The following morning I headed out to visit the city palace which is a huge building located right on the bank of the lake in the city. The palace is beautiful and to look at it one would never have guessed that each new ruler who lived in the building added a new addition. The building looks as if it was built all at once and designed that way, not adding little bits over several centuries. Most of the area inside the palace has been turned into a a fairly interesting museum containing lots of articles from Mughal empires over the past few centuries. The displays include everything from artwork to an armory to information about past leaders and about Rajistan in general. Other than the articles in the museum just even wandering through the old palace was pretty fascinating. That evening I took in a performance of traditional Rajistan dancing. The dancing was quite fabulous but the most impressive part was the extremely colourful clothing that the dancers wore and the music that was played by a few guys was extremely good. Definitely a worthwhile performance to see.
The following day I took a tour out to the surrounding country side for a few hours in the afternoon and saw another lake (Udaipur has 4 large lakes in the area), some small villages, the monsoon palace and Shilpgram. The lake, called Tiger lake, wasn't anything spectacular however it was loads cleaner and better looking than the lake in middle of Udaipur which the city palace is built upon. Additionally the small villages weren't anything special after I have seen several similar villages over the past few months but it was still worthwhile touring around them and mainly seeing the people walking to the communal water pumps to gather their water. These small villages had on running water and as a result they desperately depended on streams and water underground, as a result during times of drought (like just before the monsoon) getting enough water in the village is pretty tough and everybody has to be extremely careful to not waste it. After touring some villages I visited Shilpgram which is a small museum type setup showing the types of huts that people in small villages used to live in. The museum is entirely open air and you walk from area to area with each one setup like a different tribe so the huts are all different, but so are their schools and temples which are sometimes shown here too. The only downside about Shilpgram was that it was very touristy and so everywhere there were stalls selling crafts with their owners trying to get you to come buy something. Finally I went to monsoon palace which is built on top of the highest hill in the area and a great place for sunset. That is about the only worthwhile reason for coming here though as the palace isn't very big and the interior is almost empty except for a few posters talking about the local environment.
My final day in Udaipur was spent again wandering through some of the back streets, looking at the Lake Palace and Jag Mandir (another palace built on an island on the lake) and visiting Jagdish temple. I didn't actually visit either of the two palaces built on the lake as one is a hotel that doesn't allow non guests to visit and the other required taking an hour long boat ride around the very uninviting lake to get to.
After spending a few days at Udaipur I boarded a bus heading to Jodhpur to visit the famous fort located there. So my time in Udaipur was finished. I was quite disappointed in Udaipur as it sounded like an absolutely beautiful place filled with places located around a lake. However, the water level in the lake was very low and the lake was filled with garbage and algae so it didn't look very appealing. Also to top it off there were hundreds of small shops selling paintings and other souvenirs so all of the touts that were constantly trying to get you to visit their store were a bit overwhelming and not peaceful or relaxing at all. I was glad to head out of there and get to Jodhpur after the few days I spent there.
As an additional note a large portion of the James Bond movie Octopussy was filmed here and you can see the monsoon palace (the interior of the palace in the movie looks nothing like the interior in real life), lake palace and some city scenes in the movie.
A view of the Lake Palace from the roof of my hotel. This is the one that's been turned into a fancy hotel and non guests aren't allowed to visit.
A view of the city palace from across the lake.
The golden sun design, the symbol of the Mughal empire. This exhibit is located in the museum within the city palace.
A scene of the dance performance that I saw with a peacock, the bird of India, being depicted by the lady on the right.
Another scene from the dance performance. Here the lady is balancing lots of ceramic pots on her head while still being able to dance to the music, it was very impressive.
Some ladies doing their laundry in one of the smaller ponds located around the city.
Some ladies who were helping with the restoration work on the Monsoon Palace. They would carry the waste material away in buckets on their head and dump it over the cliff.
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