After a couple of days driving, our arrival in Udaipur was like an oasis in the desert. Udaipur looks like something out of a fairy tale – when I imagined India – this is how it appeared. Udaipur is a city of lakes, canals, and opulent palaces – the city oozes romance.

We decided to splurge a bit and stay at a heritage hotel on Lake Pichola – we were not disappointed. You’ll recall our hotel room from the previous night (‘hotel’ might be a stretch … I’ll just call it ‘lodging’):

It was quite the contrast with Jagat Niwas Palace, which looked like this:

With a window seat in our room:

That looked out on to the lake, with this view:

The picture directly above is the Lake Palace Hotel, which is located on it’s own island on the lake, and was featured in the James Bond movie Octopussy. Today it’s a very expensive luxury hotel (I know this, because when Linds tried to call the Lake Palace in Mt. Abu, our next destination, he was erroneously connected to this Lake Palace – when they began quoting him the rates, his eyes started bugging out of his head. He soon figured out that he had the wrong hotel). Udaipur’s Lake Palace hotel has butlers that are apparently descended from the original palace staff, if that’s your thing. If you can’t afford the Lake Palace, you can visit one of the many restaurants around town that show Octopussy on a constant loop (the waitstaff must go insane).

We spent a few days exploring Udaipur. Like many of the cities we’ve visited, it’s full of twisting colourful alleyways (and cows and touts and honking motorbikes). It’s completely charming. Here are a few scenes from the city:

A cow, at his designated feeding station (note the prime real estate dedicated to this important activity)

An elderly lady wearing a colourful sari.

Bagore-ki Haveli. Many of the old havelis (mansions) have been converted into shops, hotels and museums. Some, like this one, have been restored, others are crumbling, but somehow remain beautiful.

Old doors.

A typical (lively!) street scene through another gorgeous doorway.

We also paid a visit to the City Palace, the largest palace in Rajasthan (and unlike for instance, ‘the largest palace in Canada’, this is actually saying something). The palace is massive (5 acres), and was added on to by 22 different Maharajas over the course of five centuries, resulting in a slightly disjointed effect. It also drove Lindsay totally insane because we were asked for our tickets that same number of times over the course of an hour. There is no doubt that the Indian quest for full employment is going strong here – particularly in terms of ornamental government positions. As an aside, my favourite totally unnecessary government job so far is the guy who takes your money at the toll booth, and passes it to the guy in the toll booth, then passes back your receipt back from the toll booth man. Why does he exist? Can’t the toll booth guy do it? Is it really that difficult? I’ve given up trying to understand.

Unique stone carvings adorned the windows throughout the palace – I counted at least 50 different patterns

A view from the palace

Colourful carvings

The royal disco room

These special statues were throughout the palace, and gave visitors a glimpse of life back in the day of the Maharaja. Here he is with his horse – yes, it really is a horse … don’t fooled by it’s clever elephant disguise!

After a few wonderful days in Udaipur, we headed West to Mt. Abu by bus. The bus ride was notable for a couple of reasons. First, as we approached a tunnel carved into the rock on the highway, the passengers leaned out the window to take photos and started screaming and whooping in the darkness once we’d entered. They had never been in a tunnel before! Secondly, there had been rock slides alongside the highway, and the rocks that were blasted to build the highway had crumbled down onto the road. The thing is – no one had bothered to move the rocks. They were just sitting on the road (i.e. blocking a full lane of a four lane highway). They were actually there so long that grass and plants were growing on them. The traffic simply drove around the twenty or so piles that we passed. It was slightly unsettling.

But then, India is full of random experiences and encounters. Once you learn to embrace them, it’s endlessly fascinating and entertaining. We arrived in Mt. Abu, a ‘hill station’ that was used by the British to escape the heat, and is now full of Gujarati tourists doing the same. Lindsay was off trying to find our hotel and I was watching our bags near Nakki Lake, in the busy center of the town. A group of tourists approached and asked if they could take their photo with me – 15 min. later, I had posed for photos with every single member of this large extended Indian family – Lindsay simply watched and laughed – we’ve been asked for photos before, but in this case, I felt like I was part of a major photo shoot. My mouth hurt from smiling so much and I had a newfound appreciation for fashion models.

Lindsay took a picture of me getting my picture taken

It’s not just me that get asked to be in photos. Our second night in Mt. Abu, we walked up to sunset point, a popular place to view the sunset (surprise). It was also a popular place for people to watch us – we sat on a ledge to enjoy the view and eventually there was a cluster of about twenty Indian boys that settled behind us just staring at us. Eventually one of the younger boys asked Linds what his caste was (the boys will always talk to Lindsay, the girls to me – it is quite traditional here). Rather than explaining that we don’t have the caste system in Canada, Linds replied ‘Watt’. Satisfied that he met the criteria, the boy asked Linds for his picture because ‘you are so long, and I am so short’. That got people laughing and we had a good bonding moment on the hill with our new teenage friends. Incidentally, we were on the secluded part of the hill, surrounded by only 50 or 60 others. This was the scene a little further downl:

The Indians we’ve met have a great sense of community, and seemingly do everything in large groups of family and friends. As with much of Asia, personal space is a luxury that most people don’t have, and don’t seem to desire either. The local boys even bathed together in the river in Udaipur.

The sunset itself wasn’t especially awesome that night, but the people watching en route was good. Take, for instance, this upstanding gentleman, being pushed up the hill by women and children.

Well done sir!

We also encountered this fine cow. Lindsay has continually made fun of me because I steer clear (no pun intended) of the giant cows that roam the streets – I think they’re kind of intimidating. But this one actually charged at me – I knew that my fear wasn’t totally irrational!

My nemesis.

Another random incident – we were walking to breakfast when a local policeman stopped us, introduced himself and asked where we were from. This wasn’t unusual – tens of people introduce themselves to us in a day (generally right before they try to sell us something (‘what is your country?’ .. ‘please come in to my store’ …). What was unusual was that he asked us for our phone number, and when we replied that we don’t have one, he insisted that we take his, and call him when we returned to Canada. We were trying to picture this scenario at home – a cop walks up to a random Indian tourist, gives him his phone number and asks the tourist to call him when he’s home in India … it just wouldn’t fly.

There isn’t much to do in Mt. Abu, but it’s a pretty town, and the only place where I’ve seen palm trees in the mountains. We had really travelled there to see the Dilwara Jain Temples, incredible carved marble temples built in the 10th century. They represent an important pilgrimage for followers of Jainism, and are completely spectacular. Unfortunately you can’t take photos in the temples themselves (an enterprising Western couple had stationed themselves inside and were sketching them, but we didn’t have the patience or skill). Instead, we bought postcards, and photographed them for your viewing pleasure. The carved marble was unlike anything I’ve seen before, and included everything from Gods and Goddesses, elephants and flowers, to complete, intricately detailed war scenes.

On our final day in Mt. Abu, we hiked up to Toad Rock, which actually looked like a turtle. Here is the view from the top:

On the way down the hill, we met this guy, who gave us holy water and mints and asked us to photograph him. So we did.

As I said, no shortage of random encounters.