Udaipur

We didn't have a lot of expectations about  Udaipur.. we don't know why but we had in our minds that it would be "more of the same" but we were totally wrong... India was surprising us one more time!

When we started our way to the hotel by rickshaw, we immediately understood that this city was different from everything we have seen so far in India... the streets are cleaner, the buildings more modern.. it is definitely more developed than other places...

We were really happy when we realized about our hotel's perfect location (Udai Haveli Guesthouse)... right by the footbridge and really close to the clock tower..  from there, we could walk everywhere. We immediately started to explore the city and found the amazing Pichola Lake, the lake was beautiful and the buildings were also impressive. We were lucky because we got to Udaipur on time to enjoy the end of the Ganesh Festival. At night there were traditional dances in the street and a lot of music. When we woke up the next day we walked through the streets and realized that the festivities were at it's maximum power... small carts carrying big statues of Ganesh with people dancing while following the carts and throwing red ink to each other... tourist were all surprised and some of them, including us, joined them for some nice dancing. As the day went buy, we also noticed people offering food to each other, they also offered us.. we tried two sweet things that we have no idea what they were and slices of banana. All the carts were heading to the lake, there they would sing/pray and bathe the statue with the Lake water. It was a nice experience, we could see that everybody was really happy.

We had initially thought about going on the top of the mountain by cable carts for the sunset but, tired of the tourist prices we ended up going to another place and it was fantastic... we went to the island in the Pichola Lake and the sun was hiding right behind the mountais.. it was a great view. When we were leaving the sunset point, we decided to check the other side of the island and it was even better.. we could see the lights of the city with an amazing full moon on top and listen to relaxing guitar music..

Udaipur is definitely a romantic city, the streets are narrow and some of them really steep.. all surrunded by the lake. Through the stores we saw a lot of people selling silver and art, there are a lot of painters in this city. We met one that works in the art school with children and also has a small store.. he made a small drawing on Pedro's nail.. very tiny and with detail.

Our last day in Udaipur was going to be different than the others, we wouldn't have the hotel to rest during the day in case we needed.. we had to check out at 10am and our train to Khajuraho was only going to be at 10:30pm... luckyly, the hotel owner allowed us to leave our backpacks at the hotel and we were able to enjoy the bazaars during the entire morning. We also had to prepare our train trip, this time it will be a 21h train ride to Khajuraho... we definitely need to buy some food...