Udaipur

There are some parts of India where train travel is fairly easy, if not a little slow. However, there is no train route between Jodphur and Udaipur so we have decided to take a local bus service. I am imagining it might be a bit like this!

(I found this photo on the internet when searching for India bus travel).

Fortunately, the bus was not quite so overloaded but quite an experience all the same.

Officially we have chosen seats instead of the beds above and down one side of the bus. These, it seems, have a minimum capacity of about 3 people each. The bus stops frequently during the 7-hour trip. People shuffle on and off and at times we have whole families sitting on the bed above and opposite us. It is a great way to meet people but with no air conditioning and some passengers whose sole aim seems to be to sleep with the windows closed and the curtains drawn, it is hot and oppressive.

You know the smells are bad in India, when all the women put their saris over their noses. This happens frequently on this trip as we pass through cities and villages.

Louie poses for quite a few photos and hungry people let me hold their babies so I’ll trade them some food.

The landscape between Jodhpur and Udaipur is very interesting, with pockets of green and dry mountainous ranges. Jodhpur is the furthest west and, therefore, the driest city we have visited so far.

We are looking forward to Udaipur which has a reputation as the world’s most romantic city.

Perhaps if you had lost your sense of smell it might be romantic!

We’ve had another hotel upgrade from our acquaintance in Agra and our hotel appears very flash. Unfortunately, none of the staff speak any English and seem very confused about our requests for pancakes and toilet paper. The European-style food is odd too but we’re all feeling a little sensitive to the continuous spices in our Indian diet and try to order bland for a while.

We make a “friend” who, coincidentally, happens to be travelling to Wellington, New Zealand in two days with his 94-year-old grandmother who is exhibiting in an Indian textile exhibition at the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art). I didn’t know there was one.

I’m a sucker for an Indian wedding, especially one being held at the Lake Palace for three continuous days, so when he suggests that he could take us to see one, we jump in the Tuk Tuk and head off in the wrong direction.

There is no wedding, but there is a shop displaying his 94-year-old grandmother’s efforts. She must have been very busy because the shop is chocka-block with rumpty old Indian textiles.

We make a hasty retreat. Silly fools, we must still be tired from the journey. I’m sure I read this one in the “Scams of Udaipur”.

Now we are all sick. And this is the size of the roll of toilet paper that we are allocated in our room each day.Indians don’t use toilet paper as a general rule, which is probably just as well considering that much of their raw waste pours into the drains and waterways.

But we really need some right now, and the 1.5  metres attached to this roll is not going to cut it.

The hotel is boring and soulless and I am sad that we let someone convince us that we should change our plans, as the place I had intended to go was in the Old City by the lake and while it might have been a little cramped, it would have been interesting.

However, it’s hard to feel enthusiastic about anything with bad stomach cramps and at least we have air conditioning and a toilet, although the toilet paper issue is becoming dire.

 

The next day we let ourselves be drawn into a few shops for some chai drinking and negotiation.

We chance upon the potential deal of the century, masquerading as importers of Indian lamps. Something I’ve bought in Auckland for $350, has a $30 price tag in India and the shop keeper assures us that he will be able to ship any number of lamps to New Zealand in a container that he will be sending soon. He spends a good five minutes on his phone, scrolling through a number of websites until he finds one that, he assures us, is the page of his export business to NZ. There seems to be zero connection between the web site and the makeshift shop that we are currently standing in but we go along with the ruse as it includes the promise of free shipping and payment on delivery, plus a lemonade each.

We choose enough lamps to fill the house and are driven around in a tuk tuk to see some other amazing things while we’re there, including a wedding procession that we get stuck in the middle of.

Note: Unfortunately, the promise of delivery to our hotel in Jaipur where we will then pay a deposit and make our final choices, later comes to nothing.

Jasper and I have a dinner date as nobody else feels like eating. We take a tuk tuk to the edge of Lake Pichola where we drink chai with an Astrologer and Ayuvedic Doctor who seems very keen to give us a free treatment. It transpires that he is also friends with the man with the 94-year-old grandmother and we make a hasty exit.

We have dinner sitting in a little alcove overlooking the lake. The sun is setting and thousands of bats are flying through the air. Sometimes, being away is very magical.

The next day we all feel better enough to visit the city palace, although Louie goes missing for an hour on a trip to the toilet. He often runs off without toilet paper and gets himself into a bit of a fix.

The look of someone who’s been to too many palaces?

Around Udaipur

Last day Udaipur

We are all pleased to leave Udaipur. Obviously, there are many things in play when it comes to levels of enjoyment of any particular place. Stomach aches are one thing but Louie seems to have some sort of scurvy-related mouth ulcers and to add insult to injury, everywhere he goes, people affectionately squeeze and whack his cheeks. The ‘selfie with a westerner’ is also becoming quite exhausting and we are spending more time avoiding people with cell phones than enjoying our environment.

Family dynamics are fairly fragile at the moment and Louie caused the bathroom ceiling to fall down in a fit of rage whilst kicking the bathroom door. Luckily it was just a hinged ceiling that opened to reveal a whole lot of exposed wiring. Phew. I thought we were in trouble for a moment. Luckily no one died and we didn’t get charged with a room refurbishment fee.

I download a kids’ meditation app and buy a two bottles of omega 3. Funnily enough, I administer this to Jasper who was at the root of the bathroom incident.

More about family dynamics later.

When we stay somewhere where we can’t have conversations with other people, the combustion levels seem to rise exponentially in the family. Udaipur has been one of those places.