Udaipur Diaries #Day 2

After visiting the City palace i walked around the old city (by old city i mean the places adjacent to lake Pichola). The roads are very narrow that some of the balconies, literally, lie hanging above the road. House doors open direct on the main road. So there is no question of drainage system. on that narrow lane, cows, donkeys and even horses are found loitering and littering too.

Little boy trying to pose while his mother was yelling at him.

As i was about to cross a mosque one little boy approached me to have click photo of him, as he was posing his mother yelled and demanded his immediate return. Poor kid he could not even see his pic. By now i was very hungry so I walked ahead looking for a restaurant.

The roof top restaurant had surprisingly dynamic view of the lake Pichola and the Fateh Prakash Palace Hotel and Jagmandir Island palace. In general the restaurants all over Udaipur serves multi cuisine including western dishes and surprisingly almost all the restaurants are located on the roof top. But options for booze are very selective, so you need to know exactly what to have before hand and chose your food destiny. Mind you that foods are quite expansive with decent quality.

After filling my tummy and little tipsy, i went back to hotel, enjoyed a Chinese horror movie about a devil on the cable TV provided in the hotel room…

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The next day i woke up with the warmth of sun rays peeped in through the window. I jumped out to the bed freaking out that i have wasted my morning hours, where i could have enjoyed the early hours enjoying the regal palace standing against the background of the gradual hills sipping hot Masala chai (Which I actually did next day).

I cleaned myself up and got ready for the day with a quick plan i.e. to visit the monsoon palace and other areas nearby. Here again Google came handy and super helpful. I would say, those who has got no plans Google has got one for you, so, Google it out. The monsoon palace is just 7 kms away from where I stay, i walked down the road to get an auto or may be taxi that would drop me till my destination.

 

It’s almost a common practice everywhere to ask for higher price seeing a foreign face. The tuk tuk (auto rickshaw) charges minimum of 100, if you are good at bargaining one could bring it down till 80. However to my surprise, the app based taxi provider comes much cheaper (cost me Rs. 76), although you have to wait a minimum of 5-10 minutes, but comparing the price its worth waiting. So having learnt the lesson the other day, I booked an auto rickshaw via app.

By the time I was leaving the hotel room it was almost noon and the traffic was horrible, moving at snail’s pace. Even if you try to be cool and being ok with the situation, the annoying noise of honking would definitely raise your adrenaline level and you are bound to get hyper and irritated. Apart from traffic one will encounter cows / Horses/ Donkeys loitering and littering on the street

After battling with traffic for about 20 minutes, slowly and gradually, we managed to come out of the traffic and soon the driver accelerated the vehicle jumping some red lights and leaving behind several vehicles, I was dropped in front of the entrance of the Monsoon palace (Sajjan Garh).

Monsoon Palace (also known Sajjan Garah Palace)

To reach the Monsoon palace one needs to get a pass first, after that you have two options whether to walk or to board the pickup vehicles. Walking would burn most of your calories as it requires hiking and boarding a vehicle would cost you Rs. 90. As the temperature was high with extreme humidity I preferred the vehicle.

View behind the Monsoon Palace

I went up with an impression that the palace would have lots of remains like that of the city palace but it was just an empty palace where even the guard was having his afternoon nap in the guard chamber. The palace was crowded with people from all over the place; groups, couples, families with their numerous families and few back packers.  But I should admit that the palace has 360 degree view of the entire Udaipur, I would suggest if you are in a hurry and want to view the entire Udaipur?  Grab a binocular / DSLR and just visit the Monsoon palace.

Left side Lake Fateh Sagar and to the right Lake Pichola

Beneath the hill (Where Monsoon palace is situated), there is Sajjan Garh Biological Sanctuary. Here again you need to get an entry pass and an option for the vehicle. I suppose those vehicles are for those who are ailing but want to visit palaces, but here people take it as a joy ride. Well I preferred to walk.  Damn! it was hot and humid walking on the concrete way by the thorny bushes where after a discrete intervals animals housed in their mini-habitat appears. I managed to say hello to all the animals in about half an hour and I was left with nothing but exhaustion.

Being tired I decided to have some good food, so went to a hotel that had nice ambiance and served delicious north Indian food.

All is well when you are fed well…

[Coming up on on DAY 3: View of Fateh Sagar Lake, Shilpgram: Rural arts and craft complex, Puppet show and about mechanical engineer rickshaw driver ]

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