Udairpur Palace Hotel
Posted by Dylan on July 2, 2009Riding a camel is really similar to a horse except you’re a lot higher and man do they smell. Sleeping on the sand dunes under the night canopy of stars was truly an amazing experience. Life in the desert seems really hard after a not too eventful monsoon season. Water was really scarce as we passed through some villages on our camels. There were several dry wells.
After we said good by to our camels, we headed to Udaipur (the white city). It’s surrounded by a dried up lake and picturesque palaces. I heard that Octopussy was filmed here. We stayed the night in a much needed Udaipur Palace Hotel were we took hot showers and had our clothes cleaned from all the sand, dust and camel smell. We left for Rjasthan for Mumbai, but breaking up our journey at Ahmedabad. A busy, wet and muddy Muslim city. So much for staying clean. At night Ahmedabad felt like sin city. But, it’s food, which it’s renown for, certainly lived up to it reputation. We were in Indian cuisine heaven.
We finally arrived at Mumbai, a city of extremes. We noticed that the rich can spend more on one drink at an exclusive bar than a poor person earns in a week. It was a humbling experience. Going from our hotel to the extensive slums which provide shelter to 1/3 of Mumbai’s population. We’ve been exposed to worse poverty in some of the tourist areas where the really poor sleep on the streets. But, overall, Mumbai is so unlike the rest of India. It’s pretty clean in comparison and seems organized and less obligated by religion constraints. We actually were surprised just how much we enjoyed our time there. Mumbai is huge though, so I sure we barely scratch the surface of this ancient city.
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