Udaipur

Friend and fellow Amul ice cream lover Zirong and I went to Udaipur this weekend. Udaipur made the number one place in India to visit in Lonely Planet's second last update and it is described as Rajasthan's, perhaps India's, most romantic city. How they reached this conclusion is beyond my imagination and apparently the description no longer fits as Udaipur is now not even to be found among the highlights in LP's 2009 version.

Something must have happened during this time, but still I had got very positive reviews from some of my fellow exchange students. I admit I had some high expectations. Maybe it is because I am not in my most romantic mood at the moment, but I must say I was rather disappointed. There is very little genuine atmosphere left, as often happens when busload after busload of Western middle-aged tourists swarm the place. For James Bond fans there is the white cake palace in the middle of Lake Pichola known from Octopussy, dare I say one of the highlights of the Roger Moore era. The town is immensely proud of this connection with at least two restaurants claiming to show the movie every night. There are also the fairly overrated City Palace, which was drowning completely in tourists (maybe we should not have gone there on a Sunday, I know...) and some narrow, nice streets with unfortunately too many too touristy shops. One fun part, though, was the folk dance and puppet show we went to in the evening (Rajasthan is apparently famous for puppets). Also, the stone carvings of the Jagdish Temple were pretty impressive.

The return bus trip proved to be far longer than acceptable with the bus regularly having to stop to cool down the engine. Just to make it even a little bit longer, it also stopped for lunch... It felt good to get out of campus, though!