Christmas in the Lake City of Udaipur (23rd - 26th Dec 07)

After getting a bit fed up with Jaipur we caught an overnight train to a city called Udaipur. This was just what we needed as we both really enjoyed Udaipur. The town is set on a lake with two amazing hotels on islands in the middle of the lake. We of course couldnt afford $500US a night, so we stayed on the mainland at a guesthouse with great views. Udaipur is famous for parts of the James Bond film Octopussy being filmed here. The locals overdo their claim to fame, with reruns of the film being played at every traveller restaurant each night.

Overlooking the lake at Udaipur


In Udaipur we met up with Tahlia, who is an Australian women we travelled around the south of India with. It is great to have a new travel companion, especially one that we both get along so well with. It will be the three of us, until we have to head back to Mumbai to catch our flight out.

So we were in Udaipur for Christmas day. This was a great place to be as there many restaurants situated on rooftops with stunning views. I thought it would be fun to organise an art class so that we painted our own Christmas cards on the day. They all turned out suprisingly professional, thanks to our teacher who did a few touch ups for us. But it was a fun experience, and will be something that we will keep as memorabilia.

Our Christmas day cooking course


We also organised a cooking course for our christmas dinner. This course was quite different to the one that we did in Southern India as it was much more professional with a more demonstration style, rather than the home-style one we did in the south. The dishes that we made were excellent and we learnt so much theory and background to Indian cooking, that hopefully we have greater knowledge to recreate the dishes in NZ. Then we ate what we cooked sitting on a rooftop with an amazing view across the lake. Overall it was a great laid-back day.

One of the fabulous dishes we made


So in Jaipur we were getting tired with India, but Udaipur restored all faith. From Udaipur we have a few exciting towns to visit, so we are looking forward to our remaining few weeks.