Udaipur
INDIA
The Romantic City
By LYNDI
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Udaipur in southern Rajasthan is famous for a few things. Locally it’s known as the “Romantic City” because several Rajput rulers built palaces around the man-made lakes that light up at night to give the city an evening glow. Internationally, however, it’s famous as the setting of James Bonds’ most ridiculously named film “Octopussy”. We had to go.
Arriving early on a Saturday morning we had our tuk tuk driver drop us off on the quieter Hanuman Ghat side of the lake. The busy Lal Ghat area directly across from us is crowded with shops, taxis, tuk tuks, cows, dogs, people and plenty of garbage, so after the bustling city of Jaipur we were ready for a little break from all that.
Leaving me to guard the bags on a corner, Aaron headed out to find a nice hotel and scored with an 800 rupee room with private bathroom, air conditioning, private balcony and cable TV at Panorama Guesthouse.
Since I hadn’t been feeling well for a few days, I spent the majority of the first day napping in the beautiful a/c – waking only for a few hours before heading back to bed. Not an exciting first day, I know, but very necessary.
We did manage to venture out to the Foreigners Registration Office – again. On a multiple-entry Indian visa, you are normally only allowed to re-enter India after being out of the country for 2 months. Since we only left for one month while in Nepal, we had to get special permission from the Indian embassy to return within the given time as well as register our arrival in India within 2 weeks at a Foreigners Registration Office.
We tried to find the FRO in Varanasi when we had first arrived, but no one in town knew what we were talking about. We even went to the police station where they tried to direct us to a cellphone store to register our phones. Ummm… thanks. We don’t even have phones. Clearly, the office there does not exist. Then we actually found the FRO in Jaipur, but the man behind the desk told us we don’t need to register. We pointed to the sentence on our visas that says “Visitor must register”, but he said it was unnecessary, then tried to get us to fill out visa extension forms. We tried to explain that we don’t want an extension, just to register – but he had no idea what we were talking about. He leaned over and talked with another worker, then told us it would take 2-3 days. What? To write our names down in a book? Well, we didn’t have 2-3 days in Jaipur, so Udaipur became our last chance within the 2 week period before we would be fined US$30 each for not registering. So we walked about one hour to the FRO in town, only to find a guy working behind the desk who told us they weren’t open on Saturdays and we would have to return on Monday at 11am. Okay, kind of a waste of time, but we would be back on Monday to avoid the fine.
That night we had to go watch James Bonds’ “Octopussy” at one of the many restaurants offering a free showing. Unfortunately, it must be one of Roger Moore’s worst efforts, because I fell asleep about five times throughout the two hours – though I did open my eyes long enough to get a good viewing of a tuk tuk chase scene through the narrow streets, so that was worth it.
A good portion of the next day was spent visiting the City Palace. It was a bargain entrance fee, but a hefty camera fee – so we left the cameras behind and just walked around. It was also a mixed blessing, because although we couldn’t snap shots of the impressive grounds or interiors – we also couldn’t be bothered by the hundreds of Indians that keep stopping us to take our picture, which was a huge relief.
Aaron also organized a much needed “date night” where we wore our best clothes (meaning, the least smelly) and I actually put on the mascara that I foolishly brought and went to a nice restaurant. As opposed to many restaurants in Hindu India, this one sold nice, cold beers (though you’ll never find beer on the menu, some restaurants will usually serve it if you ask) – even in a frosty mug! We ordered waaaaay too much food and stuffed ourselves with paneer tikka, naan bread and mushroom palaka curry. The restaurant was right on the lake front so we could watch the palaces and the James Bond hotel light up as dusk fell.
When Monday came we were happy to finally get this registration thing out of the way. We were at the FRO at 11am sharp – only to be faced with complete incompetence. Again. This time, the guy at the desk drilled us on why we hadn’t registered earlier, then gave us a 7 page report to fill out (when scanning through it, two pages were an application for residency, one was for a visa extension, amongst other completely unnecessary forms) that we would need to make five copies of each. We would also need five copies of four different pages in our passports and 7 passport photos. I asked him what the seven passport photos were for – and was told one for Delhi’s office, one for Jaipur’s office and one for the office here in Udaipur. Ummm… that’s three. But I didn’t argue. Clearly this guy was just handing us every single form he had, throwing out numbers and basically not caring either way.
He also kept pointing out that we had to do it because we would have to pay him US$30 otherwise (which is not true – we would have to pay it when we left India at the airport, but I guess the man’s gotta try). We thanked him for his time and left the office. No way were we going to go through all that crap – we were just going to take our chances and hope the immigration officials at the airport were as clueless, incompetent and corrupt as the rest of the government officials in India seemed to be.
The last thing we had to do in Udaipur was an Indian food cooking class. Our Panorama Guesthouse offered a course that was taught by the owner’s wife at his house, so we signed up. He drove us to his nice home a few blocks away and we were greeted by his friendly plump wife – a good sign that at least she likes her food!
Taking turns writing down her recipes and helping to stir or flip, Kamu took us through 8 different recipes – everything from chai tea to fried okra to dal curry and chapatti bread. Kamu did most of the cooking, but gave us specific instructions, metric conversions for our silly cups and ounces, and spice substitutions if we can’t find certain types in the US.
Throughout the three hours we got to talk to Kamu quite a bit about life in Udaipur and India in general. She told us all about the first time she met her husband – about an hour before they got married – and why she thinks arranged marriages are so much better than love marriages. In big Indian cities, finding your own partner and marrying someone you love is no longer uncommon, but as soon as you get to smaller towns, parents arrange the whole thing. As someone told us, Indian marriages are not meant to unite people, they are meant to unite families. I shudder to think who my parents would have picked. She also explained a little bit about the caste systems and what different castes are entitled to. Kamu and her husband are of the Rajput caste – which is the caste of kings and maharajahs, so the world is pretty much at their feet. No wonder they like the system.
Once all the food was prepared, she served us in the traditional Indian thali (a metal tray with compartments for each type of food) and let us dig in. Man – we are amazing cooks. Okay, so Kamu basically did it all – but we will be amazing cooks. And surprisingly, it was all fresh, healthy food. It makes sense I guess, Indians don’t eat thick, heavy curries every night – that’s just what we Westerners order when we go to Indian food restaurants. They eat fresh vegetables, soups, and breads – it just all comes with masala spices and a bit of oil.
Once we had gorged ourselves on delicious home made food, we paid Kamu the 500 rupees each and carried our bloated selves back to the hotel. We had a night train that night on a ridiculous journey from Udaipur, back to Jaipur and over to Jodhpur – when we really could have just booked a direct bus to Jodhpur. But we were done with buses! They can be absolutely shocking in India – and fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 12 times, shame on me, so off to the train station we went for another hot, crowded sleeper class train to our next destination.
