Udaipur: Darkest Before Dawn

After a wild and crazy time in Pushkar, I headed south for Udaipur. Rather than take the bus, as I had initially planned, I decided to wing it and try to get a train ticket with my new friends from the guesthouse. It worked swimmingly, and we spent the next five hours chatting with people on the train and eating unexpectedly disgusting Indian sweets. (We were supposed to suck on them rather than chew them, but still. Gross.)

I had reservations at a guesthouse, so we all piled in to a rickshaw and went that direction. Unfortunately, the guesthouse didn't have any rooms available for the next couple nights, so my friends went off to find other accommodations. Jon wasn't feeling well at the time and ended up going to the hospital, which he reports as being quite nice.

After falling down some stairs, getting settled into my room and taking a short nap, I decided to explore. I went walking in the neighborhood around my guesthouse trying to find three restaurants that my Lonely Planet guidebook told me were nearby. I didn't find any of them, but I did wander through some really pretty neighborhoods; hardly a soul around, and the buildings were all beautiful shades of blue and cream and green. With the afternoon sun dousing everything gold, it was pretty magical.

Here's the view from my guesthouse's restaurant. Not bad.

I ate almost all of my meals right here.

About an hour later, I found myself, unexpectedly, back where I started. I decided to venture further south to continue my wanderings, but before I could make any real progress, I felt my lower intestines move in a decidedly unsavory manner. I hurried to the guesthouse.

- - - - - - - -SIDEBAR- - - - - - - -

If you've ever travelled to India, you know the importance of keeping a roll of toilet paper with you at all times. You never know what's going to happen when you're out of your room, and you can never expect toilet paper to be provided for you. One of my biggest logistical concerns during my travels was a) do I have more than half a roll of toilet paper in my bag? and b) where is the closest place I can buy a roll? I once spent a half hour in a rickshaw trying to find a general store that sold toilet paper. For those of you who haven't been to India yet, imagine the panic you feel when you're alone in a public bathroom and you've just done your thing and you reach into the dispenser to find that you're clutching at air. Now take that times a million, every day, and instead of sitting down, you're squatting over a hole.

- - - - - - - -END SIDEBAR- - - - - - - -

I ended up staying in that evening, eating at the guesthouse rooftop restaurant (not a bad deal, really, if you consider the view), and, feeling more and more ill by the minute, I went to bed early. It was a good move. Without going into too much detail, let's just say that I was in and out of the bathroom more than I was sleeping that night, with chills, a fever, and nasty body aches (among other things). And then the nightmare of all nightmares occurred:

I ran out of toilet paper.

Not only did I run out of toilet paper, but I ran out at 2 in the morning. Where could I go? I was in no shape to leave the room (I even thought about sleeping on the bathroom floor at one point), and besides, there were no shops open at this hour. Who could I call? There was not a soul manning the desk at the restaurant, and the number for the guesthouse would surely go to voicemail. I thought about knocking on a neighbor's door, but blanched at the thought of disturbing other guests at this hour and with my disheveled appearance. What could I do? I rummaged frantically through the contents of my backpack and found, with a sigh of relief, a plastic package of Kleenexes that I had thoughtfully packed back in July (undoubtedly thinking to myself, "you never know..."). Not knowing how many I would have to use, I rationed them carefully, being sure not to waste in case I needed them longer than anticipated.

Once it was around 8:30, I steeled myself to walk the three flights of stairs to the desk in the hopes that there would be someone to assist me. I dressed myself--sort of--and made the long and arduous journey. Unfortunately for me, it was much harder than expected; I felt nauseous almost immediately, my legs were weak and shaky, and my breath was coming in gasps. I arrived, got to the desk and told the sleepy-looking worker, "I need a roll of toilet paper." He looked at me. I saw spots. I bent over double to keep from falling over and to bring the blood back to my head. When he returned, I stood up slowly and took the roll that he gave me. It was puny, only an 1/8 of a regular roll. I knew it wouldn't last me more than two hours. I better not have to pay for this, I thought malevolently, and told him, "I need two rolls of toilet paper."

That was the worst of Udaipur. Now I'm going to show you the best.

Keep in mind this quote from Charles Baudelaire and you may have an idea of my attitude at this point in the journey (gendered pronouns are changed):

"But lately returned from the valley of the shadow of death, she is rapturously breathing in all the odors and essences of life; as she has been on the brink of total oblivion, she remembers, and fervently desires to remember, everything."

On my third full day in the city, I finally made it out of the guesthouse. Udaipur is beautiful, but not heavy with sights like other cities. I love Udaipur, and it's really all about the ambience: Lake Pichola, the brilliant white buildings, the colorful doors, the narrow streets (so narrow, in fact, that cars can't fit through many of them, making Udaipur one of the quietest cities I visited). I met some really cool people, ran into some other folks I had met in Pushkar, and saw City Palace.

City Palace is my favorite of the palace museums that I visited. The building and the rooms were exquisitely restored, the flow was great, the signs were well-placed and had few of the grammatical errors that typically plague Indian museum signage, and the tour was just long enough to give you satisfaction but not too long as to make you tired. I found myself almost skipping from room to room, camera in hand, delighted at everything I saw.

My favorite room in the whole place.

This area of Rajasthan is home to a particular breed of horse called Marwari.
The defining characteristic of this breed is the turning-in of the ears.

This is made of silver. How crazy is that??

That same day, I hung out with a new friend I met at City Palace and we went on a photography adventure, taking in the sunset and going up in a cable car to a point outside the city to look at the lights. It was beautiful, and the photos truly don't do it justice.