Travel to Udaipur - This is India!

One to laugh at.....PATIENCE.....even though we reconfirmed our flight the day before depart and our tour company had arranged a driver....the driver clearly did not know how to get to the Jaipur airport (I guess not many people fly) on the way (at 5:30am for our 7:00am flight) he stopped at a chai tea shop, I thought he was getting a cup of tea....turns out he was asking directions....so as we got close he asked us terminal 1 or 2....no one told us....after 3 or for more stops to ask for directions we finally made it to terminal 2 in plenty of time for our flight. Our flight was 30 minutes, yet our driver left the night prior and it took him 8 hours to drive.

If you are not Indian you are "Walking Rupees" either it's auto rickshaw drives, guides, vendors or beggars, "come see my painting, come take a look at my pashmina, ride my tuk tuk, get a message, see my carvings, take a cooking class". Even government cultural village Slipgram we paid to get hawked.....the monuments and hotel rooms offer the only true sanctuary. We each have our days.....some days I'm into it and recognize it is part of the vibrant scenery other days it's plain annoying. Our favorite was this 11 or 12 year old entrepeneur, he clearly tells tourist that he would like to lear about their country and if they could give him a coin from their country he would know more, he later comes up to other tourists (us) and says I have this american coin and I can not change it here an you give me 10 rupee for it....I thought he was very clever.

We did take a cooking class from Spice Box, their web site is still in development but this site has some photos. It was fun and we enjoyed it (thanks for the idea Steve and Michele). Plus we went up to Sanjjangarh and had an incedible view of all of Udaipur and a wondeful sunset.

We are off to Pushkar tomorrow. There will not be any computer connections so we will be off line for a few days. I've included a few more photos. Take care.

City Palace in Udaipur

Sunset from our hotel in Udaipur

Another shot of the City Palace in Udaipur

Ganesha in City Place

Women selling flowers for Jadish in Udaipur

Women getting henna in Jaipur

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