Sat, Nov 21: Udaipur

It turns out that much of the James Bond movie Octopussy was filmed in Udaipur so many of the sights we will see today were used in that movie.  We are situated very close to old Udaipur so we headed out on foot for our morning of exploring.  Our first stop was along the Ghats bordering Lake Piccola where we saw people bathing and women washing clothes...

and others feeding the many pigeons..

The views along the lake were lovely and particularly picturesque.

We took a walk through town...

on our way to the Jagadish Temple.

Then it was on to City Palace of Udaipur.  The palace complex was started in 1559 and was added on by numerous maharanas (local variation on maharajas) over the next several generations.  The City Palace is still owned by the Maharana as part of the Mewar Trust.

We weren’t able to see parts of the palace as they were setting up for a wedding.  The Palace rents for $250,000 US Dollars per day.  So this was obviously a wedding for someone who had a lot of money to spend. We were able to see the gardens where they were doing some of the major set-up.

However, those parts we were able to see were pretty amazing and/or interesting.

There was artwork all around the palace...

and a museum that included artwork and some armor...including the "baby elephant" gear used by horses.  The trunk theoretically made the real elephants think the horses were baby elephants so they wouldn't charge the army of horses.

On the way out we passed a pretty gated building that is the newer (and more modest) home of the current maharana.

We then walked down to the waterfront for one of Tara’s typical surprise treats.  After a short wait (including a passport check) in a very lovely pavilion we took a private launch out to the Lake Palace hotel.  

The Lake Palace gets its name from the fact that it sits in the middle of a lake.  This is also a palace owned by the Maharana and is run as a luxury hotel by the Taj Hotel Group.  

It is closed to all but paying guests and of course Tara.  Because it is in the middle of a lake it gave us wonderful views of the main palace and the city surrounding the lake

The facility was booked solid because of the wedding but they did have a couple of rooms available to view during our facility tour.  

The pool was magical...

And the common areas even more so.

Main Lobby.

Even in the middle of the lake the palace had lovely gardens and pools with fountains.

After the tour they apologized that they couldn’t treat us to lunch because with being totally booked they didn’t have room in their lunch room.  Not a big deal.  Instead, they set us up in the lounge...

and proceeded to treat us to High Tea.  The finger sandwiches were tasty and they kept bringing out desserts and more desserts…including some really decadent brownies.

After a lovely visit to the Lake Palace it was back to reality and normal sightseeing.  First stop was a puppet museum where we saw a number of puppet related exhibits and a puppet show.

This was followed by a drive into the countryside...

for a visit to the Shri Eklingji Prabhu Temple (no pictures allowed inside), and then the Sas Bahu Temples...

We arrived back at our hotel to more fancy swans made of towels and lots of pretty flowers (and a cake).  No special occasion that we knew of...just more luxury treatment.

That evening we had dinner at a lakefront restaurant that provided great views of the palace.