Sunday, January 20, 2008
We left Jaipur for Udaipur on a very early flight. Leaving for somewhere very early in the morning is the recommended form of travel for foreign visitors in India. Apparently the morning is marginally less crowded and chaotic. We had a very nice trip on Jet AirWays (a new Indian airline),arrived in Udaipur and were eating breakfast on the Palace terrace by 8:30am! And a more breathtaking situation for breakfast does not exit!
Udaipur is a wonderful treat. Nothing really prepares you for the sheer beauty of the place. The palaces (there are many) and temples are situated around, and on, the islands in the Lake Pichola and the effect leaves you speechless Udaipur is named in the guide books as the most romantic city in India. The decorations and furnishings of the Palace of the Mewar family are superb. This family occupied this location for centuries, never formed alliances with other kings or the British, so you are able to visit centuries of various styles of furniture and decoration added to their palaces and museums over the years.
The family now operates hotels, restaurants and tourist attractions in the area and elsewhere, all marked with the logo “custodians since 739 AD” Gives one pause that does..
We paid a visit to the Jagdish Temple with all its carved elephants, to a lovely garden built in the Victorian era an laid out in the English manner, a little shopping and picture taking and then off spend our final days in India at the wonderful Devi Garh. Hotel.
This is a hotel built in an 18th century, hill top fort palace restored from ruins and is now a luxurious hotel. And in all this space there are only 47 suites. The views are sweet and staff immaculate and cannot do enough to serve you and the entire place dedicated to serenity. The interiors are decorated in a modern fashion (albeit Indian) and the affect stunning.
There are also camel rides ( I passed on that!) a great dvd library, magical bar overlooking the hills with charcoal fires light to keep off the chlll and room service at the drop of a hat And we tore ourselves away one afternoon to return to Udaipur (about a 45 minute drive) to visit the market there. It is very compact with lots of lovely little shops and alleys. This is THE place for souvenir shopping as the market is quite compact, and is just generally less crowded place to get around, than elsewhere we visited. . Udaipur’s population is around 500,000 and for India this is a small village.
We took a jeep ride around 4:30pm to visit the villages outside our fort. Each village seemed to be quite different from the other, some obviously very poor and some seemed more up market.. There are farms, lots of goats, cattle—the cows in the country villages seem to have owners unlike the city cows which just wander around—and many may styles of dress for both men and women. We are only 40 minutes outside the city of Udaipur, but there was a timelessness of these villages. Except: for the satellite dishes on a few houses, and scooters passing some with three and four people on the back, these communities have not changed for centuries. My fascination with the women’s dress continues. There is such a variety of colour, style, fabric and covered and not covered faces. Even the women doing the most menial of tasks do it with incredible grace, layers and layers of cloth wrapped around and fluttering in the breeze.
Maggie, Mary, Norman and Karen treated us to the dinner of our life. The Devi Garh has many areas tucked in the fort for private dinners. And to celebrate our family trip to India we were told to “wear layers” (it is little chilly in this part of India and this time of year) and to appear at 7:30pm in the bar. From this magic spot we were taken on a journey through the fort, up a lift, down a hall and up to a room in the very top open to the stars, decorated with silk and candles and lots of braziers to keep us warm. We started sitting on cushions and ended at a most beautiful decorated table for further courses! All this accompanied by lovely wine and our own musician playing lovely tuneful music on a series of bowls. After much food we were finally presented with our main course called Thali, described as a meal in itself consisting of appetizer, Indian bread, rice pilaf, vegetarian or nor-vegetarian dishes completed with Indian dessert. Only in our case we had had about ten different kinds of appetizers. We also consumed baskets of wonderful Indian breads, which come in various sizes shapes, filled with butter or not, crispy, non crispy,. After all that we could not do the Thali justice sadly. We did seem to have a little room for a taste of the delicious Indian rice pudding to finish our once in a life time dinner, in a once in a life time place.
Udaipur is a wonderful treat. Nothing really prepares you for the sheer beauty of the place. The palaces (there are many) and temples are situated around, and on, the islands in the Lake Pichola and the effect leaves you speechless Udaipur is named in the guide books as the most romantic city in India. The decorations and furnishings of the Palace of the Mewar family are superb. This family occupied this location for centuries, never formed alliances with other kings or the British, so you are able to visit centuries of various styles of furniture and decoration added to their palaces and museums over the years.
The family now operates hotels, restaurants and tourist attractions in the area and elsewhere, all marked with the logo “custodians since 739 AD” Gives one pause that does..
We paid a visit to the Jagdish Temple with all its carved elephants, to a lovely garden built in the Victorian era an laid out in the English manner, a little shopping and picture taking and then off spend our final days in India at the wonderful Devi Garh. Hotel.
This is a hotel built in an 18th century, hill top fort palace restored from ruins and is now a luxurious hotel. And in all this space there are only 47 suites. The views are sweet and staff immaculate and cannot do enough to serve you and the entire place dedicated to serenity. The interiors are decorated in a modern fashion (albeit Indian) and the affect stunning.
There are also camel rides ( I passed on that!) a great dvd library, magical bar overlooking the hills with charcoal fires light to keep off the chlll and room service at the drop of a hat And we tore ourselves away one afternoon to return to Udaipur (about a 45 minute drive) to visit the market there. It is very compact with lots of lovely little shops and alleys. This is THE place for souvenir shopping as the market is quite compact, and is just generally less crowded place to get around, than elsewhere we visited. . Udaipur’s population is around 500,000 and for India this is a small village.
We took a jeep ride around 4:30pm to visit the villages outside our fort. Each village seemed to be quite different from the other, some obviously very poor and some seemed more up market.. There are farms, lots of goats, cattle—the cows in the country villages seem to have owners unlike the city cows which just wander around—and many may styles of dress for both men and women. We are only 40 minutes outside the city of Udaipur, but there was a timelessness of these villages. Except: for the satellite dishes on a few houses, and scooters passing some with three and four people on the back, these communities have not changed for centuries. My fascination with the women’s dress continues. There is such a variety of colour, style, fabric and covered and not covered faces. Even the women doing the most menial of tasks do it with incredible grace, layers and layers of cloth wrapped around and fluttering in the breeze.
Maggie, Mary, Norman and Karen treated us to the dinner of our life. The Devi Garh has many areas tucked in the fort for private dinners. And to celebrate our family trip to India we were told to “wear layers” (it is little chilly in this part of India and this time of year) and to appear at 7:30pm in the bar. From this magic spot we were taken on a journey through the fort, up a lift, down a hall and up to a room in the very top open to the stars, decorated with silk and candles and lots of braziers to keep us warm. We started sitting on cushions and ended at a most beautiful decorated table for further courses! All this accompanied by lovely wine and our own musician playing lovely tuneful music on a series of bowls. After much food we were finally presented with our main course called Thali, described as a meal in itself consisting of appetizer, Indian bread, rice pilaf, vegetarian or nor-vegetarian dishes completed with Indian dessert. Only in our case we had had about ten different kinds of appetizers. We also consumed baskets of wonderful Indian breads, which come in various sizes shapes, filled with butter or not, crispy, non crispy,. After all that we could not do the Thali justice sadly. We did seem to have a little room for a taste of the delicious Indian rice pudding to finish our once in a life time dinner, in a once in a life time place.
# posted by katie @ 12:25 AM 
