Farewell Udaipur, Next Stop, Dehli

Udaipur, India -- Day 3

There were three goals for the day, ship the spoils of yesterday's shopping spree, take an overdue tour of the nearby City Palace, and make it onto our 6:15 Mewar Express train to Delhi.

Kylie joined me for a morning run, which was fun.  The streets are less busy, they've mostly been swept up, and the pollution is at it's lowest ebb. Surprisingly, it doesn't take long to leave the tourist area behind and by 7:30, most of the streets have already been swept with the little piles either hauled away in wheel barrows or set fire to. Halfway along I got a text from Don about possibly joining us for hiking in Nepal. That was a good excuse to rest for a few minutes particularly since Kylie wasn't feeling great. With Kylie along, running in hiking boots, and her new brown dress, we attracted a bit more attention. One middle aged couple on a moped pulled over on one of the tiny alleyways specifically to shake our hands and wish us a happy Diwali.

Once back in the room, we had a wonderful FaceTime chat with the Nixons, grabbed breakfast at another rooftop restaurant, and then went in search of someone to ship our packages. We enlisted the help of the local merchant we had patronized the day before to help ship our packages. Mayank, a handsome, young store owner speaking excellent English, was clearly use to dealing with foreign tourist. He quickly got me a cappucino and the kids some chocolate cake while we went through the details of our six different packages.

Leelu, the Guesthouse dog

Mayank, our helpful store owner

Finally, around 11:00 we were ready to visit the large City Palace just a few blocks away. The Mewar dynasty of Udaipur is apparently the oldest continuous dynasty on earth. The current "administrator" is the 76th in the long line of Mewar Maharana rulers. The family, interestingly, has its very own personal deity, an incarnation of Lord Shiva called Eklingji. Although the palace construction and civic development project spearheaded by these leaders were undoubtedly beneficial to the local community, it was also clear that answering only to their own personal deity, was mighty convenient leading to a fairly luxurious life style.

Horse disguised as and elephant to trick enemies

One of the most impressive parts of the palace was the Crystal Gallery. Maharana Sijjan Singh, who ruled from the age of fifteen in the late 1880s, was particularly interested in history, literature and art. This love of beautiful things led him to place a huge order of crystal from the F&C Osler Company in England. Unfortunately, he died before the gigantic order was received and it wasn't for a 110 years that the boxes were finally unpacked. The result is the largest collection of crystal furniture anywhere: tables, chairs (with padded cushions), and the creme de la creme, a four poster bed. The maharana seemed not to have missed any accessories, including footrests, lamps, stools, end tables, candlesticks, serving trays etc, etc. Although we were forbidden to take pictures, rebel that I am, I snapped a couple any way!

The lavish Dubar Hall

Crystal furniture

By 5:00, we were ready to head off to the train station for the last of our Indian train experiences. To our chagrin, this time we were at the end of the train in sleeper car S1. For whatever reason, the Diwali holiday, or just being at the end near a couple general seating cars, our seating area was soon occupied by a half dozen additional passengers. And, as we were now just a stones through from the engine, we were subjected to sadistically loud and continual blasts of the horn. Anyone traveling along a road intersecting the tracks was well warned indeed.

Soon it was almost impossible to get to the bathroom with a dozen people crouched in the aisle way and outside the bathrooms.  I felt a little guilty when at 9:00 we flipped up the back of the bench seats, connected the chains hanging from the uppermost bunk, and climbed into our respective, triple bunk spots.  This forced those that had been squatting on the seats, to move elsewhere.  I knew for a fact we had paid a substantial premium for the convenience of getting our tickets, even during festivals and likely many of those crowded onto the train may not have paid at all. Still, it was hard not to feel like the entitled rich tourist, which we were.