Day 88 - Udaipur, India

Day 88 – Hers.

We awoke at 8 and had coffee in the room before emerging – this made quite a difference to Rob; he’s never really with it until after his morning coffee so he has sort of wandered through the first hour of each day until we got here. A kettle in the room is really all it takes!

We met the group at nine and walked along the lakeside up to the entrance of the City Palace.  The City Palace is huge – it took 3 hours just to see the 1/3 that’s open to the public. The Maharanah (He’s the king of Udaipur – a maharanah outranks even a maharajah.) lives in another 1/3 – well for part of the year. He actually lives in London for 6 months – he’s  there now but expected back here in time for the Diwali festival.  Our local guide was a very humorous and knowledgeable 71 year old gentleman – obviously of very high caste – who has been leading tours for 51 years.  He showed us the living quarters of the polio-afflicted Maharanah from the early 1900s and his wife – and the quarters of his grandfather who was quite a character.  It seems he had 1600 wives – each with a number rather than a name and each of whom got to visit the spectacular kama sutra room with the king one night every five years.  She was dressed and made up in a mirrored and gem-studded room, then awaited his majesty’s pleasure in a room with a richly embroidered window seat – and also a swing.  This particular Maharanah refused to attend the Delhi conference called by King George – the only Indian king to do so – and there was never a British colonial administrator in Udaipur. Neither did the Murghuls ever rule here.  The fortress and kingdom has been ruled by the same family for 1300 years, protected by the surrounding mountains.  There was however a curse on the family – placed by one princess named Krishna who committed suicide to avoid a war.  She had been engaged to the Maharajah of Jaipur who sent his wedding procession for her – but the Maharajah of Jodhpur also sent a procession.  To avoid a war between the two, the princess drank a bottle of poison and foretold that the family would never hence have any sons to rule as direct descendants.  This came to pass – the family had no further sons in direct succession to the throne until after the declaration of the republic. 

After our tour, we wandered around the town a bit – there are many temples and palaces (Most now expensive hotels.) set around some beautiful man-made lakes.  Udaipur is, in fact, known as the ‘City of Lakes’ in the guidebooks.  The lakes are, indeed, beautiful this year and about 7 metres deep – but are very dependent on the monsoon rains.  Apparently, in 2009 there was very little rain in the monsoon season – and the lake palaces were ‘mud’ palaces, the locals played cricket on the dried out lake beds and the tourist industry was very badly hit.

We had lunch seated on cushions on the upstairs balcony of the Lotus Cafe.  Rob is still babying his stomach – he had boiled eggs and toast.  I had a lovely, spicy vegetable curry with some kind of bhaji type things.  We returned to the hotel after lunch for a swim – and dried off in the sun, watching the hotel’s 3 pet tortoises wander around the gardens.

Day 88 – His

One of the great things about travelling is the ideas it gives you. Yesterday – was it really only yesterday? – anyway, let’s say it was – yesterday, while wandering around the palace I came across a style of painting called Marwar – never heard of it before – but, apparently, they use gold and silver leaf and some kind of weird tin alloy and a specialist technique to create vivid metallic colours. This is in fact oddly useful to me with one of the ideas I have. So as part of our wander around Udaipur we went to a Marwar painting school where they were happy to teach me how to make and use these paints – I am so pleased . So now I think I will use these techniques in a couple of projects I have waiting for me when I get home.

After my painting lessons we went out to see the sunset over the lakes and wander around the Tibetan market – which seems to be where the locals go to find their jumpers and Pashminas. We almost bought something but we have been told southern India is so much cheaper we are waiting to see.

We leave for the airport tomorrow at half five and this is our last night as a group. We lose three members who are travelling on to Delhi with our northern India tour guide. We go unescorted to meet our southern Indian guide who has the unlikely name of Dennis.

So, we went out for a last night dinner at a restaurant by the lake and said our traditional farewells and gave the obligatory hugs to those we were losing and walked back through the town to sleep – half five comes very quickly when you go to bed at eleven!