having located the circuit box for our floor!
Udaipur is famous for its minature paintings so we spent a lot of time cruising the art shops, magnifying glass in hand, examining the amazing detail of the work. The pressure from the dozens of different dealers was never-ending, but there was one or two shops with great store-holders who were happy to let you browse pressure free, which was a welcome relief.
Next door to the Lake Ghat hotel was the Star book store, run by a friendly man, Kishore. With reasonable internet access at our fingertips, I spent time catching up on the backlog of this blog! Kishore even stocked up on Diet Coke for us - our surregate in lieu of good coffee…
