Udaipur - The Venice of the East

Peacock mosaic - City Palace, Udaipur

John and Marty - Peacock mosaic, City Palace, Udaipur

Today, January 14th, is my Birthday.

I don’t sleep well and wake at 4:00 A.M. Today is my birthday and I get up at 4:30 A.M, shower and tiptoe out of our room to write in the reception lounge. John manages a sleepy “happy birthday Mom” as I leave the room. The lights in the lobby are dim and except for one doorman and two women waiting for a car to the airport, all is peacefully quiet.  An impressive arrangement of lily’s emit a sweet fragrance and I can already hear the birds beginning to wake and call sweetly to each other in the pre-dawn.  I sit and write for two hours and eventually follow the smell coffee to the dining room. The Trident is a new hotel, but the veranda promenade leading to the dining room gives the hotel the illusion and elegance of a classic hotel from a bygone era.  Udaipur is further south in a semi-tropical zone and this garden hotel is an oasis of palms, bougainvilleas, acacias and banyan trees.

The Veranda at the Trident Hotel - Udaipur

I wake John at 8:00 A.M. and we head to the dining room together for an exceptionally delicious buffet breakfast.  Our driver and guide pick us up at 9:30 A.M.  Although Singes’ accent is hard to understand, we like him immediately. He is well informed and listens and answers our questions rather than spouting off a memorized narrative.

Waking up to the breakfast buffet - Udaipur

Udaipur is said to be the most romantic city in Indian and is often referred to as the Venice of the East. We begin our day with a visit the City Palace, a 17th century architectural wonder of excessiveness, constructed on a hill overlooking Lake Pichola.

The 17th Century City Palace - Lake Pichola, Udaipur

The palace is a conglomeration of rooms, corridors, courtyards, terraces, balconies, towers, and cupolas. I am especially enchanted by an inner garden courtyard, framed by an arcade of ornately carved, scalloped archways with pierced stone and stained glass windows on the exterior walls.

The interior of the City Palace courtyard 

The interior courtyard arcade - City Palace, Udaipur

The courtyard pool is unfortunately empty but the courtyard garden is magical, nevertheless.

John and Marty - The courtyard of the City Palace, Udiapur

Every inch of the palace is ornately decorated and we tour mirrored rooms with mosaic ceilings and walk long corridors where the window coverings are pierced intricately in stone so that the women may look out but no one may see their faces.

Pierced stone windows - City Palace, Udaipur

Other courtyards are encrusted with mosaics, the peacock motif being a recurring theme of opulence in intense blues, greens and gold.

Mosaic and mirrored room - City Palace, Udaipur

Mirrored ceiling - City Palace, Udaipur

A number of rooms in the palace are devoted to gallery exhibits of 10th century miniature paintings, amazingly detailed and color saturated. There are rooms filled with palanquins, others with ornate baby cradles and a weapon museum. This wedding cake palace is a visual extravaganza beyond imagination.

City view from the City Palace, Udaipur

We stroll through the heart of the old town and I buy saffron at a spice shop.

Spice shop in Udaipur 

 We walk through the vegetable market and I ask several of the women if I may take a photo and I am soon down on my knees sharing my photos with the women and the children in the market.  Unlike many other markets that I have visited in third world countries, the produce here is beautiful and the women seem happy and are friendly to me.

Women at the Udaipur market

Women and children at the Udaipur market

Mother and Son

Girl with her brother.

John draws the attention of a group of young men and talks with them under the watchful eye of our guide. I imagine that our guide is instrumental in making these encounters happen easily and I appreciate his patience.

John with young men at Udaipur Market

John making friends 

We make a brief visit to Saheliyon-ki-bari, the Ladies Garden, where I am approached by a vender selling camera batteries and memory cards.  I have left home with just one battery and am thrilled to find this particular battery for $60, not very much more than it would have cost me back in the U.S.A.  One water lily laden fountain with its guardian stone elephant sculptures is lovely, but the overall garden pales after our earlier visit to the City Palace.

Saheliyon-ki-bari gardens

Elephant door handle

We have lunch at an outdoor restaurant overlooking the lake. The lamb curry and chicken fried rice is not memorable.



Our guide is rather insistent in taking us to see how the miniature paintings are created and we find ourselves trapped again in a tourist shop. The initial demonstration is of interest and I learn that the natural pigments are ground from: blue:lapis, green:malachite, yellow:cow’s urine: white:zinc, black:lead, red:red ochre. The suave salesman is high pressure in a low pressure way and he reads me well because had he pressured me, I would have turned tail immediately. He engages us, showing us paintings and bronze sculptures priced far beyond our means and then subtly sneaks in a reasonably priced item now and again. His approach makes us feel as if we are in a museum not a tourist shop and as a result John and I stay for a long time. It takes all of my reverse sales “magic” to get out of there with our dignity and all our money still in our wallets. After exiting, we asked our guide to take us to another shop so that we can compare prices and quality on daggers, knives and bronzes. The second shop is such a sham and a turn off that we dismissed all thought of returning to shop number one.

Udaipur market stalls

Boy at Udaipur market

Our itinerary includes a late afternoon boat ride on Lake Pichola. I suspect that our guide is disappointed that we did not succumb to any temptations at the tourist shops and he suggests that we take an earlier boat ride. If I agree this will mean that he will be finished with us and his day will be over. Although he does not know that it is my birthday, I feel empowered and I do not want to be swayed. I ask to go back to the old town for a late afternoon walk. He is good at covering his dismay and exasperation and we enjoy a lovely hour strolling through the old town. John spies a tiny shop selling both framed and unframed images of Hindu deities and takes 30 minutes in choosing 50 – 75 embossed prints and spends less than $20.  It is eye opening to realize the difference in pricing between the local stalls and the tourist shops.

Hindu deity print shop

The skyline in Udaipur old town

Sated with the old city, we get back in the waiting car and drive to the boat launch on Lake Pichola, beside the City Palace. I excuse myself and walk off to find a toilet and in my absence our guide mentions to John that, if he is interested, we can visit a knife manufacturer after the lake cruise.

The City Palace reflected in Lake Pichola

Udaiper ghats

Udaipur ghats

John and I climb aboard a mundane water taxi for our hour “cruise” along the ghats and the banks of Lake Pichola and out to the Taj Lake Hotel and restaurant on the island.  It is a gorgeous afternoon with slanted sunlight illuminating the City Palace and the surrounding ghats. (A ghat is a broad flight of steps leading down to a river or lake where people can gather to bath, pray or simply hang out. There are often wide terraces and an occasional hotel or restaurant along the ghats.) We circumvent the lake and the reflected mirrored images of the City Palace ripple in the water. Disembarking at the island, we spend 20 minutes wandering the confines of the restaurant and hotel. As the sun sets, we take the water taxi back to the City Palace dock.

Taj Lake Hotel and Restaurant

Taj Lake Hotel and Restaurant

Sunset on Lake Pichola

When we disembark, our car and guide are waiting and we drive part way around the lake and enter the old town from a different direction. We cross over an ancient stone bridge and pass through a stone gateway. We are in the Muslim district and the narrow streets are bustling with traffic. Night is falling but the tiny shops are all open for business and the lights from within, illuminate and intensify the fabrics, spices, and the jewelry.

Udaipur shops at night

We stop in front of a tiny, independent handicraft shop. The knife prices are half the price of the ones we looked at earlier and the quality seems better. Our guide mentions a guest house that he owns and tells me it is just a few streets away so I leave John happily looking at knives and walk with Singe to his guest house.  It is in a great location with rooftop views of the lake and the City Palace.  I could possibly stay here, but it may be a little too Spartan for my old bones and it needs an infusion of ambience.  

Rooftop view of Udaipur at night

Returning to the knife shop, I wait patiently as John chooses and “bargains” for three knives. John eventually strikes his bargain for two ornate daggers and a sheath and knife.  The man walks us across the street to a money exchange office and we wait while he goes off to find the banker to take our credit card payment.  In the interim, his two boys play games on the computer. I try not to seem too anxious about my birthday dinner at the Ambrai Restaurant, close by and noted in the Lonely Planet guide book.

Merchants two boys playing computer games

When the transaction is finally finished, we leave by tut-tut and jostle our way through crowded streets and over bridges to Ambrai. The candle lit restaurant is ambient with glittering views of the lake and the City Palace. We order two mojitos and several curry dishes, none of them remarkable.  John hands me a hand drawn birthday card and tells me that I am the best mom ever. It has been a wonderful day and I feel happy and fulfilled.

We negotiated an 80 rupee tut-tut ride back to the knife shop where we wait for another 30 minutes for the leather sheath to make its appearance.  I reclined and doze on a futon, against one side of the narrow shop, strewn with a half dozen of assorted and stained pillows. It had been a full day and I am ready to call an end to my birthday. The promised sheath is slow in coming and the merchant leaves John and me alone in his shop while he goes to fetch it from the leather worker. John is extremely happy when it is finally delivered and we thank the merchant sincerely, engage another tut-tut and return back to our hotel.  I know that I am loved and today’s adventures have been wonderful.  I could not wish for more.