The Wonders of Udaipur

I've been slacking on my blog for the past week because of weekend travel, visitors and a fairly busy work schedule. Then last night, when I was finally ready to write on my blog, my pirated wireless signal didn't work. But it's up and running now, so here I am with more scoop on what I've been up to during the past week.

Last Tuesday morning, I returned from my weekend trip to Udaipur with Jen, Mike and Neil (one of my co-workers). We had a wonderful time in the city, which is located on the man-made Lake Picchola. Udaipur is definitely the first Indian city that I would say I'm dying to return to.

Our hotel, Udai Kothi, was wonderful and had a very nice rooftop terrace and pool. The old part of te city is very small and we could walk across the whole of it in 30 minutes, which we did several times. Of course, this usually took longer because we'd stop to take in the sights or visit shops along the way. The first day we treated ourselves to a wonderful (and rather expensive) meal at the Lake Palace. As the name suggests, the hotel is located in the middle of the lake, but the only way to enter the grounds it to be a guest or have a reservation for lunch or dinner.

At the recommendation of one of my colleagues, I immediately reserved a table for lunch as soon as we decided to visit Udaipur. The meal was spectacular and the enormous fixed price menu posed quite a challenge to Mike and Neil. Sadly, we left the Lake Palace and slowly made our way back to the hotel. That evening, we remained at the hotel and spent the evening in the rooftop restaurant.

On Monday, we ventured to the City Palace, which is located on the banks of the lake just across from the Lake Palace. There, we stumbled upon the start of the 2007 Himalaya Rally, an antique car race that crosses India, as well as parts of Nepal and Bhutan. The start was rather formal and each of the drivers was greeted by the Maharana of Udaipur, who still resides at the City Palace.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon wandering the streets, shopping and trying to learn to play tablas. I'm not very musically inclined, but I did have a lot of fun. As we made our way back to the hotel, we wandered the streets a little more and spotted an elephant. Jen and Mike kept remarking that they saw an entire zoo during their time in India!