Day 28: Udaipur

I had high hopes for Udaipur; I was desperate for something nice. I knew one thing: I wanted to stay at a nice hotel with a swimming pool. Bumming around for the last couple of weeks was started to take its toll on me and I was ready for some comfort. I also wanted to “recover” before I head home not after. As soon as I arrived I went straight to a hotel I checked out online. It was luxury compared to everywhere else I stayed: nice huge bed, window seat/bed, nice bathroom, wifi, flat screen, AC and most importantly a swimming pool and all of it for $30 a night! I was in heaven. My throat was not feeling good and I had to catch up with the hydration. I took a nice nap to recover from the road last night.

A few hours later I was out to check out the town and I really liked it. I knew immediately that I will be staying here longer than I planned. I finally love India, maybe I just didn’t go to the right places before. Or maybe I just needed almost a month to start to appreciate the country. Or maybe I had to have no expectations of any kind. Or maybe Udaipur was just better than other places I’d been. First of all it was noticeably quiet. My hotel was out of the main tourist area, about a kilometer away. It was nice to have to walk that much everyday to get to the shops and food. Like Pushkar there was life beyond tourism here. Hassle was minimal. The city is physically prettier than other places, it actually had some character unlike the cement blocks that dominate other places I’ve been. Also Udaipur has a few monuments and palaces that seem to fit well in their settings rather than stand out in stark contrast like Agra and Amritsar. To make things even better there were quite a few handsome men in town, a wealth of masculine hands and handsome mustaches.

The lake was dry and the bottom turned into a flat grazing field for sheep. The two island palaces now stand exposed and accessible by foot rather than boat. The lake palace hotel dug a small canal so that guests can pretend there is water by taking a boat ride between the palace and the shore. The setting of the town is also beautiful with hills all around. I bet this place is much more beautiful when the lake is full and the hills are green. On the grassy bottom on the lake there were people strolling, horses, sheep grazing, boys playing cricket. The sky was overcast and the temperature was fine.

As the sun started to set I walked back to a rooftop restaurant where I earlier saw a sign advertising for a daily showing of James Bond’s 1983 Octopussy movie much of which was shot in Udaipur. It seemed like an awesome thing to do on my first night here. I was there early and I was the only one. I had my dinner then went up to watch the movie and there were three other Americans from Chicago. We all sat in front of the TV screen to watch the movie play from a bootleg DVD. I had seen the movie years ago but it was just another James Bond. It was very entertaining to count off all the Indian stereotypes: Snake charmers, a sword swallower, fire eaters and very sexy women in minimal clothing. As the sun was setting thousands of bats flew over the dry lake in one direction. There was a continuous stream of bats until it was night. It was really one of those moments, it was perfect.