Day 8: Udaipur

23 December 2006: After finally arriving in Udaipur by bus we take a rickshaw to the train station to drop our bags in the cloak room and freshen up a bit. I was eagerly looking forward to a relatively clean bathroom after having had my midnight incident. Because there were no seats available on the 23.30 bus, as we were told in the morning, we were forced to wait for any following bus to see if there were seats available. Fortunately for us the 0.30 bus had two seats. But, human nature somewhere in the middle of the night forced me to make a pit stop. As soon as the bus stopped at a bus station I asked people where the toilet was. First everybody sent me to the men's toilet. Definitely a no go. So after asking way too many people someone pointed out a complex all the way at the back of the bus station with unused buses in front of it. So here I went, courageous me to the dark building at the back. Arriving there, there was almost no light. Walking up some steps I already envisioned what was about to be :S I saw pit toilets in the open sky with either no doors or crooked doors. After the lights had been turned on (in addition to the natural light as provided by the stars and the moon since there was no roof) I made my way to the ladies side. Yep...... just as I had expected. No doors or crooked doors. So, putting my childhood trauma of pit toilets aside, I went in, left the door open cause there was no light and did what I had to do (boy oh boy why did I had to drink water!!!!) and saw huge bugs crawling out of the pit :S I left the toilet and the guy at the entrance even had the guts to ask for rupees!!!! Whereas the toilet definitely had not seen anybody for the past 25-50 years. I ran away :) Yep I know, brave little me hahahaha. But this is about Udaipur. Arriving in Udaipur we had breakfast at the train station. After a short argument with the men of the cloak room (they wanted us to lock the bags, which in my opinion is useless when you have 10 zippers to lock and you can still cut through the fabric, but ok) we were able to leave the bags. From there we took a rickshaw (bargain bargain bargain) to the city palace, which was truly amazing and unfortunately no pictures were taken because the entry fee was 50 rupees and the fee for a camera was an additional 200 rupees :S After the city palace we walked to the jagdish mandir temple. Loads of people demanding rupees again, either for the poor, for watching your shoes, for providing you with information of the temple, for whatever........... They will find a reason! After having visited the temple we walked down the bazar on to a restaurant which was recognised by the lonely planet (I really have no clue why :S Maybe because of the excellent food poisoning you can get there????). On to the Edelstein bakery for some normal cake :D With only foreigners sitting there. Quite funny when there is a class of Indian girls walking by. It is a true monkey show. See here before you......... western species. No question who was looked at more :). Along the water side women were washing their clothes and themselves. It was here we met the Dutch guy again who we had met before in Jodhpur. Around 6 pm it was about time we made our way back again to the train station for the final and long ride home. Entering the train, 2nd non-AC, it was evident that going to the toilet was not an option and you would be forced to cover your mouth again during the night in case you wanted to get at least some sleep. All in all, Udaipur is a very nice and relatively quiet city. But it is used to tourists too much now and the people will hassle you wherever you go which can become seriously annoying. There is not that much to do or see, so spending there 1 day was more than enough.

Sites visited: city palace, bazar, jagdish mandir temple, seen the palaces jag mandir and jag niwas in the lake pichola from the water side.

Travel time: 7 hour bus ride (Ajmer-Udaipur)+ 9 hour train ride (Udaipur-Ahmedabad)