On to Udaipur

10^th October 2018

While we’re only exploring a small part of India, the country is so huge that travelling from place to place can take hours. Today we left Bundi, travelling via train (which was a good 20 minutes away on a tuk tuk but surprisingly easy to find as there was only one platform and only one ‘fancy’ carriage on the train) towards Udaipur. Rory decided to break the journey up by stopping off at Chittorgarth, the largest fort complex in India.

The fort was attacked three times and each time its people chose death before dishonour. The men donned martyrs’ robes and rode out from the fort to certain death while the women and children immolated themselves on huge funeral pyres. Restored in 1905, the complex is just under six kilometres long, is perched on top of huge cliffs and contains temples, palaces and a huge victory tower.

We had originally planned to take a second train from Chittorgath to Udaipur but last night, in a stroke of genius (or laziness) I convinced Rory to book a taxi to take us the rest of the way. It worked out really well because the driver drove us around the Chittorgath complex, stopping at each site, which allowed us to explore the temples without our backpacks. While we didn’t know a huge amount about the history, we still really enjoyed exploring and I won’t lie, we felt a bit like Indiana Jones.  

The victory tower was probably the busiest part of the complex and we were asked four or five times for photographs – naturally we obliged and I even got one for myself! When we’d covered the whole complex we set off towards Udaipur which took about three hours. For the taxi ride around the complex (including all the waiting around) and the drop off in Udaipur the driver charged us... £24. All in all, including his drive back, he would have given up nine hours of his time for a mere £24. We gave him a good tip not just because he spent the whole day driving us around but because he managed to navigate the Indian roads and get us here safely! While the roads aren’t as terrifying as I thought, they are pretty much how you see them on TV – insanely busy, full of motorbikes that weave in and out of traffic, all kinds of animals (cows, horses, camels, dogs and even elephants) and a general disregard for health and safety – so we were glad to get to our Haveli!

In preparation for our trip to India we watched the BBC show, The Real Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. The show followed a mix of British ‘celebrities’ as they explored what retiring in India and living in a traditional Haveli would be like. On the show they stayed in Udaipur and the Haveli looked so good that we decided that if it was good enough for them, it was good enough for us. They didn’t have any lake view suites for the first night so we made do with a very pretty and huge traditional room which was made even better by the cable TV channels that we made full use of after having a delicious meal by the lake.