After a long day of travel we arrived, as per the last blog, in Udaipur on Monday evening. We have until next Monday in the city, but we have changed the plan slightly from here in that, instead of going to Jodhpur straight away, we are spending two nights in the Mount Abu area to allow us to do an overnight hike. In this blog, I will cover the first 3 full days of our 6 in Udaipur.

Tuesday –

Given the food for dinner the previous night was pretty good, we went back to the hotel’s rooftop restaurant for breakfast. The view over Jagdish temple in the daylight was just as captivating, but the breakfast was relatively underwhelming. In the light of day the hotel’s lack of attention to detail was more apparent, with slightly dirty towels and grimy corridors, but we decided that the room was spacious enough and the location central enough to make staying worthwhile. We spent most of the morning unpacking and generally pottering around, then headed to a recommended cafe for coffee and lunch.

The old city of Udaipur is along the east bank of lake Pichola. The lake has several small islands hosting old forts and palaces which have now been converted into expensive hotels, and the city has many ghats (a set of steps leading down to the water) from which the lake can be reached. The surrounding area is hilly, with many of the hills having perched on them monsoon forts and other estates in varying degrees of disrepair. The cafe, Jheel’s, was over 5 levels of a narrow building right on the water’s edge by Lal Ghat and we arrived early enough to get a spot on the top floor with a lake view.

Having eaten, we took a rickshaw up into one of the residential areas where Ellie had booked a pedicure appointment, and I amused myself for the hour or so. The day was getting on by the time we had made our way back down to the city centre. We thought that we might catch one of the sunset boat trips around the lake, though where and when to get them wasn’t entirely clear. From our view in Jheel’s earlier in the day, the quality of the boat trips was evidently variable – some couples were in their own boats being gently motored around, whilst other boats were jammed full of tourists in lifejackets like eggs in a carton. This was purely intellectual, however, as there were no left at Lal Ghat having all left a few minutes earlier.

Instead, we walked across one of the rivers connecting Pichola to another, smaller, lake and to Ambrai Ghat looking over the lake on 3 sides. The views as the sun set of the islands, hills and water were magical and we stayed sitting on the steps until dark. As dark fell, the sky became thick with flying foxes flying over the water from the nearby hills, which was quite a sight in its own right. We walked back across the river and to one of the upmarket hotel nearby which had a recommended restaurant with a lake view. We had an excellent cocktail each on the roof, a whiskey sour and a hot toddy, ate a bit of an overpriced dinner (which was still only equivilent to £35 between us for cocktails, starter and main), and headed back to the hotel for the night.

Wednesday –

We decided to forego the hotel breakfast on Wednesday and went to another cafe, Cafe Edelweiss, closeby instead which did us great coffee and a bacon & egg sandwich (for me) of all things. Feeling that we had made a very good start to the day, we walked then to the big attraction of Udaipur – The City Palace. The City Palace was the home of the longest continuous dynasty of rulers either in India’s or the world’s history, I can’t remember which. The palace’s massive sandstone facade was situated on a hill by the lakeside looking over the rest of the city. We paid entry and for audio-guides, and made our way around the disorientating network of tiny passageways opening suddenly into rooms made of glass, leafy rooftop courtyards, and bedrooms covered all over in intricate murals. Other than me being accosted by young Indian men for more or less forced selfies, it was well worth the nominal entrance fee.

By the time we had come out the other end of the palace the day was getting warm. The heat in Rajasthan has, so far at least, been far more comfortable than that in the south, largely by virtue of it being so dry. It does, however, still reach about 34-38C in the middle of the day. We had a cooking class booked for the afternoon, and the organiser had explicitly told us to “come hungry”, so we stopped by a local restaurant for some onion pakoras as a snack for lunch, and headed back to the hotel to escape the heat of the day.

After some excercise and a rest, we walked the 20 minutes or so to the address of the cooking class in a residential area nearby. It was run by a elderly Rajasthani lady named Shashi, into whose house we were shepherded by one of her sons and offered a seat at the table. It became apparent after a little while that we were the only people in the evening class, and after about 20 minutes or so (she later told us that she had fallen asleep in the afternoon and had to be roused by her son) Shashi herself emerged.

In the intervening time, we had been given a little booklet that had Shashi’s recipes and her life story inside. The story was quite remarkable, and I have attached photos of the booklet above for anyone interested in reading it to save me paraphrasing. We had the best part of 4 hours with Shashi, which we both agreed on reflection were some of the best of the trip so far. We started by making masala chai from stratch (not including the tea powder), by boiling milk and tea powder with freshly ground cardamom, cloves, nutmeg, and at least two heaped tablespoons of sugar (which has been recently reduced from four). We moved onto onion and potato pakoras with both a coriander & chilli and mango chutney. These we ate as a starter whilst Shashi and her sons prepared ingredients for the curries.

Shashi’s cooking revolved around the “magic sauce” which is apparently ubiquitous in North Indian cooking. The sauce is a base of spices, onion, ginger, garlic and tomato which can then be kept in the fridge for several days, and be used for almost all North Indian curries by adding different additional ingredients. In this way, we prepared the magic sauce and used it to make a sweet chickpea curry and a creamy paneer butter masala (the paneer being freshly made by Shashi that afternoon). At the same time, she had us preparing a dry potato and cauliflower curry and a yoghurt dip.

Once the curries were prepared, we moved onto the bread. We made naan dough, which is made with yoghurt and chickpea flour, and dough for both chapattis and paratha, which is made with wholewheat flour and water. The breads we cooked over the hob on a heavy metal plate, learning but not perfecting the techniques to get the chapattis to puff up and the copious amounts of ghee required to make the parathas delicious and buttery. By the time we had finished cooking, we had a spread enough for at least six laid out for the two of us. Everything was delicious and tasted even better for having made it ourselves. What’s more, we were provided with copies of the recipes as we cooked which we could annotate and take home with us to try on our own.

The kitchen we used was clearly the family’s kitchen, and Shashi’s two adult sons were around to help out at various times. One was tasked with explaining the principle of the magic sauce as his English was very good, one was responsible for plating up and serving all the food we had made, and seemed to know when to appear and get ingredients out of the fridge without Shashi saying anything to him. At times, a granddaughter would appear with a drawing she’d made, or the family’s labrador would wander through the kitchen and out the front door. All this added to the fun and we left for the hotel feeling very full and very happy.

Thursday –

We’d booked an 8.30am yoga class on Thursday morning, so we headed there before breakfast. The class was in a temple on a ghat overlooking the lake, and was a welcome gentle start to the morning. We went back to Edelweiss on the walk home for breakfast, then ventured into the city to pick up a moped that I had booked the night before. There are a few attractions in Udaipur a little way out from the city, so having a moped for a few days is a economical way to get around without having to depend on rickshaws. The moped somehow cost only 350/- (£3.50) a day and, once I got the hang of it, was pretty easy to drive. The Indian roads are undeniably chaos, but so much so that no one can drive very fast and everyone expects everyone else to do something stupid at any moment. As such, they felt pretty safe and in any case we weren’t going very far.

We headed first for the cenotaphs of Ahar, which were the ornate tombs of the ruling dynasty on the edge of the city. The cenotaphs were in a walled compound that was chained up on all sides. We asked a few people but it seemed that it was either closed indefinitely or closed today. Either way, we weren’t allowed in. There was, however, a park just to one side of the cenotaph compound. It was strange place, where there were a few of the old tombs on the outside of the compound and with two sunken semi-direlict water temples with ancient-looking carvings on the walls. There was a group of lads sat on one of the tombs who seemed to be there solely to politely ask us to take our shoes off before we walked down into the water temple. As we climbed the stairs again, a troop of huge monkeys climbed over the compound walls and sat on one of the tombs. I snapped a couple of pictures before hurrying away, not fancying my chances if they weren’t in a friendly mood.

There was a small archaeological museum of the surrounding area in a nearby building where we spent a pleasant and cool half an hour or so before heading back to the scooter to find somewhere for lunch. We decided to find a McDonald’s in the local area as sample such things as the Paneer Maharaja burger, and so set off for a local mall which apparently had a McDonalds in the food court. We arrived and parked up, and wandered around the mall for a little while. Before heading up to the food court, I was absent mindedly checking my pockets when I realised I couldn’t feel the scooter key. We checked the backpack, but it wasn’t there either. I suddenly thought that I might have left it in the lock at the back of the bike that opens the compartment under the seat.

We hurried back and to our relief the bike was still there, but the key wasn’t. It seemed unlikely that it would have fallen out of my deep pockets onto the hard mall floor without us hearing it, so it seemed more likely that I had left it in the lock and someone had taken it out. Adding to our suspicions, the men tending to a nearby sugar-cane stand came immediately over to us and said something in Hindi with a bit of a smurk. We had no idea what he was saying, but it didn’t sound much like “I’ve found your key and kept it safe for you, would you like it back free of charge?” so we ignored him and he went back to his stand.

After a little bit of deliberation, we decided that we didn’t much fancy trying to bribe the sugar-cane man into giving us back the key if he did have it. Instead, I messaged the man we had rented the bike from to explain what had happened. He spent a few minutes saying things like “can you look for it” and “are you sure that it isn’t in your wallet” until we convinced him it was actually lost. He also deliberated for a time, then called me and told me a locksmith was on the way and would be about 30 minutes.

In order to not look too conspicious, Ellie went back into the mall and I sat with the bike. It was the middle of the day without much shade so I had to keep my helmet on to stop my head from burning, and I could see my nemesis, the sugar-cane man and his associates, glancing over at me from time to time. Additionally, there was a man with his family of 8 or so children sitting around a bustop just behind me who yelled almost constantly. All in all, not my favourite 45 minutes of the trip. However, sure enough the locksmith arrived and filed down a new key by hand in about 5 minutes, costing me only 400/- (£4). I drove the bike round the corner, and parked up but couldn’t convince myself that it wasn’t going to be found and promptly nicked by the sugar-cane man and friends. I called Ellie and we headed off somewhere else for lunch feeling a little beleaugered. As it happens, the McDonalds in the mall was closed for renovation anyway.

By the time we were finally eating lunch it was 4pm, and from there we went for a drive around the lake to take a look at the monsoon palace on a hill on the opposite bank to the city. The entrance for the road to the palace cost £5 each and we hadn’t heard good enough reviews to justify the expense, so we instead made our way back to the hotel. Despite this, spirits remained high as we still felt we had got away lightly with the whole debacle only costing us a few hours and a few hundred rupees.

Once back in the city centre popped to a tiny shop opposite the hotel and had a life-giving ice cold lassi each. The evening we spent recuperating in the hotel, only going out to pop up to the deserted rooftop restaurant. We spent an enjoyable few hours researching some of the places we have yet to visit, before finally calling it a night and heading to bed.

And so ended our eventful first 3 days in Udaipur, and in Rajasthan. The last three days I will try and get written early next week, but I doubt we will have much internet until Jodphur so it may not be until Thursday that I can post,

Until then,

Rob xx