Udaipur

Location: Udaipur. Rajasthan, India

29.11-2.12.2009

Day 1

  We arrived to Udaipur very early in the morning before sunrise. It took us quite a while to find an accommodation, but in the end we stayed at the hotel we saw  first before this extensive search. Arne still didn’t feel well and felt very tired , but his diarrhea disappeared. We were glad to watch some TV and films in our hotel, because most of the budget hotels don’t have TV. Later on I went to take a stroll in the town taking the  camera with me and making a couple of pictures. The Lonely Planet said that Udaipur is maybe India’s most romantic city with a romantic lake and few building rising from the romantic Pichola Lake. I wasn’t sure if I would agree with the description from the Lonely Planet. The lake was dirty looking very polluted with local women on its banks shaping and drying the cow’s shit for use as fuel and bricks. But some buildings around were quite pretty. One of the buildings rising from the lake  was a very posh Lake Palace Hotel where you will pay 1000 Euros for a room. Also the Maharaja’s Palace sitting on the bank of the lake was spectacular. There were a few more nice buildings surrounding the lake, which could be romantic, if the lake wouldn’t be so dirty and polluted. After that I  went strolling around a bit more looking inside of souvenir shops and shops with clothing. Arne stayed inside and watched lots of movies.

Day 2

Arne started to be very worried about his health and he was considering to go to a private hospital and get a stool sample test done, but we talked about it and decided to wait for two more days and have it done in Mumbai, where we were intending to go after Udaipur. I went again to take a stroll and I was stopped by an Austrian guy we met a few days ago in Amritsar. We talked for a while and he advised to go to the hospital as soon as possible to get the test done, so Arne doesn’t take wrong antibiotics, which will only weaken his immunity. He was talking from his own experience in India, because he had similar troubles with stomach and antibiotics he took. I went back and told it to Arne and both of us went to the hospital.  Although it was a private hospital it still wasn’t as clean and well organized as the hospitals in Europe. Arne first had a consultation with a doctor and he told him to keep taking the antibiotics he was already taking. He didn’t really considered the stool test, but Arne persisted he wants  the test being done. When the whole procedure was over, they told us to come in two days to get the result. Arne spent the afternoon browsing on the Internet and chilling out and I was doing my bits and pieces and relaxed. We had our lunch on the roof top of our hotel with a fantastic view over the town with the lake, buildings and surrounding hills.

Day 3

Arne started to feel a bit better today, so he had more motivation to do things. Udaipur was a very artistic town with lots of artistic souvenir shops, we hadn’t seen anywhere else. We were visiting the souvenir shops and bought something for us and the family. We also went to book a ticket to Mumbai at the bus station. From Mumbai we already booked the train to Goa. We had only three weeks before returning to Europe and a difficult decision to make how our trip will carry on. We were tired of rushing and seeing as much as possible, so in the end we went for the more relaxing option, which was going to the beaches of Goa and from there we will see if we feel like doing anything else. The second option was going to Mumbai for a few days and from there to Ellora Caves  and from there to Goa. But seeing the journey we had to accomplish we just couldn’t do it even though it would be interesting to see. I started to see the romantic feel of the town by now and I started to like Udaipur very much. The streets were cleaner, than in any other towns of India, which felt nice and there was an artistic feel to this town.

Day 4

We were leaving today, because our plan was to take a bus to Mumbai and from there a train to Goa. But before we left we went to see the City Palace, which was a big complex with different buildings and gardens. We haven’t seen all of it, just gardens around and the palace museum, which was very different from what we ever seen. There were lots of paintings of different motives all inside of the building including  portraits of the maharaja, the latest dweller and owner  of this palace, who doesn’t live here anymore. We had seen also his bedroom, living room  and other rooms of the building which were before part of his residence. The architecture and taste was quite unique  with some  beautiful mosaics of peacocks and glass mosaic room, which looked very impressive. We finished with strolling around in the gardens and came back to the hotel, packed our stuff and went to the hospital to get the  stool result. We had to wait for another hour, because there was something wrong in the result, so they send it to a further examination. The test came positive with e. coli bacteria in his stool, which kind of scared us. He prescribed another antibiotics, which is very strong and the only one still in tablet form which could kill the bacteria. If that didn’t help he would have to come for injections. We bought the medication and ran to catch the bus to Mumbai, because we were very late. It took us about 16 hours to come to Mumbai, but the journey was quite pleasant and we slept the most of the time on the bus.