Udaipur

It was another long drive -- 4 or 5 hours -- from Jaipur to Udaipur.  By this point, we were happy to get some rain along the way.  Then again, there was one point when it was coming down hard enough to flood the road, but Ved handled it all capably.  Until we got to Udaipur, that is. 

There are three lakes in Udaipur.  We knew that our hotel was on one of them, but we didn't know where it was, and neither did Ved.  We stopped several times for him to ask apeople, and we even called the hotel from our mobile and asked them to tell Ved how to get there.  I guess I should explain that, while "everyone" speaks English, drivers don't speak it very well.  I think Ved was speaking Hindi. People kept directing him towards the City Palace, which seemed to be uphilll via a network of narrow, curving streets.  In addition to two-way traffic, there were lots of pedestrians.  At one point, I really didn't see how we were going to get the car through the street, and pedestrians were crowding in between the car and a wall.  I thought someone was going to get killed.  Steve was getting really exasperated with the whole business, but there wasn't anything we could do.  Finally, somehow, we made our way out of the Old City and found our Sheraton a little further West, on Fateh Sagar Lake.

The Sheraton was a notch below our other vacation stays, and it was the first hotel where we were not upgraded to a suite.  Nevertheless, we had a lake view that was just stunning and one day there was a monkey outside our window, so that was pretty cool.  They had live Indian music out on the patio at night, too.  Steve declared the next day Nina Day, so we got to do whatever I wanted.  We went for a walk, then a swim, and finally got Ved to drive us back into town to take the Ropeway up to the top of a hill to see the view just before sunset.  Like everything else in Udaipur, the ropeway was hard to find.  This time Steve had a map, so he was able to recognize when we made a wrong turn, but that didn't mean he was able to figure out the right way either.  But since it was Nina Day, everyone persevered.

The ropeway was a tram that took about 5 minutes to get from the bottom to the top of a hill.  From the top, there were views of Udaipur in every direction.  To the west was Lake Pichola, surrounded by green hills.  The lights were coming on at Jag Mandir, a historical palace, and the Taj Lake Palace hotel, which is so exclusive that you can't even go there for lunch if you're not staying at the hotel.  The sun was setting as we stood at the top and we could suddenly hear the Islamic call to prayer rising from minarets in the city below us.  That was really cool. 

Next day, we decided to once again head for the high ground and so we went to Sajjan Garh Palace, also known as Monsoon Palace.  It once belonged to a rich maharajah, of course, but it's famous because it was featured in the James Bond movie, Octopussy.  That was probably the last time the place was painted.  It has a great location, but the structure is in pretty bad shape.  It was hard to imagine it any other way.

Still, we felt that Udaipur had the most natural scenic beauty of any place we saw in India.  We were glad to have included it in the vacation.

Jaipur

From Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, we continued by car to the "Pink City" of Jaipur in the state of Rajasthan. Jaipur is in a hilly area; as we entered, the road wound uphill through narrow walls.  We stayed at a lovely hotel, Le Meridien (pronounced by the locals as "Lee Meriden") where we were greeted with music, marigold necklaces, and cool drinks.  They didn't have our reservation, but they upgraded us to a suite anyhow.  This hotel places an emphasis on local arts -- in the evening they had drumming, dancing, and a Rajasthani puppet show.  The elevator featured a soundscape that made you feel as if you were being flushed -- that part was just weird.  We found a rooftop bar and had pizza under the stars.

Our first tourist destination was the Amber Fort, built by a maharajah about 400 years ago.  Our guide, Sunil, was great at creating images of what the palace was like in its heydey.  The palace featured a central sleeping area covered with small mirrors that would have reflected candlelight and moonlight.  This would have been richly carpeted and hung with silk curtains blowing in the evening breeze.  There was an early form of air conditioning involving water & air currents.  Underground passages provided a secret means to travel from one palace-fort to another.  It was fascinating.

At the end of the tour, Sunil took us to the "official" store where we learned about the traditional methods used for block printing and carpet weaving.  This was all part of a sales pitch of course. We were tempted by some beautiful carpets, very reasonably priced, but we just don't do that on vacation.

Early risers can ride elephants (locals say "elly-fants") up the hill to the fort.  We were lucky enough to see them bathing in the afternoon, and in the streets again later.  Steve fed some rolls to one from the car window -- it was fun but a little scary too.

The other site on our list was Jantar Mantar, a 400-year-old observatory.  (Interesting that most of the sites we've seen have been about the same age.  I guess it was the Indian Renaissance.)  It had just been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  Our driver couldn't find the place at all the first day, but we went back the next morning and I'm so glad that we did.  The place was like a sculpture garden, but instead of art they had very large scale astronomical "instruments."  This first picture, for example, is a sundial.  It's said to be accurate within two seconds.  Pretty impressive that this maharajah chose to use his power and wealth for scientific (or at least astrological) purposes.

The observatory was peaceful and green.  There were some workers cutting the grass, but no one was trying to sell us anything or take us anywhere.  All of a sudden, a whole bunch of monkeys appeared and ran along the wall.  We took lots of photos.  Here's one of the best.