My last morning in Jaipur was a relaxed
affair as my train was mid afternoon so I had a leisurely breakfast
and checked out in my own time. Being situated close to the train
station I went for a wonder and found it on foot. After my few days
of staying in one place and sightseeing I had almost forgotten the
joys of the Indian railway station. After walking around questioning
various innocent bystanders I eventually found the platform my train
would be arriving on, what I didn’t anticipate was that it was
connected to a second train with a different name. Stations in India
like to keep you on your toes like that, I found my train just in
time and settled into my seat. Laptop out, Breaking Bad on, set for
the next 7 hours. I was a bit disappointed as the train I had booked
had seemed to be similar to my first train, express air conditioned
chair train, however it was not quite as fancy and lacked all the
lashings of food so I was looking to go hungry. However the couple
next to me had brought their dinner with them and asked me to join
them so not to be rude, and enticed by the amazing smells the food
was giving off, I deigned to oblige. The highlight of the rest of the
trip was a 2 hour delay which saw me getting into Udaipur much later
than I had expected. Not having anything planned this wouldn’t be
such an issue if not for the fact that the delay made the difference
of finding a place for as cheap as I would hope. However I bumped
into an American girl on the way out of the station and we shared a
rickshaw into the main town area and in the end I found somewhere to
stay, albeit for more than I would have hoped as I expected.
The next morning I woke well before
check out to go out looking for some accommodation near by that was
more affordable. On my wondering I ended up getting chatting to a
local artist who invited me into his gallery, hoping I would buy
something, but he showed me how a lot of the art was done all the
same. I found a place that suited my needs, had breakfast there and
then set about moving my affects over. Once that was done I went for
a wonder around the town proper which is filled with shrines and
boasts a huge Hindu temple in the middle along with a couple other
smaller one scattered through the town. Pretty much all were in the
style of the old Raman temples, a huge stone monolith covered with
intricate carvings of people and animals with a couple including an
interior with a shrine or space for ceremonies. In the largest of the
temples as well as a few of the smaller ones there were ceremonies
taking place which were interesting to observe despite having no idea
what was taking place. After having a look around the temples I
carried on up the hill to the main sight of the town that takes the
form of a huge palace. The palace was pretty impressive; it was built
and expanded over around 300 years and its building was influenced,
as you would expect, by the differing styles of the rulers that rose
and fell over the encompassing time. I spent a couple of hours
wondering around the palace's innards which after a while started
looking much the same from room to room. The highlights would be the
third story garden that boast a pool and trees and just the sheer
size of the building. The palace was impressive but with its size and
my attention span for Indian history it was never going to be one of
my more thrilling days. After leaving the palace I spent the rest of
the afternoon wondering around the streets of the town looking into
shops and just taking in the dynamics of Udaipur. I spent the evening
relaxing and taking advantage of the hotels internet to Skype and
upload my blogs so far.
On my second day in Udaipur I spent
the day getting organised. My first job was to obtain a charger for
my camera as by this point my disposable camera had run out of film
and my phone had broken so I was in need of a pictorial device. After
enquiring at a couple of stores I came across a man who had a brother
who owned a shop that sold cameras 'not far down the road'. So I
follow him out the shop and start walking ahead down the road getting
a short way before he pulls up next to me on a 500cc motor bike and
insists we must ride there, I considered briefly and thought why not.
His brothers shop was a 10 minute ride away but I found what I needed
there and managed to get it for a fairly decent price, once our
business was done my friend with the bike drove me back to town. I
thanked him and set off to find some breakfast. I took my breakfast
at a small restaurant by the river than runs through Udaipur between
the two lakes that the town straddles. I took the chance to charge my
camera's battery with my new gizmo and prayed that it wasn’t
knackered. I managed to get it to work after some technical 'lens
pulling' and 'camera tapping'. After breakfast I spent the afternoon
looking around the various shops and stalls in the town to get a
present for my fathers birthday. This took a fair time which I broke
up with stops at some tea shops which also coincided with the flash
deluges. I came out of the afternoon with a couple of choice items
and set to finding somewhere to base myself to have my dinner and
while away the hours before my late night train. I found a likely
place and when the time came I collected my affects and made my way
to the train station to get the first train of my three day voyage...
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