Dan's Adventure

Every restaurant in Udaipur plays on the fact that the James Bond film Octopussy featured the Lake Palace, some even go as far as to call it Octopussy Palace. Each of them shows the film at 7.30pm yet I didn’t manage to see it whilst there.

I arrived in Udaipur early morning after a sleeper train from Sawai Modhpur and a battle with a rickshaw driver to get to Lal Ghat Guest House. Despite having a pre-paid rickshaw he was determined that I would be staying elsewhere. If you are going to Udaipur I can definitely recommend Lal Ghat, rooms go from dorms, to basic singles to deluxe and combined with the rooftop restaurant overlooking the lake, it is a great place to stay, it even had hot showers – my first in months!

As I pondered how to spend the day an American girl arrived so together we visited the City Palace and then things took a turn to the crazy. She did warn me that strange things seem to happen to her when she travelled and she wasn’t wrong. As we bought tickets for a sunset boat trip across the lake, we met an Indian man who insisted that the American girl went for a consultation at his massage and natural therapy shop. After half an hour of prodding he determined that she had one leg shorter than the other which would cause back pain, the remedy was firstly to soak two almonds in water each night and in the morning crush them down and drink with milk, and secondly to place coconut oil in the belly button every night before bed. Both would lead to a longer, happier life. The guy was nice enough and insisted that we met him again after the boat trip for some Chai.

Once a palace and now a fancy hotel, the Lake Palace looks spectacular sitting on its own island. The City Palace offers boat trips there for lunch, on top of the boat trip it only costs 2000 rupees for a lunch buffet! As the sun set the Lake Palace became illuminated by fire as the torches around it were lit. Numerous other buildings around the lake also resemble palaces but were in fact built as hotels over the last decade.

Back on dry land we met our Indian friend for Chai before being whisked away on the back of his Honda Hero to his cousins brothers wedding. Weaving through the streets with two passengers, no helmets and all wearing shorts and t-shirt, we couldn’t have been safer. The wedding was taking place over three days and this was day two – a night of eating, music and dancing. As we arrived we were introduced to several family members before being led towards the food. Large pots of curry, piles of chapattis, cakes and other sweet delights were all there for the taking. A truly fantastic feed. We sat on the grass with everyone else and chatted to the Indian’s uncle. The only person that didn’t welcome us was a little girl who cried whenever we came into her view.

The remainder of the night was spent in a restaurant in the Lal Ghat area where the owner, a friend of our new friend, entertained us with card and coin tricks.

The Monsoon Palace sits high above Udaipur and takes around an hour to walk up the road from the bottom. After the walk up in the midday sun we were rewarded with great views across Udaipur. The Monsoon Palace itself isn’t really worth seeing, its going under a lot of renovation work at the moment and seems little more than an expensive restaurant right now. Still, it was good to get some exercise on the walk up.

The previous evening our Indian friend had recommended a thali restaurant called Natraj, so following our trip to the Monsoon Palace, the American and myself decided that we had to go. Our Indian friend also decided to join us, so before I caught my train to Jaipur the three of us sat down to the best thali that I came across in India. The generosity of our friend didn’t stop with the wedding invite, he also insisted on paying for our meal and giving me a lift along the road to the train station. Equipped with a recommendation for his friend’s hotel in Jaipur I set off on the overnight journey to Jaipur with plans to meet the American a few days later in Jaisalmer for a camel safari.