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India: Udaipur

Udaipur from across the lake
Udaipur from across the lake

Udaipur is known for its beautiful lake, its intricate palaces and its holy Hindu temples, but on arrival you could be forgiven for thinking that the locals have dumped all their chivalrous Rajput history in favour of that more modern example of suave sophistication, James Bond. Restaurants advertise video screens showing Bond movies, guidebooks allude to 007 in their descriptions, and travellers distinguish it from other palatial Rajasthani cities by the city's new creed, for this is where Octopussy was filmed, and the locals are pretty keen to point this out.

Udaipur from the Jag Mandir Palace
Udaipur from the Jag Mandir Palace

The City Palace

The City Palace from the lake
The City Palace from the lake

Of course, below this grand surface things aren't always quite so beautiful. Take the City Palace: the current Maharana (as the rulers of Udaipur are called) still lives in one portion, which is closed to the public; two other areas have been turned into luxury hotels, so although they're open to the likes of you and me, it's only with the accompanying guilt/jealousy crossover that five-star hotels bring out in those unwilling or unable to fork out such riches; and the remainder makes up the museum.

Garish decorations inside the City Palace
Garish decorations inside the rather pompous City Palace
The City Palace
The imposing front of the City Palace

The Monsoon Palace

Sunset over the Monsoon Palace
Sunset over the Monsoon Palace

In Udaipur my umbrella caused a sensation. I've had plenty of reactions before – mainly ones of open-mouthed amazement at the sight of a maroon umbrella of almost Indian garishness adorning a foreigner – but I've never experienced jealousy before. The locals wanted to examine my umbrella, to understand how the silvering worked in keeping the heat of the sun off me, and eventually they wanted to buy it; I had offers of three hundred, four hundred rupees, far more than I'd paid for it in Calcutta. I wondered why they didn't seem to have umbrellas in Udaipur, though perhaps quality umbrellas are at a premium because the monsoon lasts for three months round these parts.

View over Udaipur
Looking over Udaipur, with the Monsoon Palace on the hill in the background
The Monsoon Palace
The Monsoon Palace can just be made out on the left of this hill
Antennae on top of the Monsoon Palace
Antennae on top of the Monsoon Palace
The view from the Monsoon Palace
The view from the Monsoon Palace
The Monsoon Palace
The Monsoon Palace

The Lake Palace Hotel

The Lake Palace Hotel from the City Palace
Looking over the Lake Palace Hotel from the City Palace

I'd booked a table that night for dinner for three in the Lake Palace Hotel, the first hotel in the world to be built on a lake and one of the most amazing settings you could wish for; my dining partners were to be Phil and Alex, the couple I'd met on the bus, and we were to meet at 7pm at the Lake Palace ferry terminal. This gave me plenty of time to go on a cruise round the lake before my sumptuous dining experience, and I duly boarded the boat at six. If you think Udaipur is beautiful from the inside, it's truly magnificent from the lake.

The Jag Mandir Palace
The Jag Mandir Palace is perched on its own island in the middle of the lake
Pavilions at the Jag Mandir Palace
Pavilions at the Jag Mandir Palace, overlooking the lake
The Lake Palace Hotel
The Lake Palace Hotel
The garden at the Jag Mandir Palace
The garden at the Jag Mandir Palace

1 The Ambassador is the most common car in India, and it's as distinctive as a London cab.

2 Karom is a game that's also popular in Nepal. It's a kind of finger pool played with draughts counters, where you flick the counters and try to knock others into pockets. It's really entertaining to play, and it doesn't require much effort, which is a distinct blessing in the pre-monsoonal heat.