In the last episode we discovered that Christmas morning carolling in Udaipur train station, Rajasthan, India, was in fact rejuvenating. From the train station we got into cabs to head to the hotel well before sunrise. As soon as we had checked into our rooms this is the view that greeted us.
I will update these pictures once I get back to Toronto (hooray Photoshop) so you can get a better idea. Christmas morning in Udaipur started off with PS and AS crying off touristing because of their respective sicknesses. However, AQ and NS were more than raring to go.
We started the day off by meeting our guide. Very nice fellow, who more than made up for my guide that we had in Agra back when PD and MT were around. This guy was full of pride for Udaipur. One of the first places were went to was the city palace. City Palace was amazing. A full fledged palace maintained privately, with the Royal family still living on a separate wing. But enough about the beauty of the building. I am sure you can read up on it on Wiki.
Let me focus for a bit on the rulers. The Suryavanshi’s who ruled all of Udaipur (and still live there) were a tough breed of fighters. The downside of that it seems was that they spent a lot of time on women when not warring. And since wars are not an everyday event, they spent a lot of time doing nothing other than fornicating (according to the guide anyway). I left with a distinct impression that they built these beautiful forts just to bed as many women as possible. The dude had a “favourite wife”. How a favourite was chosen and how often one could be chosen was arbitrary. All we were told was that a king could have multiple wives and a couple of thousand concubines. This means that NK, our dashing yet slightly stressed out guide’s, ancestors were the original Hugh Hefners. I am not kidding. The kings built entire grottos just to chill with the ladies. Needless to say our female companions were less than thrilled with the kings of yore. I remain deeply sceptical on the sexual prowess presented here. I mean they used to hang up massive curtains to prevent others from looking in. What’s to stop him from playing Solitaire in there? I mean at the end of the day, he only has one thingy…. unless…. wait…what were we talking about here? Right, Udaipur.
The coolest thing on display by far was the miniature paintings. Not as cool as our tour guide made it seem, but they were cool regardless. The miniature is because of the level of detail not the size of the painting. The detail even in the beards was amazing. However, the guide’s constant, YOU WILL NEVAR SEE THIS ANYWHAAARRR attitude, finally got on AQ’s nerves and she pretty much told him about where all this kind of work can be seen. He was pretty unhappy at having his parade rained upon but did tone it down a bit.
The guide was a feisty one thought. He revealed to us that the palaces are the pride of Udaipur, and whenever, people do stupid things there, they all take personal responsibility. I saw him cuss out several people for many infractions, including two idiots who were getting a picture taken outside of the guard rails protecting a lookout point, overlooking a 60-70 ft. drop.
Touring was fun, but this was the last place that was on the itinerary for me. Christmas night was spent at a wonderful restaurant with my good friends. This restaurant overlooked Lake Pichola on whose banks City Palace and the Palace of Pleasure were resplendently lit, and whose reflections in the lake was too beautiful for words. It was the perfect end to my adventures.
Or so I thought.
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