Udaipur

Udaipur was made famous in 1983 by being the key location for the James Bond movie Octopussy. It is not a particularly good movie, but the location was memorable.

The most prominent scenes took place in a white palace floating on Lake Pichola, a palace that is now a Taj hotel. There is another romantic garden/resort on the lake (on Jagmandir Island) as well, which only has 7 rooms and is popular with weddings. It was first built in 1620 as a sort of summer palace. From our rooftop bar stools we could see the pink lights of  a wedding flooding out over the lake, but mercifully there was no pumping music, as the air would have carried it to every corner of the old part of the city, including our little part of it.

This small city is all lakes and gardens and views, and has a more laid back feel, especially when one is watching the sun set over the lake with a gin and tonic in hand. Even more exciting is when the bar stools are located on a glass floor with the swimming pool directly below. All our hotels have had lovely swimming pools, but none of them are heated and they are close to freezing. They might be bearable in the mid-afternoon warmth, when it gets to the early 20s in temperature, but we are never at the hotel during that time and so never tempted to do any more than dip our feet in at the end of the day. They sure look lovely though.

one pool in the early morning light...

....and the other at night

Where's the bar lounge?
Oh.

Udaipur has a large palace, Rajasthan’s largest, which was built a few centuries ago, the bulk of which is now an excellent and large museum, with another gate leading to another part that is a hotel, and a third part that is off limits as the royal family still lives there. Noblesse oblige.

the Udaipur were direct descendants of the sun god,
so the main gate of the palace faces east

for the royal pigeons, used pre-internet

Did I mention they used the reference to their ancestor the sun god?

women's courtyard

okay, okay I get it - ancestor - sun god!

The Udaipur kings were known as Maharanas, instead of Maharajas. Maharaja means” mighty king”, but Maharana means mighty warrior”, a distinction earned by the Udaipur royals as their palace was never defeated or overtaken by the enemy.

Our transport options were added to with a boat ride on Lake Pichola, circling the James Bond palace and stopping at the other one, where we enjoyed a leisurely stroll and watched staff clear away the gold painted chairs and white painted ironwork cocktail tables used in last night’s nuptuals.

overlooking the James Bond island palace

Martin posed in front of the James Bond
island palace

Boating around the James Bond island palace

on the other island

looking back at the palace

The afternoon was spent looking down on this peaceful scene, from the top of a nearby hill, on which is perched what was originally designed to be an astronomical research tower. Indians treat both astronomy and astrology very seriously, considering the two of them equal sciences. Maharana Sajjan Singh got only a few levels of his tower built, where it now sits rather neglected. Monkeys swarm the place, and must completely take over when visitors have left in the evening.

the original plan

the bit that got built

looking out over the Aravilli hills

Our poor driver dealing with a monkey claiming his car

Udaipur is also known for its exquisite miniatures, a craft still followed today by the ancestors of the original court painters. They get an incredible amount of detail in such a small space, sometimes using brushes with just one hair.