World India Rajasthan Udaipur

Born To Travel's Big Trip

Udaipur and boat ride on Lake Pichal Apr 30, 2009

Movie Clips - Playback Requirements - Problems?

If you have to go on a drive for six hours you should choose India to do it in as it is highly amusing. I had plenty of time to organise my trip thoughts for the Northern part of my journey post this driven part especially as it seemed there were new roads open since the last time my driver had taken the route between Jaipur and Udaipur that were causing confusion all round. I realised that the construction company had forgotten to place the directional signs back on the roads!! How funny is that:))

Whilst they didn't have directional signs, they did have pedestrian crossings. Yes pedestrian crossings on the motorway. EVEN the cows seemed to know how to use them too!!

To be fair to my driver, who had stopped in the middle of a fork in the highway to ask a lorry driver the way, he wasn't getting much in the way of positive assistance basically because the lorry driver was confused also.

We set off on one of the new roads only to see some other lorries who were waving to us after doing a u-turn. They seemed to have found the way under a new flyover. It was the blind leading the blind but somehow we ended up back on the right road. Kept me amused I have to say:)

All the mucking about on the new roads was worth it when I saw my hotel in Udaipur. It had a swimming pool and spa! I was shocked to say the least asking my driver if he was sure but yup it was indeed. Goodness knows how much I was paying for this especially when I saw I was to be sleeping in a four poster bed:))) I figured though that the prices must be heavily discounted in the low season as there was a whole wing of the the hotel completely empty with only a portion of my part of the hotel occupied. It still felt very odd walking into reception with my rucksacks, not quite the right image of a backpacker....

Heading down to Lake Pichola, we came to the City Palace with its splendid views over the lake in the evening sunshine. I was here to take a boat ride to Jagmandir Island to take in the view back to the city. It seemed to me only that there was only just enough water in the lake to get us across. Indeed, about a quarter of the lake now had been turned into farmland by some opportunist locals. Apparently the monsoon rains had failed in the previous year leaving the lake waters levels this low.

Once I had reached the Island, I was very glad I had made the crossing as the view is spectacular just like the guide books say. Don't miss out on this:)