Udiapur
Trip Start
Oct 30, 2010
1
18
62
Trip End
May 29, 2011
Udaipur, Rajasthan, India
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Once we had had a short nap we wandered the city and found the city’s main attraction a large not so attractive palace. Apart from overlooking a huge manmade lake, this palace was nothing special and had nothing particularly going for it apart from one point of interest. There was a small palace come hotel that had been built in the lake that had been the location for the James Bond film Octopussy, something which every restaurant in the city tried to exploit. After a small boat trip over to that Island I’m afraid to say that despite the lovely weather we were unable to find any evidence to support the claim that Udiapur is “India’s most romantic city”. That evening the three of us went into one of the many restaurants which was showing Octopussy (on constant repeat all day) and spent the night talking to other travellers.
The next day it was time to say goodbye to our German companion Klaus. Surprisingly after meeting in Agra (home of the Taj Mahal) the three of us had travelled together for 16 days. He had to go meet his girlfriend who is flying out to spend Christmas with him in India – like Katrin they were planning on spending it in the south.
That night, Klausless, Ellie and I attended a cooking course we had booked the previous day. Since we had booked the course in an office which was devoted to selling herbs and promoting its “famed” cooking course, we had naturally presumed that we would be being taught in a kitchen ready steady cook style. I’m sure you know where this is going. Once again our natural assumptions were completely wrong. India definitely takes a pride in doing things differently.
Along with a couple from Liverpool (Chris and Tracy) we were picked up from the office and taken not to a kitchen but to a house. This didn’t seem too strange... we would probably be using their kitchen right? Before the lesson began we were given a quick tour of the house and we were told that it was home to 9 people (one big family). Everyone shared the same kitchen and there were only two bedrooms. To our surprise we would not be taught in the kitchen but on the floor in one of the bedrooms. All the dishes were cooked using a portable stove and all crockery was cleaned straight after use by our instructor’s wife.
Despite this difference in what we had expected and despite the constant crying and screaming of our teacher’s child – who was constantly in and out of the room - we had a great time. We were taught how to make 11 different dishes and wrote all the recipes down. I’m looking forward to practising them and can’t wait to give you all food poisoning when I get home!
After numerous recommendations from lots of tourists and travellers, Ellie and I have only two more places to visit in India (not including Delhi again because we’ve been there already). These are Rishikesh and Varinasssi. Both places are really awkward to get to from where we are now and each requires a separate 22 hour journey. We’ve been assured that both of these cities are worth it, so it looks like we’ve got two long days ahead of us in the near future!
