Udaipur and Ranthambhore national park: A quiet gem and tigers in the wild (Rajasthan (India))

Member Name: whiskmite

Product:	Rajasthan (India)
Date:	21/01/09 (295 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Amazing places and people and wild tigers!

Disadvantages: The possibility of food poisoning

Udaipur was our second stop during our trip to Rajasthan last year, and was my favourite place that we visited.

Our stay in Udaipur didn't have an auspicious beginning - we had caught a night train from Delhi and during the course of the night (on the top bunk!) I came down with the dreaded Delhi belly. It is nasty enough by itself, but combined with a disgusting train toilet and having to climb up and down from my bunk - well, I was feeling fairly sorry for myself.

At the train station we got an autorickshaw to our hotel, Udai Kothi. Our rooms weren't ready yet but we could go and sit on the roof and use the pool if we liked. The beautiful setting and the rooftop pool overlooking Lake Pichola and the city rejuvenated me. It really was one of the most beautiful and tranquil spots I have experienced.

We planned to stay two days in Udai Kothi before moving to a cheaper hotel, so for the first two days we mainly chilled out. We didn't do any sightseeing, just enjoyed the beautiful pool and amazing scenery as well as the great service at the hotel. We went for a couple of wanders in the local area (it wasn't in the centre to Udaipur) and found it much more chilled out than Delhi, and much friendlier. The autorickshaw drivers were less pushy, the shopkeepers didn't apply as much pressure, and all in all it was much more relaxing. Sitting by their beautiful pool was a pleasure, even though I was still feeling a bit ropey. I still managed to drink a few beers (I'm a brave little trooper!) although I mainly stuck to ice cold coke. You could hear two calls to prayer, the muslim and the hindu - sometimes at the same time which did sound a bit like they were competing!

I thought all this would change when we moved hotel into the centre of Udaipur. Udaipur isn't a huge sprawling metropolis like Delhi - when we moved hotel it was less than ten minutes in the autorickshaw. Our second hotel was on the main bazaar, less than five minutes walk to the city palace. And everything still had a really relaxing atmosphere. Our second hotel, Krishna Niwas, wasn't as flashy as Udai Kothi but it was still beautiful. It was a renovated old haveli, done up by the artist owner, and his chef wife. The rooms were beautiful - striking yet traditional, and we had the most amazing view from our bedroom window over Lake Pichola. We also decided to try one of the cookery classes run by the owner of the hotel, which was great fun, and you got to eat the results!

This hotel was also in a fantastic location. As soon as we settled in we dashed off to explore the main bazaar, and city palace. The bazaar was great fun, and much better than the bazaar in Delhi - better items and better prices. If I didn't have my boyfriend to hold me back I really could have gone quite mad! The first stall I went to I found those beautiful notebooks or photobooks - they look really old fashioned, made with leather or a beautiful fabric in a variety of sizes, with string to tie them up? I'm not describing them very well, but hopefully you know what I mean! They're usually about £15 - £20 here, but they were only the equivalent to a couple of quid each there! Bargain - I would have bought twenty if I was allowed! We bought a beautiful rug for our bedroom, pashmina scarves, beautiful hand-beaded handbags, wooden and marble statues as presents for people - and all sorts!

While I could have stayed in the bazaar for days, my boyfriend decided that he'd had enough after an hour or two, so on we went to the city palace. A word of warning - you need to pay extra if you plan to take your camera into the 'museum'. For some reason that escapes me, we didn't buy a ticket with camera included, so we weren't allowed to enter with our cameras. We thought the museum would be a little part of the city palace, so when we were told we couldn't come in with cameras, I said I'd stay with the cameras if my boyfriend did the same afterwards. 45 minutes later I was still waiting, slightly anxiously! When I went up I was gutted that I didn't have my camera with me - there were some amazing views and beautiful photos that could have been taken. It was really interesting too and I'd have loved to take my time over it but I was very conscious that my boyfriend was on his own. It still took me about an hour to make my way round it, and it was a great experience, but I wished we had paid for the cameras and could have enjoyed it together - but you live and learn!

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at the Jagdish temple. It was up lots of very steep stairs, and was pretty impressive. Definitely worth a visit!

Udaipur is also an ideal place to go horse riding. We went with Princess Trails as they have a very good reputation and I'm glad we did - their horses were in very good condition and I could almost believe they were fed solely on oats! I am a fairly good rider, I rode a lot when I was young and took it up again five or six years ago. I'm not brilliant, but I'm pretty confident. My boyfriend had never ridden before, and the horse they chose for him was a thoroughbred called 'Naughty'!! I got to ride a Mahwari horse, a beautiful big bay gelding - he was gorgeous. We had a very fast paced ride around the Aravelli foothills which we both really enjoyed. We rode to a really beautiful picturesque lake and saw a young goatherd with her goats - it really was an amazing experience. We only rode for two hours but my God we felt it the next day!

Also worth a visit is the Monsoon palace, very dramatically situated on a hill overlooking Udaipur. We hired an autoricksahw and driver for this, and the views were quite spectacular from the palace. The palace itself looked like it needed a bit of love, but the scenery (apparently the site of an important battle on the non-Udaipur side of the hill) was breathtaking. On our way back down the mountain Udaipur was hit by a big dust storm which was quite dramatic. We got very grubby indeed!

We also did a boat trip on the lake, to see the city from a different perspective and get a closer look at the city palace. This was also definitely worth doing and was good fun.


We got another night train from Udaipur to Sawai Madhopur, the train station for the Ranthambhore national park. We arrived in late at 6am, and our driver was at the station. We were already a bit late for our morning safari but thankfully the jeep waited for us as we chucked our bags down at the hotel and dashed off without further ado, fingers crossed to see some amazing wildlife! You have two options on these safaris - jeeps or canters. Jeeps sit 6 people and are much more personal, but more expensive. Canters sit 20+ and are much cheaper. We decided to do one of each - a jeep on the first day, a canter on the second. The jeep was far and away the best, if you can afford it, I would definitely recommend stretching your finances to do it. We saw wild peacocks, crocodiles (well, the snouts) deer, antelope, all sorts of birds, monkeys, and finally a real live tiger! She was just chilling out in the shade, acting as if she couldn't care less that we were gawping at her. She really was one of the most beautiful things I've seen. Our driver was brilliant and great at pointing out anything we missed. We saw some amazing scenery too, including Ranathambhore fort and some beautiful red trees. It was all breathtaking. It lasted approximately four hours, and then we were taken back to the hotel again. We were staying in Ranthambhore Bagh, which was pretty special. Instead of a room, we had the most amazing tent with a big double bed and bathroom attached. It was all very impressive indeed. We ate our lunch and relaxed and read our books in the garden, served attentively by the waiters.

The evening meal was great fun. The outside seating area looked lovely with lanterns everywhere and they had some music and a young girl did some dancing and embarrassed me by dragging me up to dance with her - I am a terrible dancer! But it was all good fun and everyone was very friendly and had a laugh.

We had our canter safari the next day and although we saw lots of deer and monkey, and some peacocks, we didn't see anywhere near as much as the previous day - probably due to the rattling of the canter warning everything that we were on our way! It was also much less comfortable and bumpier.

We didn't see much of Sawai Madhopur town but are given to believe that this is no great loss. It think it is literally there to service the tourist trade off the back of the national park.

Udaipur was one of the places on our trip that we had no idea what to expect. I am so glad we came here. I only have to look at a picture of a view of this white city to start thinking back on what a great time we had here. I would definitely recommend it to anyone visiting Rajasthan. Ranthambhore is also somewhere I would recommend and fingers crossed you get to see a tiger!

Summary: A fantastic place to visit for so many reasons