We arrived at 5am from the bus, earlier than expected & the first 2 guest houses we tried were full, the tuck tuck driver showed us a couple more & luckily we ended up at a really nice one! Beautiful city, this time the lake did have water in it. There is a lovely palace out on the water that has been turned into a hotel. It is another city that has morning prayers played across the city, which makes it really magical. We went on a short boat trip around the lake, which was a great way to see the palace & a view of the city, I would have liked longer on the boat but never mind. The buildings in Udaipur were beautiful, old & rustic looking & at night all lit up like in a fairy tale. The sunsets were also amazing, you could watch from roof top restaurants & you really felt like this was the India you envision from books & films you have read & seen. It was a much bigger city than Pushkar but a complete contrast from a city like Delhi, infact they are not comparable! There are beautiful cobbled back streets which were like a maze, one day I got lost around the streets which was really interesting as I got to see people at work, there were rooms that had big printing machines, people making things, mechanics etc. It reminded me of a back street industrial estate in UK but much smaller & in cute houses, super interesting! On the same walk whilst trying to find my way back to my hotel I had two young girls directed me & ha a little chat with me, one of the girls looked like she was blind but still she was busy playing, laughing with her friend. It felt so nice seeing what goes on behind the tourist areas & all the people were really friendly & helped guide me back to my hotel. Doing yoga on the rooftop to the sound of the chanting, prayers whilst the sun was going down was wonderful, I actually felt like you were emerged in the city without having to go anywhere! We were lucky that the food was also really good in our hotel so there was no need to rush around, which I liked as I was in need of a rest after our travels had moved us on from day to day. I was actually quite sad when it came to move on from Udaipur, It is definitely a place you could base yourself for a little while! However we had to travel on as we had booked to start an Iyenger course in Goa by the 4th Dec & had arranged to hook up with Natasha again here. She had not wanted to do the travelling on trains & buses for a week through Rajasthan & had decided to fly down to Goa instead.
When we arrived at the train station in Udaipur we couldn’t believe how quite & nice the station was & then our train was waiting on the platform & our carriage was literally right in front of us! This wasn’t usual for catching a train in India! The night part of the journey was smooth, however this was a long train leaving at 10pm & arriving into Mumbai at 2pmish the following day. In the morning I had awoken around 7am & we were stopped at a station, I have no idea where we were but I decided to get off & get some toilet paper! I haven’t managed to adopt India’s way of using the left hand! I got off the train & bought my paper, then was deliberating over whether to buy some chocolate or not. Very unhealthy thing to do for breakfast but hey long journeys sometime require such snacks! As I was about to decide the stall guy told me to look round, as I did I saw the train moving away, oops, hahha! Luckily the trains set off out of the train station so slowly that a thousand chai sellers are able to get on, go through the train & get off again as the train has just left the long platform. So I was easily able to run & catch my carriage, l didn’t buy any chocolate though!
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