James here! Lauren is on holiday :)…from blogging that is.
The second ‘pur’ city for us in Rajasthan, and also the second ‘007 Octopussy was filmed here’ city was friendly, calm and collected Udaipur, the Venice of the East (not to be confused with the Venice of the East in Bangkok…)
Most of the cheap guest house accomodation in Udaipur is situated around Lake Pichola, where Jag Mandir and the floating white palace can be seen…floating. The huge city palace, cramped Jagdish temple and ancient Bigore Ki Haveli are also in the vicinity and easily within walking distance of everything (We reckon the best spots to stay are Hanuman ghat and Gangori ghat, mainly because we saw monkeys next to our guesthouse window at Gangori ghat).
Our first impression of Udaipur was the rickshaw trip from the train station, which was cheap and our driver was actually genuinely friendly! We instantly noticed that the local people are friendlier and less pushy in Udaipur.
On that note, one of the great things about travel is meeting different people and being able to converse with locals about what they are selling or what they are up to. Udaipur is the first Indian city in nearly a month of India travel where we have felt that most of the local spice sellers, milk shop owners, woodworkers, knife sharpeners and machinists actually want to have a chat; A nice change, which certainly gives you a boost of energy and confidence that India has more to offer than purely grand monuments and interesting landscapes.
So, feeling more energetic than usual, maybe because of the couple of days relaxing by the lake and watching the monkeys bound around the trees out our window, we took a morning walk down to Mandi market, the local veg and spice market. These markets are awesome and its a great thing to do when you are sick of visiting the tourist attractions and just want to mix it with the locals. The markets are an easy find, about a 15min walk from Jagdish temple and when you get there you will be shoved around by veg sellers hauling their baskets, greeted by spice sellers selling various powdered spices, sugar cane extract (tastes like molasses) and sacks of chilies and maybe even buy a bag of freshly peeled, sliced and cooked potato chips.
The locals are all pretty friendly too and often give you a taste or smell of various, slightly strange and often spicy looking food additives. We found ourselves enjoying the local areas and markets more than the palaces and boat trips because of the people, which we haven’t found to be the same in many other Indian cities. So, during one of our bi-daily ‘analyse India’ sessions, we have decided that Udaipur is one of our favorite Indian cities. Hoorah, because we were getting pretty worn down by all the money hungry touts, poo ridden streets, horn tooting rickshaws, picture taking domestic tourists and of generally being worked over by anyone who saw us coming. We probably still got worked over but at least they are friendly.
Our last night in Udaipur was spent visiting Bigore Ki Haveli, an old building that has been restored to display various rooms representing how Mewars aristocratic society lived and socialised. It’s worth a look and at 7pm every night a cultural and puppet show is held, which is an absolute must see. There is plenty of Rajasthani dagger dancing, traditional music, puppeteering, and water bowl carrying (extremely impressive) and while the crowds turn out in their droves there are lots of places to sit on comfy floor cushions under a nice old tree in the courtyard.
Udaipur Tips
– When visiting the city palace consider passing on the camera fee, it’s DOUBLE the cost of actually entering (don’t worry if you have yours though because there are free lockers). Similar views can be captured from the free palace gardens, unless you like taking photos of museum pieces.
– Take a walk down city palace road to Mandi markets. The markets aren’t touristy but it is interesting to see the huge amounts of spices, grains, chillies, veg that the locals buy for cooking.
– A 30-40 min boat ride is a nice way to see lake Pichola of an afternoon (If you want to see Jag Mandir island it’s a whopping 550rps per person after 3pm, before 3 it’s about 100rps cheaper)
– Hire a scooter or maybe a Royal Enfield and take a ride to the Monsoon Palace for great views of Udaipur from afar.
The Adventures of Lames McFuzzy 
Thank you for these posts… Really thank you. I am about to start planning a trip to India, just dying to go so badly. Recently friends and family have been telling me that it’s a horrid idea to go there alone…. However I am finding great comfort in your posts.
Hello there, thank you for your nice comment. India is certainly an interesting place to visit, however we can imagine that it may be very challenging for the solo female traveller. There were a few occasions when even as a couple we felt unsafe but if you dress conservatively, are ok with being stared at and realise that it is out of character for randoms to come up and start chatting you should be fine. You will meet other solo travelers along the way, which can help too. Good luck and we hope you get a lot out of your trip there.