Udaipur

A travel day to Udaipur. Long, hard day of driving – 250 kilometers, all narrow 2-lane road, tremendous amount of trucks, took more than 5 hours. Many thanks to our wonderful driver, Surjeet, for steady and safe driving.

Tata is a huge Indian vehicle manufacturer, they make everything from small cars to 18-wheel lorries to huge construction machinery. We have seen some seriously large and bodacious Tatas! :)

India has massive marble quarries. We passed two today immediately next to the highway (how many more are there 5 kilometers off the highway?), and towns dedicated to cutting and selling marble. We saw many individual blocks the size of small Vws, and vast quantities for sale beside the road.

We're in the new Fateh Garh hotel in Udaipur. Rather than build a new hotel from scratch, the Maharajah bought an old palace in serious disrepair, dismantled it stone by stone, moved the entire thing high on the mountain, and rebuilt it. It has a fantastic view of the lake and city, less than 5 miles away, but an hour by car. The staff is new, only partly trained, but very eager to please.  Here are some pictures of the hotel grounds

We toured the beautiful City Palace and Museum, had lunch overlooking the lake, then an evening boat ride around the lake. There are actually four connecting palaces, built over 3 centuries; also 3 lakes, also connecting, at least when there is enough water. The monsoon was not good to Rajasthan this year, and water levels are extremely low. The royal family of Udaipur still lives in one palace, and there are at least two hotels and several restaurants in the complex now. Udaipur is a pretty city.

On the second day we headed 90 kilometers over the mountains to visit two of India's most spectacular sites. The Ranakpur Jain Temple, surely another WOW moment, was built in the 15th century. The base of the temple is some 48,000 sq. ft. There are four smaller shrines surrounding the central shrine, and 24 pillared halls and domes supported by over 400 columns. There are a total of 1,444 columns in the entire temple, all carved from

stone, and no two alike. In addition, the domes are carved stone, much in the same way church domes are painted in Europe. But these are carved from marble! There are nymphs, similar to Cambodian Asparas, throughout the temple. It really was breathtaking.

After lunch we visited the fort at Kumbhalgarh. Of the 32 forts of India's great warrior kings, this is the most spectacular. Built atop a large mountain, nestled among 13 mountain peaks, the ramparts around the fort run some 2.5 miles. Lookouts stationed atop the mountains used mirrors to signal danger; they could literally relay messages 20 to 30 miles in a couple of minutes.

The complex is surrounded by a 32-kilometer wall that resembles a small segment of the Great Wall of China. Any invading force had to come over the wall, then straight up the mountain to the ramparts. If they surmounted these, at least 15 meters (45 feet) high, they then had to fight their way uphill through 7 consecutive gates, a distance of more than 100 meters with curves and turns for ambushes all the way, to actually enter the fort. There were 5 attacks on the fort, none ever succeeded.

Monday was a scheduled rest day, which we very much needed, and which unexpectedly turned spectacular. After a workout in the exercise center and a swim, we retired to one of the many couches around the property. This one is actually a bed, where we read and rested under a ficus tree on the hotel lawn.

Hotel staff had noticed Bob hobbling around on his bad left knee, and a member of the housekeeping staff approached us with suggestions. Unfortunately, she spoke no English, and we spoke no Hindi. She disappeared, and suddenly reappeared with a bowl of olive oil, and proceeded, with thoroughly expert hands, to massage the knee.

She taught Fran the locations and pressure points, then refused even a small gratuity. At least we learned her name, Dolly, and got her photograph.

That evenng (our last in Udaipur) they served dinner upstairs on the balcony, with local music and dancing, and we ate under a brilliant full moon, overlooking the lake and palaces of Udaipur, with fireworks over the city.

A very relaxing day that suddenly included two WOW moments that make these trips so special. Tomorrow we head to the South of India and the backwaters, but this was a fabulous end to three wonderful weeks in the North.