Firstly a few views of the hotel I was in before in Udaipur. It has, for some reason, a step well, or at least a ‘tank’ for water inside just near to the restaurant. Hopefully they don’t use the water in it any more -
After breakfast I had a walk nearby. Came across a mate of mine –
Carried on past the snack and sugar cane juice sellers –
Saw a few more mates –
Then came to a small offshoot of the main lakes. A couple of palaces are situated in the lakes, one being the Taj Lake Palace Hotel. I used to visit there for the evening buffet. Superb stuff. You can also catch a couple of the tourist boats from here –
Found a couple sharing an intimate moment. I didn’t want to disturb them so I carried on walking –
Had a wander down the backstreets of the locals market, Bapu Bazaar. Nearer to the centre of town is the tourist area where there are also plenty of shops but I tend to avoid it as it’s full of…………. errr……. tourists – which to be fair, I’m also one –
End of part one for this day, I moved to a different hotel.
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Same day –
So, new hotel, quite posh and thought I’d treat myself to at least a decent shower with hot water.
Shame the swimming pool is just that bit too cold for my old bones, at this time of year anyway -
I needed to get up to a place called the Monsoon Palace. Usually it’s a hot spot for the sunset but the times I’ve been there before it was packed out at the viewpoints and you couldn’t see the city nor the sunset, unless you pushed your way through. So I thought I’d slip up when it was quieter as we’ve seen plenty of sunsets anyway. The sun doesn’t actually set at this time of year over the lakes anyway, so it’s a bit of a wasted effort in any case.
However, just as I stopped (in the car) to get my bearings (I do have a SatNav but the free routable map I installed for India is pretty crap and is only good for the main roads), I had to decide to go straight on or right over the small bridge.
The decision was made for me when I saw the following coming towards me –
So I waited –
But then I realised the streets were too narrow to pass it for a while. Never mind –
Eventually I slipped past it and had a view of where I was going in the distance –
I had a bit of a shock. When I used to come here it was free. In fact you could drive all the way up to the front door of the palace, slip the caretaker a few rupees and he’s open the door for you. Now there is an entrance fee per person and per vehicle. Fair enough, I pay it gladly but hope the money does what it’s supposed to do. The inside could do with a bit of TLC though now.
So, plenty of shots of the views and the palace itself –
The evening meal at the new hotel is three times the price of ‘normal’ food, as you’d expect. So on my way back I slipped in to here -
And had a masala dosa plus, because I’m a westerner, a small pizza. The place is one of the numerous ‘milk bars’ that sell mostly milky drinks plus a few snacks -
Next I’m off to Indore. Not a lot for me to do there but it’s en-route across the south of Delhi so I can get across to a couple of places I’d also like to visit. The next couple of days are just travel days in reality.