When we arrived on our platform I was surprised to see that the tracks were narrow gauge and the carriages looked considerably older, even retaining the original colour scheme of the old Northern Railway. On the platform we spotted these three poor doggies no doubt making the best of a bad situation on this conveniently abandoned pile of sand.
As soon as the train was in motion it quickly became apparent why the rest of the sub-continent switched to broad gauge about 30 years ago. As it picked up speed, the carriages lurched violently from side to side, to the point that our whole bodies were constantly sliding around on the shiny pvc fold down benches, banging our heads and limbs on the various obstructions that painfully kept us from falling on the floor.
Neither of us really slept at all, and we were both relieved when the sun finally came up, giving us the excuse we needed to pack the bunks away and get our first look at the stunning light of a brilliant Rajasthani morning.
Totally mind blowing.
It was dryer still than the plains of Gujarat that we had left behind. We had read that the picturesque Lake Pichola in Udaipur can completely dry up if the monsoon does not bring enough rain. We crossed our fingers, but it seemed improbable that any lake could survive in this baked landscape.
We reached Udaipur railway station at 6am, and squeezed our way through the dozy masses exiting the train to find a cheerful rickshaw driver who took us directly to our chosen accommodation. We had chosen to push the boat out a tiny bit, as we thought it was the time and the place for a bit of luxury. I managed to persuade the very helpful manager to throw in their totally enormous breakfast for free as we planned to stay four nights. This pleased me greatly even before we saw just how stunning the room was. Just check out this view!
That is the Lake Palace you can see out of our window. It was built for the Maharaja, but is now a top notch exclusive hotel belonging to the Taj group. Some scenes from the bond film Octopussy were filmed there as well as at the two other palaces located nearby. It was a real jaw dropper of a view.
The room was subtlely but tastefully decorated. Clairy fell in love with these beautiful appliqué curtains and actually ended up buying one from the hotel before we left.
'Very sleepy, but super chuffed to be here!'
After a quick nap, we headed up to the incredible roof terrace for some open-mouthed gawping at the view and a spot of brekky. Here's the lake palace again. The hotel completely covers the 1.5 hectare Jagniwas Island and was built by Maharaja Jagat Singh II in 1754. It was created as a summer palace for the royal family.
As we quickly learnt, everywhere you look in Udaipur, there is a palace or temple. This is the City Palace as seen from our rooftop restaurant...
...and the Hanuman Ghat, a small peninsular opposite us across Lake Pichola.
The restaurant was also really tastefully laid out and decorated, with these lovely little open alcoves for appreciating the view and the breeze.
We went for an explore and Clairy snapped this pic of the local laundry being done. It definitely didn't look the cleanest spot to be doing it. We think the things on the right were the remnants of some kind of fishing equipment.
A pidgie who's found a nice spot. Up on the rooftop restaurants we kept seeing huge numbers of pigeons flying round and around in huge groups above the lake. It really looked like pidgie-paradise. So much nicer than the grotty state we see them in back in Trafalgar Square.
Some pretty architectural details down by the city palace dock.
We threaded our way through the tiny cobbled back streets down by the lake. I spotted this nice simple design of a lotus flower.
Clairy liked the look of this doorway and managed to catch this cheerful women as she came out of her home in a pretty sari.
There's always something on fire somewhere, but it made an attractive shot.
We eventually found ourselves at the totally empty rear entrance to the City Palace.
Still part of the lovely City Palace complex, this building looked rather forlorn, and had a broken door, with a sign above that read 'National Archives Office'. Glad they're being well looked after.
Still being rather dozy, we decided we would leave the City Palace until we had had some lunch and were a bit more with it. We walked passed the entrance and took some pics looking over the high wall on the opposite side to the lake.
The city stretched away into the distance in all its angular glory.
We headed down through the palace gates to the main tourist streets in town. It still had lots of pretty worn old buildings about. We loved the tiny battered shutters on these windows.
With some gentle coaxing, I managed to get Clairy up the eight steep flights of stairs to Maxim's Cafe for a quick fresh lime soda and some pidgie-eye-view photo opportunities.
Next to us in the middle of this shot was the hugely elaborate Jagdish Temple built by Maharaja Jagat Singh in 1651.
We particularly like the piles of drying cow-poo-pies on the roof behind here. They are used as fuel for open fires.
A hairy mutant.
There were loads of these little chaps jumping around way up high on the surrounding buildings. This one was just taking a little break from all the effort. Later I watched one pull the ketchup bottle over on the table behind us and try to suck some out whilst holding on to it with his tiny arms. Cheeky booger.
We had some lunch at a place down the road with the quality name of 'The Whistling Teal'. They had a pretty little garden and a surprisingly healthy lawn.
After a tasty curry we made our way back up towards the palace. I aimed us in the general direction and we explored some more tiny cobbled back streets.
We loved this painting of a cheerful elephant on the side of someone's house. Later we saw them all over the place, but didn't manage to figure out what the significance of them was.
After a small amount of confusion caused by an over-eager guide complicating our ticket purchasing process, we headed into the palace complex. The arches below are part of a set of seven that commemorate the seven times that Maharajas were weighed here. Their weight in gold or silver was distributed to the lucky locals.
The ornate Tripolia Gate, added in 1725.
The palace is Rajasthan's largest, with a façade 244m long and 30.4m at its highest. It was created and added to by successive Maharajas..
Later on our tour of the palace we would look down from this pretty tiled balcony right at the top.
Clairy loved this unexpected golden sun motif. We later saw up close that the face was modelled on one of the Maharajas complete with tidy moustache.
The entrance to the palace museum.
The first of many beautiful mosaic filled rooms. This was right at the start and featured Ganesh, as he is thought to bring good fortune to all who pass by.
After hurrying through a massive display of arms and weaponry, we couldn't help but get a pic of this reproduction of one of the founding Maharaja's horse armour. In the accompanying paintings the elephant styling wasn't quite as pronounced. I think his enemies would have had trouble taking him seriously riding around on this monstrosity.
We liked this painting of the generous Maharaja returning a captured Muslim women to her people.
Check out that beardy peg. I'm hoping when we get back I should be able to achieve this with a bit of work from Clairy's hair straighteners.
Lovely lighting. Shame about the hairy beast getting in the way of a nice picture. This marble bath type affair was apparently carved out of one mahoosive chunk. It was then filled with coins that were tossed over the wall to the poor peasants eking out an existence below the palace. The Maharajas seemed keen for people to know about there thoughtful acts of chariddy.
One of the many pretty interconnected courtyards that the palace was built around.
A random room full of birdcages. Possibly for the royal carrier-pidgies.
I loved this particular jali (carved screen). We read that no two were identical, but like in some other places we have visited, I'm sure we spotted a few that were pretty damn similar.
Beautiful views of the city from up top.
Another gorgeous airy courtyard. This one had these lovely trees swaying in the breeze.
The Moti Mahal (Pearl Palace), with its pretty mirror work.
'Oh hi! Check us out in this crazy mirrored zig-zag fun house.'
Pretty ornamental tiles in the Chini Mahal. This was the tiled balcony we photographed from down below.
The Zenana Mahal (Women's Palace) was done out in wall to wall murals.
A slightly strange shooting style in this painting of a poor bear/pig getting it from the Maharaja.
Each tiny staircase took us to a different section decorated in a completely different style.
Nice old textures for Clairy.
This painting shows the original design for the Monsoon Palace complete with its mahoosive thirteen storey tower. The Maharaja building it died when they were only on the fifth floor, and the building stopped there sadly.
Nice views. Nice boom.
The Lake Palace.
We liked the little trompe l'eaux door on the right complete with old style padlock.
This area had more super intricate mosaics. The were originally all done by one man apparently. Must have taken the poor bugger ages.
'The Royal Commode'
A dangerous place to be when one had consumed too much opium.
The Royal Scales. These were used to weigh the Maharajas in order to know the amount of gold or silver that was to be 'squandered' on their subjects (this was the actual phrase used on the accompanying text!).
We loved the peacock mosaics. A local firm had done a beautiful job on their recent restoration.
More shiny rooms. These ones for the wives and concubines.
And finally a nice set of utensils used by the army of staff who no doubt waited on them.
Outside we felt it was necessary for me to test out the 'Portable cage for trapping and keeping tigers'. Clairy slipped a samosa in one end and I was straight in there.
We watched the sunset from our lovely rooftop restaurant and took some great pics.
What a spectacular introduction to Rajasthan. We were instantly totally in love with Udaipur.
1 comment:
Well, puts Wells Cathedral in the shade! beautiful mosaics and carvings. But as always you need the rich and the poor for buildings like that to be built - great to hear of their beneficence! C&B xx
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