Udaipur to Delhi - 11th - 14th Feb

We left Jaipur on the 11th for the drive to Udaipur, stopping at Chittorgarh en route to see the fort and a couple of temples there. The fort itself isn't that impressive, but like some of the others we've seen the location more than compensated, being perched on the top of a cliff overlooking the city. We stopped at a Jain temple there as well, with it's own ornately decorated tower - a very worthwhile detour.

Udaipur is the last real stop on our northern India leg before we return to Delhi for a flight down to Goa, breaking the journey with a night at Pushkar. We were planning on taking the train to Goa which would have involved 2 overnight trains - sadly(!) they were fully booked so we had to head back to Delhi (not so good) and catch a 2 ½ hour flight instead - nice, even if it did wreck the budget..

Udaipur was a really nice place - our favourite spot in India so far and by far. Smaller than the other cities we've been to, it's much more relaxed and very picturesque, set round a series of man-made lakes; lake Picchola being the main one and our hotel is right on the shore with a great view across to the City Palace and ghats on the other side.

The droughts here in recent years have been pretty bad with the lakes drying out entirely and temperatures hitting 45C. Fortunately for them (and for us), the last monsoon was a heavy one and the lakes are currently near full, though they were dry as recently as July. Can't imagine what the place would be like without water..

So we did the sight-seeing thing, visiting a Haveli (one of the mansions previously owned by local landowners before democracy removed their rights to claim land taxes), now a museum showing how the other half used to live. We took a short boat trip on the lake, to one of the 'garden islands' - small man-made islands where the rich folk used to hang out for the day - all very relaxing. We visited the city palace - a maze of passages and courtyards, the main one of which was being set-up for a big wedding party with temporary structures and arches going up all over the place. We watched as one of them collapsed glancing one guy on the head and fortunately missing the young family who were walking under it at the time - health and safety isn't quite the same here!

We visited the Haveli again in the evening for a show of traditional music and dance set outside in one of the courtyards and culminating in a woman dancing with about a dozen pots stacked on her head - we really enjoyed the traditional music and dance performances - a relaxing end to a good day.

We're both feeling much better and tucked into some good food, including our first properly spicy Indian dish - we're finishing this leg on a high and hopefully that continues now.

We stopped overnight at Pushkar on the way back to Delhi, breaking up two days of travel in the car on some pretty busy and nasty roads - loads of trucks and roadworks. Pushkar is one the holiest places in India with about 500 temples surrounding or near to the lake, back in the day Lord Brahma the Creator convened a gathering of 900,000 celestial beings - the entire Hindu pantheon. It is surprisingly small considering the number of pilgrims and tourists that roll through this place and many of the temples are tiny. Picturesque and relaxing again, it was a nice spot to break the journey and, like Udaipur, left us wanting a bit more.

We arrived back in Delhi in time for our flight, thereby finishing our time in northern India with mixed memories - some spectacular places, but a drag that we'd been ill half the time. Really looking forward to getting down to the beaches at Goa and chilling out for a week. We'll let you know how the beaches are!

Keep in touch,

Dan & Sue