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Udaipur is such a charming city that Cousin Helen and I decided to camp out there for about six days  – that gave us time to relax and take our time exploring the city…plus it saves me money if I’m not constantly on the move.  Most of the hotels in the area have rooftop restaurants with fantastic views of the various palaces in the city. There are, more specifically, three main palaces that are available for exploration, the Lake Palace, City Palace and the Monsoon Palace.

The Lake Palace, as the name would suggest is the palace sitting in the middle of Udaipur’s partly naturally, partly man-made Lake Pichola.  Although you can take a boat out to the Lake Palace Hotel, considering that it was the end of dry season and  the lake was quite low, we opted to instead watch the moon rise over lake and Palace every evening over dinner.  The town is really beautiful; no matter which window you’re looking out there are views of the mountains, lake, or palaces – it’s stunning and we really enjoyed the rampant rooftop restaurants that just invited us to linger and soak in the atmosphere.

The City Palace sits on the edge of Lake Pichola and is the largest palace in Rajasthan (one of the states in India) and has a pretty unique museum inside.  Being the cheapskates that we are, Cousin Helen and I considered saving ourselves the 100 rupee  entry fee and skipping the museum…we were both glad in the end that we sprang for the $2 fee.  The views of the Lake Palace and two islands in the lake is beautiful from this spot – there are dozens of terraces and cupolas with views of the surrounding mountains and palaces – we ended up taking way more pictures than we anticipated and enjoying more than we anticipated as well!

The museum showcases some of the oddest and random arrangements of well – stuff.  From a room highlighting olden-time fans (this picture is for you dad since you collect them!) to a peek into the old-style throne-room, it was bizarre.  The peacock is the state bird of Rajasthan and there were dozens of intricate mosaics of the animal.

With two of the three palaces taken care of we packed a few snacks and headed out in a rickshaw for the 30 minute rickshaw ride to the Monsoon Palace.  This Palace is nothing to write home about in and of itself – the state government is in the process of restoring it and it is essentially empty inside.  But! The Monsoon Palace is perched on the side of a mountain and looks over Udaipur on one side and the rolling hills and mountains on the other.  We took the advice of locals and headed up here for a primo seat and view of the sunset.

The Palace was really peaceful; even though there were a dozen or so other tourists everyone had the same idea: relax.  One Indian man near me actually took the last 45 minutes before sunset to perch himself on a ledge and meditate.

We enjoyed the views and then caught took our waiting rickshaw back to town for our moonlit dinner on the lake…life is pretty peachy right now – I fully realize I am kinda living a charmed life  :)

A little video of the local temple playing the call to prayer – happens several times a day, every day:

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Reading:  Alchemy of Desire by Tarun J Tejpal

Music:  Mama Mia Soundtrack

Next step: On a plane to Kathmandu