The Venice of India, also known from the James Bond movie "Octop**** featuring the island-hotel Taj Lake Palace: unexpectedly clean, proper, well-organized, atmospheric, romantic, charming, friendly, art-packed, educational, relaxing, mosquito-invested, tasteful, surprising, refreshing.
Tuesday afternoon we arrived in Udaipur after a very bumpy 7 hour ride in a very local bus. Stan bumped his head several times in the ceiling and me... well lets just say that a sportsbra would have been much appreciated ;-)
Anyway our hotel at Lake Pichola with a huge canopy bed and a rooftop pool made up for that and after a short stroll through town we postponed the proper sightseeing to the next day and relaxed at the pool instead ;-) At night we dined in a very nice restaurant at the lakeside where we had a beautiful view of the well lit city palace and the lake palace hotel.
On Wednesday then we went to see Jagdish Temple which was amazing, especially because there was a ceremony going on and women where chanting sitting on the floor in their colourful saris. After refreshing at the hotel again, we spend a really amazing evening at Shashi's cooking class. In four hours we cooked 11 dishes, starting from chai tea, over pakora (tempura) with mango chutney, two masalas (curries), a rice dish and ending in 5 different styles of bread. Obviously more than we could eat, but sooooo yummy!!!!
On Thursday we had a guided tour of the city palace which is the biggest one in Rajsthan and was started in the 16th century and expanded until just 50 years ago. An impressive and imposing piece of architecture with nice views over the lake.
Bound to the pool again in the afternoon because we checked out of our room already and off to Jaipur with the nighttrain after diner on the rooftop terrace ;-)