At 6:15 AM we met Milo. He’s a beagle. He lives at the hotel and his human runs it. He runs the human.
By 6:30, we had mounted out bikes and set off on a sunrise trek through Udaipur and around a nearby lake.
It was dark and the streets were uneven, and although early there were still a few tuck tucks and motorbikes careening through the streets. Precarious and scary, especially since I haven’t ridden a bike in decades. I had a really hard time with the gears but eventually it mostly… kinda…. sorta came back to me. It go a little easier once dawn broke as at least then I could mostly… kinda… sorta see where I was riding.
We took our time appreciating the sights and views of the area… and riding through water buffalo was an experience to be sure.
With the sun risen we headed to a local coffee shop to grab a 5 rupee chai masala (which is… what? Seven cents?). I snapped a photo with our guide … who’s name is… oh, man… this is embarrassing. Wait! We traded Instagram handles – Devvrat! Phew. I’m terrible with names and because I am writing this several days after the fact the details are fuzzier and already fading. This is why I like to write down as much as possible as soon as possible for these blog posts… but sometimes I feel like I’m too busy documenting and not focused enough on living, ya know?
Like a lot of places in India… and frankly the world… I am constantly astonished at the amount of trash that gets left behind by we humans… nature is all too often spoiled by our actions.
Having returned to the hotel and having been welcomed back by Milo, we returned our bikes and prepped for a Katie-guided walking tour of Udaipur.
First stop: The City Palace, where construction began in 1553 and continued through various heads of the Mewar dynasty for over 400 years. And here I thought I had trouble with contractors.
Is it common and gauche that perhaps the most impressive thing I saw here were props from the movie Gandhi? I had just seen the movie after all.
Not to detract from the architecture, just that, ya know — Ben Kingsley’s glasses!
Second Stop: A Boat Tour to Jag Mandir!
Boating past the abandoned and left to rot Lake Palace (which was still stunning to see even in a dilapidated state), we were ferried over to the Jag Mandir, a palace on Lake Pichola but that instead of just floating on its own in the water was built on a small island.
It only took about 100 years to build in the early-1500s and was used as a summer palace and a, ahem, pleasure palace for the royal family.
Back in Udaipur proper, we were walking back to the hotel to regroup when we happened upon the third “classic” stop in town: The Jagdish Temple. It’s an impressively imposing structure that featured, ahem, unpaid guides who after guiding you around the double-storey Mandapa (hall) to a double-storey saandhara (with a covered ambulatory) sanctum, would then “guide” you to their shop and to the donation box.
And because when compiling a list of “to dos” my brother long ago wisely told me to put “have lunch” on there as an easy one to check, we went to a non-gluten friendly place at Katie’s direction: the Yummy Yoga. My stomach was a bit overwhelmed by the cooking class the previous evening so I opted for one of the lamer meals imaginable – an order of French fries (known here I guess as “finger fries”) and a Coke Zero. Sometimes being the cautious American traveler is the better part of stomach valor.
While Katie shopped, I endeavored to upload photos and stories to here… and it proved frustratingly unsuccessful. So now after I’ve written it in a car days later, you’re reading it days removed from that.
Time and blogging are fickle mistresses… but I do try and satisfy them when I can.