The Best and Worst of Rajasthan

The drive to Udaipur was bizarre; we left behind arid desert and found ourselves in lush green forests. What?

We stopped for lunch at a place called Harmony, would you like a Chicken Senwich or scrumble egg?

We stopped at a Jain temple which had again, been thoroughly restored. The Jain religion believes in total non-violence. They are vegetarian, don’t eat onion or garlic because they believe it fires up the blood, and often don’t eat any vegetables grown in the ground because of the harm done to insects when they are dug up.

(Bees!)

We also stopped at another scarf shop, though it was more of a warehouse this time and owned by a friend of our driver. Again we were shown the “unique” pieces hand made in the villages. Although this guy also claimed that he sold bed sheets to John Lewis where they are sold for £600, though we can buy then for £75. Officially not believing him and having enough of this we politely declined to see anything and went to sit in the car until the driver took the hint that we would like to leave. Now.

Udaipur has been called the most romantic spot in India, and it’s definitely lovely. Our hotel was nice and had the usual rooftop restaurant with views over the lake this time. The lake is man-made and great from far away, up close it’s clearly stagnant and a bit gross because it’s low level at the moment.

For lunch we found Café Edelweiss which had the best coffee since Rishikesh, once again proving the awesome usefulness of the Lonely Planet guide. We had declined a guided tour for Udaipur because it’s a small place and the guided tour always comes with awkward requests for tips and being dragged to a scarf shop disguised as something else, a well for example.

We went to have a look over the ghats (steps into the lake) and were approached by several guys trying to sell us things, as usual. Though this time one guy had a picture of himself with Dame Judy Dench, Udaipur is where they filmed the Second Best Marigold Hotel. Cool, but we’re still not coming to your suit shop.

We took ourselves around the biggest palace in Rajasthan, but didn’t want to pay extra for cameras, so there’s not really any pictures. Sorry guys. Trust me, it was beautiful.

(sneaky shot out of palace window)

It started to rain so we headed for O-zen, another recommended restaurant with a great atmosphere and cold beers. The food and service was some of the best we’ve had in India so if you go to Udaipur it’s definitely worth a visit.

The waiter told us about his time working in Delhi and Mumbai and 5 star hotels, his uniform used to weigh 25kg! Eventually he got tired of working in cities and his brother offered him work at O-zen, I don’t blame him, Udaipur is a brilliant place and we were sad to leave.

Now for the worst of our trip to Rajasthan. Pushkar. Many, many people come here and love it. I can imagine if everything goes right it would be a sweet little place. However, everything did not go well for us.

Pushkar is known as “The Holy City” with the central lake being considered to have healing powers. We weren’t offered a tour guide this time, we were given one and sent on our way. The car dropped us in the centre away from our hotel and the tiny village was crammed with Indian tourists. There is a temple here which is considered especially holy during the full moon, guess what tonight was!

It was unsafe and we were all being filmed by various people who wouldn’t take the hint, or blatant instructions, to stop filming. We all decided that we weren’t bothered about going into the temple in this situation and asked to leave, the guide walked us down to the lake and explained that holy men here don’t want our money. Right. We should only give what our hearts tell us is proper. Right. This is my friend, he is a priest and he will perform the ceremony with you. Riiight.

We walked down to the lake surface where lots of people were bathing and the priest explained that certain things can never be shared in life, one of them being donations. Hmm. He split us up, Greg and I together, and Matt by himself. He had a plate with a coconut and some rice and informed us that he was now our family priest.

After 5 minutes of us repeating back his prayers, he asked how much we would like to donate. We offered 5% of what he was “suggesting”, after some debate he mumbled some prayers and angrily sent us away. The guide was waiting for us at the top of the steps, told us that our hotel was a 1km walk straight down the main road, then asked for a tip.

We did not give him a tip and the hotel was not 1km straight down the road. After about an hour wandering the desert (bit dramatic) we found our hotel. Whilst we were on the way we found something that captures one of the contradictions we’ve spotted in India. At the hotel there was a sign asking tourists to respect the culture and cover their knees and shoulders at least, but in every holy temple, and on some walls, there are women with HUGE boobs. Even giant dancing lady mice have boobs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGZ4lyQz2N8

One of the few things to do in Pushkar is ride Marwari horses, they have very cute, inward curving ears. We went to the only place in town, paid well over what we should have paid, and were told to come back at 3:45. 4:15 came and the owner eventually informed us there had been a car crash and his guide couldn’t make it, come back tomorrow morning.

We went in search of food because the hotel’s food was pretty grim and the waiters were very rude, the restaurant we wanted to try was closed, this is how we discovered the Funky Monkey café. Our oasis with wood oven pizzas, friendly staff, and movies on demand. This place was the best thing about Pushkar for us, hands down. We found it hard to get good food, very few veges and lots of chips, the food here was amazing, pizza and veg fried rice with actual veg in it! Sounds silly but that was the best we could get at this point.

The next morning, we went back to the riding school and went for an hour long ride on the beautiful horses. The guide also informed us he had never been called yesterday and knew nothing about a car crash. Incredible India! Happy to see the back of Pushkar we had one last coffee at Funky Monkey and set off for Jaipur!