Udaipur 2/6

Today Pal (our driver) promised us a good sightseeing and shopping day and we set off at the very civilised time of 10am. We headed to Udaipur’s gardens and fountain first, which was quite nice. The city has a few lakes, some just scenic and a main one for drinking water but unfortunately all are quite depleted. The monsoon hasn’t seriously filled the lakes since 2006 and Pal thinks it’s been about ten years since he’s seen them at capacity. The water shortage hasn’t affected the tropical lushness of the gardens though, so it was a bit of a cooler place to wander around and check them out. We went to a shop after that which had a whole heap of different craft for sale, such as hand stitched wall hangings, cushion covers, stonecraft and painting. We won’t list what we bought here as there’s the odd gift but we are very happy with the prices and craftsmanship. The business is supposedly run as a cooperative so hopefully the villagers that slave away making the stuff are actually paid a reasonable wage for their work. We visited the City Palace after that, a popular spot with lots of Indian tourists there as well. It is Rajasthan’s largest Palace and we spent a few hours negotiating never ending sets of stairs going up and down all over the place. The views, displays and artworks were well worth seeing. We made it back to the hotel just before three to beat the heat and are due to have dinner with Pal tonight, he’s taking us to somewhere small and local which should be good.