Udaipur

From Jaipur we caught the 6pm train to Udaipur, and were due to arrive at 3am. The train station was madness but we found our train platform easy enough. The trip itself proved interesting. We passed the first couple hours quietly by watching tv shows on my laptop. Then all of a sudden big friendly broken-english speaking Indian man sat down next to us and started asking the typical questions: where are you from, how long in India etc. It turned out he was with his giant extended family (about 25 people, young and old, in two train cars) travelling from Kolkata to Udaipur (a two day train ride) for the wedding of one of their relatives. The next thing we know, we were being introduced to everyone, handed babies, given food, and told that we absolutely must come to the wedding. Kiersten was ushered away to talk to women while the men all crowded around me with the speakers translating for those who only spoke Hindi. Unfortunately we weren't able to attend the wedding because were out riding horses during that time. A big disappointment because Indian weddings are supposed to be amazing. 500 guests is considered small and the wedding takes place over five days. Anyways, hanging out with the family was fun and made the ride pass quickly.
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Madness at the Jaipur train station

Kiersten with the probably the most well behaved baby I have ever seen (it had been on a train for two days and this was at 11pm or so)

Our train arrived in Udaipur an hour early which was quite the shock. We hadn't booked a hotel for that night but nonetheless managed to wake someone up at one of the hotels and got a room. The next day we got up fairly late and had breakfast on the rooftop of hotel. It was our first glimpse of Udaipur and we were totally impressed. The city is much smaller and more beautiful than Jaipur with a nice lake in the middle of everything. If you've seen the 1983 James Bond movie Octopussy, Udaipur is featured prominently. There are two main islands on the lake with massive palaces built on them, now converted into luxury hotels.

Lady adding to her dung collection on the roof opposite our hotel

View from our hotel

We spent our first day in Udaipur walking around. We went to the nearby Jagdish temple where it was a special day when they fed the poor and asked for donations. Surrounding the temple were about 50 kids eating as much food as possible. From there we went to the massive City Palace located on the lakeside. It was an impressive group of buildings but the inside was mostly a museum and hotels. The art exhibits they had were really cool though. They included old miniature paintings of huge battles, people on elephants hunting tigers, and the oldest comic strips I've probably ever seen.

Feeding children at the Jagdish temple

Cooking for the kids

Kiersten standing in front of the Jagdish temple

Kiersten facing the lake

Massive painting by city palace

Udaipur with City Palace on the right

Sunset on the lake

We spent the evening in one of the fancy hotels that make up part of City Palace (the one that James Bond stays at in Octopussy) drinking Indian white wine (pretty good). The next day we had to leave for our horse trek but returned afterwards for a couple more days. I'll stay sequential and post more from our return to Udaipur when I post about the horse trek (I haven't uploaded those photos to the computer yet anyway).