Today I went early to the City Palace Udaipur, where I spent the morning. I arrived right at opening time and spent quite a while on my own, but by the time I left it was already chaos with people.
The Palace was founded by Maharana Udai Singh II in 1559 and its construction began as a fortress. Inside it’s more like a kind of maze full of corridors and stairs on lots of different levels, which they said were meant to confuse any invaders. It’s one of the biggest palaces in Rajasthan and a witness to the history of the Mewar dynasty.
After the morning at the Palace I went to my hostel, which was next door, to eat an egg bhurji before starting the afternoon of sightseeing.
I set off towards the old town of Udaipur, where you don’t see tourists but the local inhabitants. I passed by the clock tower and the surrounding streets, where all kinds of business were going on and for that any nook would do, however small. A lot of business is done sitting on the floor and, when there’s no customer, some take the chance to sleep, whether lying down or sitting.
Next I went to the Rose park, Gulab Bagh, where there’s a statue of Gandhi, the Rajkiya Saraswati Bhavan library and the small Navlakha Mahal museum, which I visited. At the entrance there was a representation of the tree of truth, which had 4 big books symbolising the 4 Vedas and smaller books representing the mantras.
In Indian culture, especially Hinduism, there are four main Vedas (Rig, Sama, Yajur, Atharva) that are like bibles. Within them and other texts, such as the Upanishads, there are thousands of mantras (sacred phrases or prayers).
Inside the museum there were also 16 scenes portraying moments in the life of an Indian, from birth to death, and a small exhibition of paintings as well.
In the evening I went to dinner at The Sky Lounge and had vegetable biryani rice and, on my way to my hostel, I came across a young lad who wanted to sell me balloons and plastic hammers. As it happened I had just bought 2 packs of biscuits and I ended up giving him one, and he sat down on a scooter that happened to be there, eating the biscuits, and I went on my way.
And so I say goodbye to Udaipur, known as the “city of lakes” or also the “Venice of the East”.