THE CITY OF LAKES
Udaipur was one of my favorite cities in India, because it still had the same gorgeous architecture, but being surrounded by lakes made me feel like we were in a different country. We stayed at the Jagas Niwas Hotel, you can find our hotel review here. The Hotel was in a prime location, and it faced one of the main lakes, Lake Pichola.
We wanted to visit the Monsoon Palace for two reasons, first-we are huge James Bond fans, and parts of movie “Octopussy” were filmed at the palace, and second- we heard that the Monsoon palace had one of the best views of Udaipur. There is no entrance fee, so we decided to visit the Palace in the afternoon and catch the sunset. The Palace is situated on a hill, and the drive up gave us wonderful glimpses of Udaipur and its seven lakes. The Monsoon palace lights up at night, but it wasn’t as spectacular as we thought it would be. The Palace itself is a bit run down, and many parts inside the building are under construction or just broken. There is a vista point which we thought was the best places to take pictures of Udaipur in its entirety. If you don’t have much time in Udaipur, feel free to skip the Monsoon Palace, since it took a lot of time driving up and down when we could’ve been exploring the city.
The next day, we had many things planned. First, a little photoshoot in our picturesque hotel, then the Jagdish Temple, followed by the City Palace, followed by the boat ride to Jagmandir, and then we would finish off our evening at the Restaurant Ambrai. The Jagdish Temple, open from 4:00 AM to 10:30 PM, was another place where Octopussy was filmed (Bond drove by the temple), and the temple itself had an insane amount of detail and every carving had a separate story. Next we hit City Palace, and the tickets were 30 rupees per person ($0.42 USD), with an additional fee of 200 rupees ($2.79 USD) if you brought in a professional camera. The Palace was very large, with many levels, and it even had a tree on the second floor. We had a tour guide for the whole day, so he knew exactly where to go to avoid the crowds. After, we took a boat ride from the City Palace to Jagmandir, and before 3:00 PM, the tickets are 450 rupees per person ($6.27 USD), and after 3:00 PM, they jump to 700 rupees per person (9.75 USD). There is no entry fee to Jagmandir (Jag Island Palace) itself. Since there is a hotel on the island, there were some parts where we weren’t allowed to walk in, so we just sat on some benches in the garden area, soaking in the sun. The boat ride was nice, but there wasn’t much to do on Jagmandir, except have some lunch or drink some coffee.
In the evening, we went to the Ambrai Ghat, which was a vista point, and we watched the sunset along with many locals. We then walked over to the Restaurant Ambrai, and had an amazing vegetarian meal. It was pretty dark, and suddenly there were so many bats that flew over the lake. It was a perfect end to a perfect day.