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India

Udaipur - Exploring the city
We left Mumbai on Sunday and arrived in Udaipur with enough time to unload our bags, settle into our hotel (Kumbha Palace) and hit the streets.


From the get go, we were completely entranced with this place; we loved the small, winding, narrow alleys, the pastel homes with flat rooftops, the hidden staircases that took you ever higher and higher toward the city walls, the decorative windows, the Raj-style paintings on the walls, the innumerable Jain and Hindu temples, and the smiling faces of the locals.

People
The people are open and friendly, and even though there is a significant tourist presence in the city, we never felt 'shunned' as foreigners. I tried to imagine the life that the old lady has lived, or that the young girl has in front of her. As we met up with the brother and sister, who were about Alea and Breck's ages, I had a shiver of "what if" for them - how they could very easily be the kids who were out fetching water and firewood, in the middle of a city at the start of the 21st century...
People were out and about, doing their business, whether it was selling brooms from the back of the bicycle or betel leaves for pan masala or guthka out of the back of the house.

Buildings and street scenes


The winding alleyways, bedecked with draped wires of all types, showed off pastel buildings, fantastic windowsills, and cows around every corner.


Decorated for Diwali, the city was a mosaic of color and activity


Susan loved the windows and the mix of old shutters with new plaster.

And, as on almost any Indian street, the sights, sounds, and smells can be pretty overwhelming. Better to look out from a secluded watching spot! 

Shopping


Udaipur is a traveler's (and local's) shopping heaven. Find just the right color sari


Or an 'antique' Rajasthani doll


Or the correct size and shape pot


or other wood working item, and decorate it with a hand-strung garland of marigolds. Fantastic!!

Temples and worship
Everywhere we looked were little temples, wall paintings, and homages to the gods. Even private residences usually had a shrine of some sort out in the open.



Vishnu and Laxmi are the big god and goddess here, and their images were everywhere we looked
Breck even did a little tiger riding outside one of the temples we visited.

And of course we stumbled upon a Ganesh as well!

Colors
 
The bright pastels - sounds like an oxymoron, but really is the truth! - of Udaipur were the high point of our trip. We were so entranced by the colors that we bought three paintings from a local artist that abstractly portray the buildings.

Everywhere we looked - from the bright contrasts between home and door, to the subtle shades of life imitating art, to the sun-highlighted shoppers, to the piles of cooking pots and pans stacked in an alleyway - we were astounded by the vibrancy of life here.

Boat ride
We tried to escape from the sights one day, but failed abjectly! We headed out one afternoon for a ride on Lake Pichola in a paddle boat. We went out around a deserted temple in the middle of the water and passed a group of women bathing and doing their laundry from one of the ghats.
It was hot and the paddles were really tough to move, so we were not keen on staying out too long. Luckily we got another chance to go out, this time on an evening cruise as the light went down.

Hotel Fun
When we needed a break from the action, even our hotel gave us no respite! Breck played with Max the tortoise, and the kids had a hard time convincing Roxie to calm down!
 
But we eventually did make it out, and started our sightseeing at the City Palace...
Udaipur home - Exploring the city - City Palace - Dance performance - Night lights - Jagdish Temple - Life on the Ranch - Country Scenes - Diwali - Mountain Ridge - Jain Temples - Lift, Lake, and Leaving

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