Udaipur

I finally arrived in Udaipur and made my way to my guest house and took a much needed, although quick, hot shower. The water heaters here are quite small so hot water is limited. Udaipur is known as the Lake City and the rooftop restaurant from my hostel had a beautiful view of one of the lakes and the Lake Palace.

My first stop, however, was the City Palace which is yet another amazing building that's been turned into a museum. I opted to be cheap and just paid for admission and skipped the audio tour or getting a guide. I lucked out again by starting my tour at the same time a tour group with a guide that talked really loud, so I pretty much got a tour for free anyway. :) So I learned all about Maharana Pratap and his horse Chetak and how he was such a great warrior. There are statues of him and his horse all around the city so it was nice to know why. On my way out I started chatting with an Aussie guy, and we grabbed lunch and exchanged travel tips before he headed out of the city.
That evening I went to the water's edge to watch the sunset and met 3 Norwegian girls. We had dinner together and made plans to take a tour of the city together the next day. I was feeling pretty good at this point about my ability to meet people, which I know I wouldn't have been doing if I wasn't travelling on my own. The tour of Udaipur was good. Our guide, Rizwan, had a good sense of humour and took us to some beautiful gardens and lakes around the city. He also grew up in Udaipur and was eager to chat about his life and show us his favourite places that aren't all tourist spots. We had a great all-you-can-eat vegetarian lunch for Rs60 ($1.60) called a thali. You get 5 different vegetable dishes, rice, papadum, chapatti and dessert. I know I keep telling the prices of everything but sometimes I still can't believe it.
I spent that night and the next morning just wandering around and exploring the city. It was nice to leave the tourist area and walk in town with the locals to escape from the constant efforts to sell me stuff. On my walk I met a nice guy from Kenya, who's in university in Udaipur and wants to come to Toronto to do his masters. He's worried about the cold and from what I've heard, rightly so....-22C or something like that? I can't say that I miss that at all!
In the afternoon I did a private Indian cooking lesson. I was picked up on a motorbike, which was definitely one of the things I wanted to do before leaving India, and went to the home of Vijay and his family. I got to choose an appetizer, 3 curries, a rice dish, chappati, tea, and a dessert to learn how to make. We had the lesson in the middle of his main room and I wrote everything down as he cooked on 2 gas burners on the floor and his 1 year old daughter and 3 year old nephew played around us. It was a great experience and I left stuffed with fantastic food. His family also has a farm where they grow all of their own spices organically, so the ingredients were all super fresh. The highlight for me was probably the vegetable pakora....mmm, so tasty.
That night was my last night in India, so I decided to spend it at a Hindi movie. I had seen posters for "Ghajini," in every city I'd been to and I'd heard from the Australian girl that it was pretty good. Fortunately, on my way there I ran into an Indian guy that I'd met the previous day and he decided to join me so I had an interpreter when necessary. There was a bit of English in it, but I'd say it was 90% Hindi. It was very similar in plot to "Memento," which is one of my favourite movies, so it wasn't too hard to follow. It's considered an action movie and has some decent fight scenes in it but what had to be the best part were the random singing and dancing numbers with the goofy costumes. I know that's part of the Bollywood thing, and it wouldn't be considered a good movie in India without them, but they seemed so out of place to me.
So that was pretty much the end of India for me. I left the following afternoon on a flight that eventually brought me to Siem Reap, Cambodia. I will try to write some final thoughts on India in one more entry but that's it for now!