Touring Rajasthan (2): a boring hippie town, but with great food, and a laked-town, but with puppet shows

Pushkar 15 December – 17 December & Udaipur 18 December – 22 December

I had been told that if you were going to shop anywhere, you must go to Pushkar.  There are plenty of markets, selling just about anything, and the most variety and best prices in all of India.  People go to buy a suitcase there, and then fill it, and send it home.

Do not pack your (empty) suitcases just yet.  The market in Pushkar goes round a lake in the middle of the (small) city, and it is true that shopping is just about all there is to do there.  However, the markets are just as any market you will find in India.  In my experience, for variety and best prices, nothing beats the markets of north Delhi.  In hindsight, this makes sense, owing to it being the capital, and one of the most densely populated cities in the world, as opposed to a city in the middle of the dessert, with just over 20,000 inhabitants.

It did have a nice lake.
Pushkar lake.

Other travelers have mentioned though, that if you need a camel, Pushkar, during the annual camel fair, is the only place to go (use it, don’t use it).

Disappointed at the shopping, and with little else to do after exploring the entire city (on foot) in half a day, I settled into some of the food there.  Now, if you were going to look for street food – Pushkar has some proper good food.  Not Indian, per se, but heavily influenced by the hordes of Israelis that seem to find it a great place to settle.  The falafel plates and laffa wraps could compete with some of the stores in Israel (although critically missing the amazing, game-changing, why would you eat anything else ever, Israeli pickle).

Pushkar in the middle of December also is COLD.  By far, the coldest place I was in, in Rajasthan.

I also stayed in an amazing, beautifully decorated hostel.  I learnt though (although already I knew), that no matter how good the place looks, it does not guarantee that there will be a great atmosphere there.  Thankfully I ran into an old friend (literally on some random street in the market), and made some new ones, so I did not have to spend too much time in the dull, although brilliantly decorated, place.  The 4 days I spent there were spent getting my full of Israeli-influenced food, a little yoga, some exploring, and freezing my ass off at night.

My beautifully-decorated, but boring hostel

I was happy to leave and head south, to the warmer Udaipur.  My bum though seemingly had had just about all it can take of long bus journeys, and the 7 hours it took was seemingly more excruciating than usual.  

My spiffy, local government bus.
Looking back, I think I may have figured out
why it was not the my comfortable
7 hours of my life

Udaipur is a vibrant city though, and famed the city of lakes, it was full of, well, lakes.  Thanks to overtourism, every building is built as high as it can, with the intention of offering patrons a view of the main Pichola lake.  The unintended consequence however being crowded streets, with buildings on top of one another.  Many now only have a view of the wall of its neighbour (i.e. not the lake).

My hostel though, had kept it's view of the lake,
and served a free breakfast :)
Mantra hostel, Udaipur

City Palace, where the royal family used to live, is perched on a rocky outcrop, and most definitely has an unobstructed view of the lake, and a little, mini-palace in its centre, just in case the royals prefer an unobstructed 360 degree view of the lake.  Being a palace, everyone wants to go see it, and seeing that everyone wants to go see it, you can be damn sure that they are going to charge to do so.  Most do, so that was not surprising, but the exorbitant price they wanted to go see some fancy rooms, was not enticing enough me (although apparently they are very fancy), and having had my fair share of palace viewings in the past few months, I just toured the gardens and periphery.

City palace (from the outside), Udaipur

Their gardens.
City Palace, Udaipur

Nice to have the only house on the street.
City Palace, Udaipur

As I have come to learn here, it is the little, unexpected things that tend to have the greatest impact, and the traditional dancing at the Bangore Ki Haveli in Udaipur did exactly that.  A friend suggested, in passing, that I should go check it out, and that it was nice, but nothing to write home about.    Obviously, as I am doing exactly that, it would appear that I had a different experience.

I was warned that I needed to get to the entrance early, because tickets are not pre-sold and are available on a first-come first-serve basis.  That the show sells out almost every night (and sometimes they then hold a second, full, show) should have signaled that people may want to come see what was being done here.

Anyway, and luckily, I heeded the advice to go, and to go early.  I arrived about an hour before the tickets were due to go on sale (itself an hour before the show starts).  It seemed that everyone was also aware of the fact that the show sells out quickly, and the second signal that this was going to be something entertaining, was that Indians were not letting other Indians cut the queue.  This, in India, really counts for at least two signals.

You are not allowed to film or take pictures of the performance, unless you buy a separate ticket (which I did not), so I cannot show you what happened inside, or what the haveli (mansion) looked like.  I also do not really want to, because it is a great experience, to experience yourselves.  Save to say, it is traditional dancing, mixed with some fire, some incomprehensible stories, extreme feats of balancing items, dancing and costumes.  The best part of Udaipur for me, and a definite highlight of my entire trip.

I was lucky to be in town for the annual crafts festival.  It is a week long festival where artisans come from all over Rajasthan to showcase their skills.  There are things to buy, traditional dances and performances and dancing decapitated puppets (huh? Ya).

The human pyramid taken
to the next level.
Shilpgram utsav, Udaipur

Other than that, Udaipur is an artist and craft haven, and you can get some amazing, original, unique paintings, drawings, or even take a lesson in the craft.  There are lakes aplenty, so hire some transport and go explore.  There is a Tibetan market and average park in the middle of the city that I will soon forget about, but a nice hike up the Machla Magra hill, to the Shri Manshapurna Karni Mata temple (if you are lazy there is a cable car option available), which offers pretty nice views of the lake, especially at sunset.

Average park, Udaipur

Shri Manshapurna Karni Mati temple at sunset,
Udaipur