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Gadarwās

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    • TravelerTravel 2020 - TBC
      2
      11111423
      Day 47

      Udaipur Shiva Festival

      February 21, 2020 in India ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C

      We were both awake by 8am and made our way up to the roof terrace to wait for our free breakfast. We were a little early but didn’t mind as we both really liked the view from the terrace. When breakfast came we kept eating more and more, the poor guy who worked at the hostel had to keep bringing more...we had 2 boiled eggs, 4 curry toasties and about half a loaf of bread worth of jam on toast (Jammie dodger jam). Very satisfied and now fuelled for the day we left our hostel and made our way across the bridge, it was a gorgeous day, clear blue skies and a nice warm temperature.

      Today was the Hindu festival of Shivaratri, a festival dedicated to the worship of Lord Shiva. We walked through the colourful streets and our first stop of the day was Jagdish temple, a large Hindu temple raised on a tall terrace that you had to climb up to via very steep stairs, plastered with beggars and people trying to sell us tat. Upon entering the temple there was a nice atmosphere, obviously fuelled by today’s festivities. There were people sat around a shrine in the centre of the temple singing and playing instruments, which we watched for a little while before walking round the rest of the old temple. Back onto the streets we then made our way over to the City Palace, however before we got there we were blocked by a large group of Hindu people dancing and singing in the street to incredibly loud music. We watched as they had their party and then went to look at getting tickets for the city palace. It was 300 rupees which we thought was quite a lot, but it was one of the main things to do here so we went for it. Inside the palace was quite busy, with it being the festival today. There were loads of Indians, so we sat and let the majority of them feed through before we started our walk round. The palace was really well kept, and pretty interesting as each reigning Maharaja had added bits onto it over a period of 400 years so each bit was different. We were enjoying it as the palace was nice and cool with amazing views out over Pichola Lake and the rest of Udaipur. However, we quickly became annoyed at pretty much everyone else in the palace as all they seemed to want was a picture of themselves in front of some artefact, without even looking at it or taking it in. We were ushered out the way numerous times for one of these photo shoots which we felt was a bit silly...but Indians love a picture of themselves.

      We spend a good three or four hours at the palace before we left to check out a viewpoint we’d seen on maps.me. It was a pretty easy walk to the bottom of it and not too hot, so we started to climb. There was a cable car you could take up, but you couldn’t get to this viewpoint. On the way up we saw a. Abandoned pink tower which had a little rooftop, so we went off the path and clambered up the hillside to get to it. Up three flights of stairs and to the roof and we were treated to an amazing view of the lakes, palace, and temples of Udaipur. After a bit, we climbed even higher up try hill to get the sunset view.m and found these two pagoda things which seemed to have the best view of the city. We were up here quite early for the sunset, but we got some really nice pictures and just watched the scenery change as the sun went down. It was absolutely gorgeous, and as it got darker the city palace and other buildings started to get lit up.

      After soaking it all up, we made our way down (via the top of the pink tower again) and then began the walk back to the hostel. On the way back, this man on a bike pulled up and showed us a WhatsApp text, it had words like ‘bull’ and ‘guys’ and ‘massage’ in it at a quick glance. We walked on, but I turned to Tom and insisted that was some sort of sexual offering. He wasn’t so sure, but I was certain. Out of curiosity, we slowed down a bit and sure enough the man stopped next to us again. We asked him what he wanted and he plainly responded saying “I want sex, you have sex with my wife”. We were speechless and couldn’t actually believe what he said. He then clarified and said that he and his wife were swingers...we had to politely decline his offer but wished him luck. After this, we were really keen for food, so stopped at a place which looked busy, always a good sign, and we decided we’d get a mixture of dishes after we’d had thali for what felt like weeks. We got vegetable pakora, this guys own veg biriyani and a peanut masala, the latter of which arrived with a flame coming out of it! All the food was amazing and safe to say we gobbled it all up.

      As it was the Shiva Festival today in Udaipur there was a load of people now out on the streets and we got offered this creamy/green drink. This western guy said to me that it wasn’t strong, so we both took a cup. When we drank it we couldn’t even taste any alcohol, so it must have been really weak. It wasn’t the nicest of drinks, so Tom only had a little bit, whilst I had the whole thing as we were in front of the guys who gave it to us and I didn’t want to seem rude. We walked up the street so Tom could dump his in the bin, as two kids followed us desperate for the drink but Tom refused to give it to them. We made it back to the hostel finally and went to the rooftop to chill out for a bit. Up there we met an English girl and a Finnish guy and we were all just chatting about generic travel stuff. It was at this point I started to feel a bit weird in my stomach and I immediately thought the drink had poisoned me. However, I then overheard the Finnish guy say that the drink the locals give out on the street is a ‘special lassi’. In other words it’s a drink laced with marijuana. I hadn’t been poisoned, I’d got accidentally high. Tom has looked over to me and I was in fits of giggles at absolutely nothing at all...at least I was happy high and not depressed. Everything made me laugh, even the name of the state we were in ‘Rajasthan’ and even more so the people called ‘Rajasthani’s’ nearly had me on the floor. This went on for a while, and even Tom started to just laugh, more so at the state I was in. We went downstairs as I had some chocolate biscuits, so we demolished them and then decided we’d go on a midnight hunt for Oreos. We went down to the main door, and it was shut, but couldn’t be locked as you can’t lock people in or out of a hostel. We spent about 5 minutes pushing and pulling, looking for a lever, trying to twist bolts and pulling chains that were on this door but for the life of us we couldn’t figure it out! We had to find and ask the hostel manager how you open the door and he just said ‘slide them’...actually so simple. We got our Oreos smashed them and then duly went to bed. It had been a long and eventful day, but a fun evening.      Read more

    • TimothesaGoesAsia
      Day 41

      So viel Wasser und Paläste in Udaipur

      October 23, 2022 in India ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

      Udaipur, ehemals die Hauptstadt des Reichs Mewar, wurde im Jahr 1559 von Maharana Udai Singh II. gegründet. Dank der prunkvollen Residenzen und einem künstlich angelegten Seensystem im Herzen der Stadt lässt sich Udaipur ohne Zweifel als Stadt der Seen und Paläste bezeichnen.
      Der größte See im Zentrum ist der Pichhola-See, an den der Stadtpalast angrenzt. Im See selbst gibt es den Sommerpalast "Jag Niwas", der heute als Hotel "Lake Palace" genutzt wird, den Gartenpalast "Jag Mandir", der von steinernen Elefanten bewacht wird und noch ein kleine mit Säulen bebaute Insel.
      Hoch auf einem Berg 5 km westlich der Stadt steht zudem der „Monsunpalast“ Sajjangarh, der ursprünglich zur Observation der Monsunwolken genutzt werden sollte.      Read more

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    • TravelerDa lang!
      1
      Day 67

      Stadt der Seen

      January 6 in India ⋅ ☀️ 18 °C

      Udaipur begrüßt uns mit einer bösen Überraschung: gerade aus dem Bus ausgestiegen, wir sind auf der Suche nach einem Cafe, bleibt Tejas unvermittelt vor mir stehen. "ah shit" sagt er leise. Ich folge seinem Blick. Auf der breiten, viel befahrenen Straße huscht ein abgefetzter Hund zu uns herüber. Das Maul ist fest um die Hüfte des Welpen geschlossen der leblos herunterhängt. Das Schnäuzchen schleift über den Asphalt. Sie versucht ihr Baby vor dem erbarmungslosen Verkehr zu retten. Wir stehen wie angewurzelt da. Gar nichts können wir tun. Das Bild brennt sich in die Netzhaut, tief ins Gehirn. Noch stundenlang verfolgt es mich. Wieder ein Souvenir aus Indien das ich nicht haben will.

      Die Stadt hat Charm und es ist mal wieder ganz einfach seine Zeit sinnlos zu vertrödeln. Wir meditieren fast jeden Tag am See, futtern uns ein Speckpolster an und spazieren durch die engen Gassen. Besonders der sportliche Aufstieg zum Gipfel und der Sonnenuntergang den wir dort erleben, beeindruckt mich. Die steilen Gipfel und die tiefen Seen dazwischen, erzeugen eine harmonische Stimmung. Ich schmiede Pläne für die Weiterreise: Rajasthan ist anstrengend und ich bin erschöpft. Fünf Stationen noch, dann ist das Kapitel Indien abgeschlossen, nehme ich mir vor.

      🎵 Get Lost - Jules Ahoi      Read more

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    • The Great India Adventure
      12
      Day 26

      Vintage and Classic Car Collection

      April 29, 2023 in India ⋅ ☁️ 77 °F

      On our way from the airport to the hotel our driver/guide took us to The Palace Udaipur Vintage and Classic Car Museum. I was thinking of my dad and brother as we saw these beautiful vintage cars that belong to the Maharanas of Mewar both past and present. The collection is housed in the original Mewar State Motor Garage, which currently serves as this museum. The cars are all maintained in running condition! One of the cars was driven in “Octopussy”, and one drove Queen Elizabeth and JFK when they visited!Read more

    • TravelerIndien 2019
      Day 12

      12. Tag - Mit TukTuks durch Udaipur

      September 30, 2019 in India ⋅ 🌧 24 °C

      Heute erkundeten wir Udaipur per TukTuk und konnten so durch all die Gassen fahren, für die unser Bus zu groß ist. Leider war es ziemlich regnerisch - dafür aber auch nicht so warm.

      Zuerst besuchten wir den Stadtpalast und das Museum. Von dem Berg hatte man auch einen tollen Blick über die Stadt und den Pichola See mit dem ehemaligen Sommerpalast in der Mitte. Der ist jetzt ein Luxushotel und war in den 80er Jahren Drehort für den James Bond Film Octopussy.

      Zum Mittagessen verkosteten wir verschiedene indische Snacks und machten uns danach auf eigene Faust auf, die Gassen zu erkunden und einige Souvenirs zu erstehen. Als der Regen heftiger wurde, ging es per TukTuk zurück ins Hotel, wo wir den restlichen Nachmittag ganz entspannt mit Lesen und Kartenspielen verbrachten. Abends wurde dann der gesegnete Rum vernichtet - quasi heiliger Alkohol gilt ja nicht, oder?      Read more

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    • TravelerIndien 2019
      Day 11

      11. Tag - On the road again

      September 29, 2019 in India ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

      Heute war wieder ein Reisetag - nach dem Frühstück ging es weiter nach Udaipur. Für die nur 250km sollten wir insgesamt 10h brauchen.

      Unterwegs hat Amrit wieder viel erzählt - über den Hinduismus, verschiedene Rituale wie z.B. Beerdigungen, was um die Geburt eines Kindes herum so passiert und warum Kühe 🐄 😇 heilig sind.

      Zunächst machten wir an einem kleinen Tempel hat und ließen eine Flasche Rum segnen 🥃. Unsere Strecke führte uns durch die tolle Landschaft der Arauli-Berge und darum ging es auch eher langsam voran. Leider hatte unser Bus dann einen kleinen Unfall mit einem übermütigen jungen Wasserbüffel 🐃 - es war aber nicht so schlimm wir zunächst gedacht, dem Tier ging es nach einer Weile wieder gut und der Bus hat auch nicht viel abgekriegt.

      Wegen dem Monsun sind hier in Udaipur viele Straßen in schlechtem Zustand und werden gerade erst wieder geflickt - so dauerte es lange bis wir endlich am Hotel waren, das aber super schön ist. Morgen erkunden wir die Stadt am See dann per TukTuk.      Read more

    • TravelerIndien Rajasthan
      Day 10

      Udaiphur

      November 22, 2023 in India ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

      Gestern Abend kamen wir in Udaiphur an, die Stadt gilt als die romantischste in Indien und wird auch "Venedig des Ostens" genannt. Sie ist wirklich sehr schön und beschaulich, was uns alle sehr positiv überrascht. Vormittags geht es zunächst in den Palast des Maharadjas.Read more

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    • Indien - Thailand - Malaysia
      Day 16

      Udaipur - James Bond lässt grüßen

      December 4, 2022 in India ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

      Unsere Reise führt uns weiter nach Udaipur und wir tauchen hier wieder tief ein in das indische Leben…

      Udaipur wird auch das Venedig des Ostens genannt. Naja, nur genannt, obwohl die Stadt sicherlich ein Highlight einer Rajasthan Tour darstellt. Bekannt geworden durch den James Bond Film „octopussy“ (1983) ist das auf dem Lake Pichola schwimmende „Lake Palace Hotel“.

      In Udaipur übernachten wir wieder bei einer sehr netten Familie, mit der wir abends gemeinsam kochen und einen guten Einblick in die indische Küche bekommen. Das Essen ist sehr lecker hier und das merken wir auch auf der Waage 😉😂.

      Indien trägt in 2023 den nächsten G20 Gipfel aus und die Auftaktveranstaltung findet just an den Tagen hier in Udaipur statt wo wir da sind. Wir haben dort Deutschland nicht persönlich vertreten, das überlassen wir besser unseren Politikern 😉.

      Ein anderer, sehr passender Name wie ich finde ist „Die weiße Stadt“, denn die meisten Gebäude, Paläste und Tempel in Udaipur erstrahlen in Weiß. Udaipur ist wohl eine der romantischsten Städte in Indien mit verwinkelten Gassen, Dachterrassen-Restaurants, lauschigen Parks und perfektem Sonnenuntergangspanorama. Zudem gibt es vieles zu entdecken, zum Beispiel den riesigen Stadtpalast des Maharana, den Pagoden-artigen Jagdish-Tempel in der Altstadt, den Lustgarten Jad Mandir im Rahmen einer Bootsfahrt oder den Monsun-Palast auf einem Berg außerhalb von Udaipur…

      Mit schönen Eindrücken und erlebnisreichen Tagen verlassen wir Udaipur, die Stadt der Seen und eine der meistbesuchtesten Städte Indiens.      Read more

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    • skip's retirement travelIndia
      Day 14

      Udaipur

      October 16, 2019 in India ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C

      Known as the white city (just as Jaipur is the Pink City), this is the Rajpoot capital of the part of India that was not part of the Raj. First is the City Palace (see another post) taken from the lake. There are two hotels in the building now. The secpnd looks over the city from the top floor of the palace. Third is the big Hindu temple in the city. Fourth is another Rajasthani dancer, this time with about a dozen stack bowls on her head. Fifth looks over the lake, and last is the former summer palace now an ultra luxury hotel with room rates from 1,000-4,000 US dollars per nightRead more

    • TravelerTravel 2020 - TBC
      Day 49

      Scooter day from Udaipur

      February 23, 2020 in India ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

      I woke up just after 8 and made our way up to the roof terrace for our breakfast. We were the only ones there again, just like our first morning, so naturally we were complete pigs and ate most of the food. Oops! (I was going to miss that jam). After brekkie we got all our stuff together, dumped our bags in the common area and checked out as we were leaving for Pushkar on a night train tonight. We then waited in the reception area for our scooter that we had arranged yesterday, of course it was still late despite the 16 hour notice...

      Eventually, the scooter turned up. It was an awful, grey bike that looked like it was falling apart and had been spray painted really badly to make it look newer than it was. When we started droving it actually felt worse than it looked...the bracket that was screwed onto the front of the bike made it sound like a clattery old van each time we went over a speed bump or hole in the road. The lights didn’t work, which was eventful through a dark tunnel on a motorway and the indicators made the loudest beep ever. The driving experience here was much more chaotic than it was in Goa, firstly two guys wanted to race us numerous times, then bikes would drive beside us wanting conversations with us....eventually we made it to Eklingji temple, a 24km drive from our hostel. It was hidden away in a busy town, which was weird considering we had hardly passed anybody on our way here. We queued up outside for quite some time, with no shoes or socks but eventually we got inside, following the queue all the way round, we were quite confused exactly to what the people were actually praying to. It was a really nice temple and was very detailed, but no pictures were allowed here. We made our way back to our bike, after being rushed to put our shoes back on by two girls...and then made our way to Sahastra Bahu temples, which was an awesome temple, incredibly intricate and well preserved. There were a group of local people chilling outside the temple playing western music, but in true Indian fashion would skip each song after about 20 seconds... we actually enjoyed the Western music for a little while whilst exploring the temple. Whilst in the temple we met a group of Aussies who were in India for their sons wedding in a dry state of India and were telling us of the festivities that followed their wedding.

      Back on our moped we made our way to a pin Tom had found on maps.me for a “mountain viewpoint”, having no clue what it actually looked like we thought we’d check it out anyway. On the journey we drove through the middle of nowhere, passing by really rural villages. It felt very Middle Eastern, with dry landscape and very square buildings, almost what I imagined Afghanistan to look like. When we got to the viewpoint we enjoyed the hazy view of the mountainous landscape and watched an older guy herding his goats and generally enjoyed the peace and quiet - as you don’t come across that in India too often. After enjoying the view we drove to Lake Badi, after a bumpy journey we got to a parking area where we left our bike for 20 rupee to go and check out a nice viewpoint overlooking the reservoir. On the walk back to our bike we of course had to have our picture taken with a few Indian guys and then we were going to make our way to The Monsoon palace which could be seen from our hostels roof terrace.

      However, on the drive the sound of the engine changed and increased in volume by about 100%, we stopped to check out what had happened...the exhaust had fallen off. We attempted to carry on but it was scraping on the floor, so instead of causing further damage to an already broken bike we thought we’d better come up with a solution. We ripped the string out from the seat cover and used this to hold up the exhaust so it wouldn’t scrape along the ground as we drove. It was however, still the loudest bike the whole of India but at least we could move however with not much power anymore. We thought we’d go straight back to the hostel and talk to the hostel to sort out getting some money back for this bike, as it really was rubbish. On the way back to Udaipur we couldn’t pick up much speed and the moped was absolutely screeching...to make things even worse there were lots of diversions around Udaipur meaning we had to meander through the backstreets, through the chaotic traffic to get back to our hostel. We got back to the hostel and we were both a little pissed off. We spoke firstly with the front of house at the hostel who called the man who’s bike it was... after about half hour he turned up. He was an absolute crook this guy, accusing us of breaking his bike... after a little while we managed to get the message across to both him and the guys at the hostel that it was nothing to do with us but instead how this guy had looked after his bike over the years and how it was unacceptable and to our surprise we managed to get a full refund...result! It did help that I had the key to the bike held ransom.

      After that drama we went to get Thali from “the food corner” our favourite local place in Udaipur. As we were sat down I suddenly announced that I needed an emergency toilet trip...up I got and ran out of the restaurant leaving Tom to order our Thali’s and an extra curry and rice to share. I had to go all the way to the rooftop of the hostel as we’d checked out already and returned after perhaps 5 minutes, with some shitty (literally) news, I had the shits. Finally, it had got to one of us. Thankfully, it didn’t affect my appetite though and the mountain of food arrived and we both devoured it, and it was delicious, we were going to miss this place! We said our goodbyes to the owner of the restaurant and went back to the hostel to chill out until in the common room, where Tom FaceTimed home and I just began to feel awful getting closer and closer to a foetal position on the floor. At about 9:45pm we left the hostel and got a TukTuk to the train station. We had been fighting to get it for 80 rupees but finally settled on 100...the journey was awful, he actually crashed into a moped (and sped off) and then almost skidded into a car so when we arrived at the train station and he expected 100 rupees. Is I felt like shit I explained pretty brutally that this was the worst tutkuk journey of my life and I only have him 80 rupees as he didn’t deserve the full fare...safe to say he was fuming!

      We found our platform and there was a train waiting there, we asked an official if this was our train to Ajmer, she said yes, good job we checked with two guys on the train as it was actually going to Jaipur... ours was the next train coming through. We waited on the platform and once again I got the sudden need to go to the toilet...oh no, in the train station!! But surprisingly the toilet was relatively clean and western I informed Tom upon my return, demanding the hand sanitiser still.

      At around 11pm the train pulled into the station, we got on our carriage in complete darkness and found our beds. Tom was 35, bottom and I was 36 top. We got straight into our bunks, tried to get comfy and get some sleep before arriving in Ajmer.      Read more

    You might also know this place by the following names:

    Gadarwās, Gadarwas

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