November 21, 2009
Ah, more adventures with the India rail system. The train arrived about 30 minutes late: not uncommon. My ticket is for coach RAC/27 and berth RAC/24. No one knows what “RAC/27” means and it doesn't resemble anything written on the sides of the railway cars. But it is the right train so I climbed aboard a car of the appropriate class and set about finding where I should be sleeping. Getting help onboard a train is a completely different experience than on the street. People are genuinely helpful. They are not trying to enrich themselves at your expense. There is hope for this country.
I wish I could say the same for the compartment I ended up semi-sleeping in. No doors, barely any walls. No luggage lockers, barely any place to put luggage. Simple padded benches with no bedding. I was able to sleep some and nothing bad happened but I wouldn't recommend it. One would hope the AC classes are better.
After exiting the train, I was approached a young Korean woman wanting to share an auto-rickshaw to the backpacker neighborhood. I wasn't going to turn that down. I let her lead since she seemed *very* good at it and had a practical grasp of Hindi. That surprised me since she was coming direct from Delhi. It turns out that she had been living and working in Delhi for two years and was just in Udaipur for a one week holiday.
And that's how I ended up here. It is a nice place is not in either of my guide books. That is the first for this trip: A good recommendation from someone not financially motivated. It is still morning and I am waiting for my room to be ready.
The town is attractive and tourist friendly but not overflowing with world class sites. The iconic Lake Palace is, perversely, inaccessible to most tourists. It's a five star hotel. The best that us peons can manage is an expensive lunch with a dress code. I don't think my hiking gear will get me in.
The City Palace has some beautiful scenes but is rather less than one in Jaipur. It is supposed to be larger but much of the palace is inaccessible due to construction. It needs the work but I wonder how much is for preservation and presentation and how much is simply more shops. There are already many shops on the palace grounds and at least one inside. Jaipur is more restrained.
My movements have been sluggish ever since I arrived. I slept and took advantage of open wifi the first day. I didn't make it to the City Palace until past 3:00pm on the second day. It's a food problem, mostly. The roof top restaurant doesn't serve breakfast until 8:00am and even then, service is glacial. There is no hot water for showers until 8:00am either. By the time I am truly ready to attack the morning, there is barely any morning left. If not chosen very carefully, lunch puts me into a coma.
The third day was essentially a wander and shopping for odds and ends before finally taking in Jagdish Temple before the light completely faded. The Jagdish Temple should not be missed. It's easy to dismiss it as it lies in the very center of a plague of tourist shops but the 16th century Hindu temple is actually rather impressive. There is scarcely a patch of wall that has not been transformed into sculpture. It reminds me of Angkor but smaller and marble rather than sandstone.
Yesterday, I took a rickshaw out to Ahar. The driver dropped me off at the Royal Centoaphs. These funerary structures, built over a period of 350 years are definitely worth exploring. However, that wasn't my primary target. Ahar is a major archaeological site. The small museum was kind of interesting with some artifacts going back 5000 years. The site? Well, I did manage a photo of the dig. (I think). I walked part way back and stumbled onto an extensively sculpted Jain temple of uncertain age. Worth a visit.
Today, I was to visit Jag Mandir. This is the lake palace for the rest of us. Except today. It was reserved for a wedding party. And tomorrow. Oh well.
Tomorrow I head further South in the direction of Sasan Gir, last refuge of the Asiatic Lion. Ahemdabad is also near another Indus Valley site that I hope to visit.