Udaipur

Saturday, January 5:
We woke at 4:15 AM this morning to catch a 7 AM flight to Udaipur. Not much sleep last night. Our hotel in Udaipur has beautiful grounds, a bit out of the hubub of the city center. Udaipur is cleaner than any of the other cities we have seen so far. Animals seem to be much of the problem. They seem to get into the garbage a lot.

We visited the City Palace which is huge. It was built in many sections and you can see the development the architecture through the centuries. One large exhibit room is the "Crystal Gallery" with all kinds of crystal including lamps, tables, and even a bed all made out of crystal. A huge, red crystal chandelier was breath-taking in a garish, bordello sort of way. Most of the stuff was from around the 1880s and was never used since the guy who ordered it died before delivery.

Udaipure is famous for its lakes so of course we had to take a boat ride out on a lake. There were several more palaces on small islands. We stopped and wandered around a bit on one of them with the "Summer Palace". Later, back on dry land, we visited a garden with some charming fountains that were not operating maximally due to low water pressure. At least the lakes had water. Our guide said that they were entirely dry for something like 2002 to 2005 due to a severe drought. I'm sure they look much better with water.