Visiting Udaipur, the city of lakes

Udaipur, the city of lakes, was on my bucket list of holiday destinations for a long long time. We had been to Jaipur two months ago. But with a three month old infant, we ended up only visiting the Amber fort and spending the rest of the vacation in the hotel. So this time, we took some extra time at hand when planning for Udaipur. Though the usual itineraries suggested a two night trip, we made it a four night one.

We did last minute bookings and a lot of hotels were fully booked by then. In fact, we needed to adjust our dates a little, so we could get some good properties. We wanted to experience one of the luxury palace hotels on this trip. Last minute bookings made them unavailable for the full length of our stay. So we booked 3 nights at Hotel Lakend, a 5* hotel and 1 night in the Shiv Niwas Palace hotel, a heritage property managed by the king of Udaipur (Yeah, the place still has a king, the descendants of the ruler Udai Singh).

I checked the weather and also spoke to an acquaintance living there. We were traveling with an infant and wanted to be sure of the kind of clothes to carry. It was raining in Udaipur and the place was expected to be cold. We overpacked and ended up carrying more baggage than the stipulated allowance of 30 Kg. As it turned out later, Udaipur had a hot day and pleasant evenings and most of the heavy winter stuff we had carried could have been avoided, at least for me and my husband.

We landed in the morning and the first thing that struck me was the airport. It was a very small airport with primitive amenities. Drinking water was kept in a filter, there were no restaurants or eating places, no ola or uber points. Whereas the likes of Apple advertised on the Bangalore airport; the Maharana Pratap airport at Udaipur had advertisements of a candy bar. The traffic at the airport was light. I learnt that the airport operated 17 flights to a few select places in the country. We were lucky to have got a direct flight, I told myself.

We had pre-booked a cab for airport pick up. We had requested an early check-in. The hotel had a destination wedding the night before and seemed crowded and noisy. The city is known for NRI destination weddings and the season was in full swing. Throughout our stay, we saw people visiting the property, enquiring about destination weddings. We learnt these weddings ran into crores and that a lot of who’s-who come to the city to marry their children.

Once the wedding guests left, the hotel felt a different world altogether. Over the next 3 days, the hotel’s beauty grew on us. Situated on one of the famous lakes, Fateh Sagar lake; the hotel had breathtaking views of the lake and the Aravalli mountain range.

Our itinerary was light. With a baby, we did not intend to travel throughout the day. We would have breakfast and relax on the open lake side recliners. We would mostly step out around 2 PM and be back by 8 PM; visiting one or at max two places a day. We would then have a romantic dinner amidst the five elements of nature and the bright moonlights. Be it the food or the lake views; be it the spacious room or the pool side; we spent a lot of our time in the mornings and late evenings; just soaking in the beauty of the property and nature.

We had booked a heritage property for the last day. Shiv Niwas Palace hotel was a heritage property maintained by the HRH group. This hotel was inside the city palace and we could get a glimpse of the place where the royals stayed. Everything about this place was serene and simple. Everything, every antique, every piece of furniture and decor seemed to have been hand picked with a lot of deliberation and thoughtfulness. The staff was warm and hospitable. Once inside the property, we did not feel the need to step out anywhere. The place was mesmerizing and pristine. We had one of the most beautiful romantic dinners by the poolside and also witnessed a destination wedding from a distance. We learnt how the kings lived and how guarded their lives were. Even though the checkout timing was 12 noon; the hotel accepted our request to stay till evening; especially since we were traveling with a baby and our flight was in the night.

We came back with a host of good experiences as well as some not so good ones.

We stayed at two great properties. One of them offered natural beauty that was soothing to the eyes. The other offered us a royal stay. One of them was a newly constructed five star. The other was a heritage hotel, run by the king of Udaipur.

One of the worst things in our experience of Udaipur was the commute within the city. Ola and Uber drivers frequently canceled the rides. Once or twice, we were lucky to have gotten a cab. But the drivers ended up asking us to either book them for the whole day or almost threatening to drop us a kilometer away from our destination. We had to cancel our trips midway. The other option was to book a car everyday from the hotel. This was not cost effective. Even if we left the cost bit aside, the drivers had their own agendas. When we asked them to take us to the place A, they vehemently insisted that we go to a different place. It seemed everyone had incentive to take the tourists to the places of their choice; rather than letting the tourists decide. Everyone wanted to extract the maximum out of your pocket. This spoiled and severely limited our experience of the city. We booked a self drive car for a day. But even there, the behavior of the person renting the car was rude. He almost threatened us to drive only to specific points. Same with the local guides we hired. Most only cared about their money and taking you to the shops which paid them commissions.

Some of the people we interacted with, be it the drivers or the guides, were not vaccinated or had only taken their first covid vaccine dose. They did not know what vaccine they had got. Some said their second dose was six month away. Some even mocked us for wearing masks and said that Udaipur had no case; so why bother masks. We had expected covid to have humbled the human race. But greed, arrogance and ignorance still seemed to be plaguing the human race.

We had a mixed experience with the people. We met some extremely warm folks; especially at Shiv Niwas. But we also met people who were curt and did not treat us as their clients. The service at Hotel Lakend was pathetic. Everything had to be asked for, at least 3 times. You were lucky if you got it even then. I fell ill after eating the outside food. We asked Hotel Lakend if they had a doctor on call. They were quite callous with our request and told us to instead visit a nearby hospital. On the other hand, the staff at the palace hotel got us connected to a doctor within five minutes of us making that request. They went above and beyond to also get the medicines delivered to our room at no extra charge. The staff at the restaurants of both these properties were extremely warm and cared to make each of the meals a great experience for their guests.

Some tips if you plan to visit:

1. The city is divided into old and new city. Plan your itinerary so that you club the spots of the old city together. We did not do this and ended up wasting a lot of time and money commuting on dusty roads.
2. Hire local cabs from the hotel for a hassle free stay. Every other option would leave you haggling with greedy cab drivers. You would almost feel like not stepping out of the hotel.
3. Avoid eating at the local shops and road side vendors. It can leave you ill; as happened to me.
4. Do not hire local guides. Simply not worth the experience. They hurry you through the main tour, only to coax you to visit their recommended shopping outlets.
5. Be curt with the guides and drivers. Do not let them decide or influence your plans.
6. Do not expect great hospitality from the locals. It felt as if they were doing us a favor by letting us step on their soil. Visit the place for its views rather than for its people.
7. Do not walk on the streets at night. The streets are dusty and not well lit. There are a lot of stray dogs as well.
8. It is ok to not visit all the tourist points. Instead, visit a few and spend more time at each of these.
9. A lot of the tourist spots and in fact, the five star properties as well; are not disabled friendly. We traveled with an infant cart and faced a lot of challenges in maneuvering the same.
10. Do plan a visit to a local centre to witness the local folk dance performance.
11. Book good properties for one’s stay. This is a city that offers stays at palatial resorts. Stay at one of these, even if for a night.
12. Carry a lot of cash. The economy of the place is completely cash driven.
13. Be prepared to take care of your infant and toddler on the roads. The city hardly had any child care facilities.
14. Keep yourself hydrated, especially as the local delicacies are spicy and hot to digest.
15. Carry food to the airport. It hardly offers any options to eat.
16. Before visiting Udaipur, I wished to do a rajasthan trip covering Udaipur, Jaipur, Jodhpur and Jaisalmer. Now, having visited two of these, I felt they were quite similar. Visiting or two of the places in Rajasthan seemed to be enough to get an experience.
17. If driving on your own, ask the directions around instead of fully relying on the maps. We used it to visit the Monsoon Palace and it took us from an extremely congested route, even when there was a proper one available. Also, when self driving, be aware of the parking charges. Most of these tourist spots charge anywhere between 250–400 just to park.
18. Try to have a dinner or two by one of the good lakeside restaurants. The views are totally worth the price. We were fortunate that the place we stayed at had one.

Recommended places to stop by

1. Saheliyon ki Bari- Go there for the local tea at ‘Pan-chai-tea’ and the next shop that serves lemon tea. Visit the shilp gram udyog near the sahelio ki badi. Offers good quality stuff at fixed prices. We had also visited the local Hathipol market. The crowded busy streets, cold behavior of the shopkeepers, and the degree of expected negotiations made that a painful experience.
2. City Palace — Immerse in the stories of the place, the many royal lives it has witnessed and for the evolution of the city.
3. Fish aquarium — Visit the place in the evening. The place has a beautiful promenade that offers a perfect night ambience to hang out.
4. Sajjangarh Monsoon Palace — Go there around 4 and hang around for 2 hours. Enjoy the views and the sunset. The place gets crowded though.
5. Dinner at the Urban Tadka restaurant in hotel lakend.
6. Dinner at the Paantya restaurant in the Shiv Niwas Palace.

Other tit-bits from our stay

1. Wedding at the palace — We witnessed the wedding from a distance. I observed the bling of the dresses, the decorations of the palace. It seemed like we had just entered a Bollywood red carpet party.
2. The Paantya restaurant at Shiv Niwas had a limited dinner menu for Ala Carte. There were two soups that were mentioned — one of them being the roasted garlic and thyme soup. We ordered the same. After waiting for fifteen minutes, we were told that the chef was unable to get the perfect taste. It was funny as well as felt good to have this told to us in an honest fashion; instead of being served a less than perfect dish. The server compensated for it by offering us other off-the-menu options.
3. The room service people at the Shiv Niwas Palace seemed to expect a tip for every small thing. Be it fixing the air conditioner or delivering a dental kit.
4. Hotel Lakend offered newspaper on call. At least on paper. When we requested for one, we were offered a Hindi newspaper. When we asked for an English one, the hotel was unable to arrange the same for that day. I was bemused that a five star property that served a lot of foreign visitors offered a Hindi newspaper and was unable to arrange an English one.
5. One of the driver shared tit bits from his experience of driving foreign nationals; how he managed with basic English vocabulary and how sometimes the basics failed. Like once, the person wanted to use the Toilet and the driver felt the person was saying that they were getting late.
6. Most places had big banners stating masks were mandatory. Whereas, their own staff did not wear one.
7. We ate at a famous local shop, Krishna dal bhati restro. We paid 350 per person for the buffet lunch, which included a small water bottle. When we were stepping out, I was taking the bottle along. I was told that I could only drink water from this bottle within the hotel premises, but could not carry the bottle with me. This was hilarious and changed my entire perception of the place.
8. We needed a pack of milk. When we got to the local shops, even though we spoke in Hindi; the shop owners perhaps did not expect tourists to be buying milk packets. They offered us cigarette packets instead.