Udaipur, India

This post was due since I returned back from my trip to India. We ended up taking so many pictures, that sorting them out was a big task in itself. Finally, I am done sorting out the best to share with you all. We try to visit our family at least every two years. Most of our family members live in India- my family as well my husband’s family. There are never enough days to visit all of them in one trip , but we try to make most of it. And, we also have to make sure that we get to go out and eat all the foods that we grew up eating. My husband and I make a big list of places that we want to eat and things we wanna do while on the flight to India; mind you it takes almost 24 hours journey to travel to Asia. We go through two breakfasts, two dinners, one lunch and many snacks by the time we land in India. I am not trying to scare you if you ever plan to visit India or any other countries in Asia. But, that’s how long it takes.

This year’s visit was special. As I was going to see my niece for the first time who was almost turning one in few days . Yes, I was planning to go on this trip since so many months. My sister had her after 11 years of their marriage. She is such a blessing to our family. We also had my husband’s cousin getting married and it had been long since we had attended an Indian wedding. So, we were more than excited for the trip.During the trip, at times we got so busy that I do not have pictures to share of everything that we did. But, I do have many pictures from our trip to Udaipur. In two weeks we traveled to so many places and one of them was to Udaipur city as it was closest and some of my family members had not been there. We wanted some family time together. 

Udaipur lies in Rajasthan state and considered to be the capital of the state. It has vast history and culture. Known as city of lakes it falls under the Aravalli region of Rajasthan. It is also famous tourist destination with lot of scenic places and city of palaces. Its also famous for its folk dances. You will get a glimpse of it in my pictures and some following posts.

After a five hour car ride , we were in Udaipur to take a short family vacation to spend 3 days to spend altogether. And three days were more than enough to escape as we didn’t really have more time on hand. But , if you had time I would say at least spend 5 days and learn more about the culture and visit nearby villages.

The first day as soon as we checked in our hotel we took a quick lunch and set out to explore. We stayed right on Gangaur ghat very close to City Palace and Bagore Ki Haveli. The location was good but really crowded and small alleyways. Best to walk around then ride your own car or take an auto. Even though we had our car, we almost walked to nearby places and took auto rickshaw. I think it was fun not to worry about your car hitting anyone or anyone else hitting your car.

As we set off to explore the city we toured City Palace -a beautiful palace grounds built in 1559.

The gates at the entrance.

close up of the architecture and the guards posing for us

It is magnificent! It has a museum inside that shows weaponry used during those times and lot of other stuff.

The windows and balconies are truly beautiful and a piece of architecture

 Painting on one of the walls inside the palace

This part had some nice intricate artwork called Meenakari

Isn’t it beautiful?

More pictures

Can you see the paintings on the wall?

That’s me with my niece, isn’t she cute…

We ended our day by eating local foods like Dal baati and kachoris. The next day we had more in store for us to do that also included shopping and a lots of eating.

Another, amazing place to visit is Sajjangarh Palace or also known as Monsoon Palace. The views were incredible and the sunsets mesmerizing; after all its famous for the sunset views. Check out the pictures to see it first hand.

Incredible sunset

The narrow hilly roads – a crazy drive up the hills to Monsoon Palace

There were a lot of monkeys – my niece had a great time staring them!

One more touristy things to do in Udaipur is a boat trip on the lake, which to me was okay in terms of experience. There were two options – a group boat tour or private and a speedboat tour which is more for the thrill. We did our boat tour from Fatehsagar Lake.

It was hardly half an hour tour. Instead of sitting and enjoying the views we started dancing on the boat. There was some local folk style music being played. It was hilarious. Common you make the best of whatever you are doing. Others on the boat also joined us for the dance party. If you have extra time and want to do the boat ride then its fine. I would definitely skip it. Although, you can visit Jag Mandir from Lake Picchola as it is accessible by only boat and you get two in one experience. We missed going to Jag Mandir but I would definitely do it if I were to go back to Udaipur.

You can also do elephant ride for fun at Lake Fatehsagar

That’s how we spent our first day in Udaipur. To read more about our trip please read  Udaipur Part 2.

To be continued in the next post