Travel Diaries #Udaipur

And as mentioned in the last post, part 1 of the adventurous trip.

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Rajasthan is a diverse and beautiful place that beats superlatives. During our 10 day trip, after a lot of discussions, we managed to fit an itinerary to cover Udaipur ( The City of Lakes), Jodhpur (The Blue City) and Jaisalmer (The Golden City) . We skipped Jaipur (The Pink City) coz we had already seen it and Pushkar too because I had seen it just a month back.

After deciding the places, the next question was how many days for each. Matt was crystal clear on Jaisalmer. He had been there earlier and wanted the most number of days there. I trust his sense of travel so obediently agreed. So we were supposed to go to Delhi to Udaipur via train, stay 2 days there. Then take a road trip from Udaipur to Jodhpur ( wow!), spend a day there. Jodhpur to Jaisalmer via train, spend 2 days and finally come back to Delhi via train.

So all train tickets and hotel bookings were prior done. Seemed a well planned trip. Except that we didn’t decide upon which places to visit and when in the particular city. That’s the most boring thing to do. Though I had a list in my mind of the places to see and the food joints to visit ;)

The first adventure of the trip

Britt and Matt

We missed our Delhi Udaipur train!! I already have a record of missing trains and flights :P It was at 7 pm from Nizammudin Railway station and we couldn’t reach on time. While I had a panic attack for once, my crazy foreigner friends Matt and Britt were all chilled out. They took it SO casually that it made me ease out. We accepted the fact that we’ve missed it. But we wanted to leave the same day. With our bags packed, none of us wanted to go back home :)  So after a lot of chaos and confusion, we went to Bikaner House, took a bus to Jaipur and then train from Jaipur to Udaipur. It was hell fun! Matt and Britt had a “bumpy” bus ride of almost 6 hours. I was still ok since I am used to such buses but for them they would wake up on every speed breaker. :D We thought we would get berths in the 6 hour train ride from Jaipur to Udaipur. Alas! We had no food and had to manage with chair seats. Thankfully, we reached Udaipur by afternoon, just 8 hours later than the scheduled arrival.

Day 1: The Hippiness began!

We stayed at Mewargarh Palace. Please don’t be mistaken by the word “palace”. A family has created a guest house on the first floor, a little uphill walk. It is an economical stay but the rooms and food are really nice. I loved the sunrise view from the open space there.

We reached there around 2 pm. Seeing the bed I wanted to doze off for a while (we all were sleep deprived since more than 24 hours!). But got ready by 4 pm as none of us wanted to waste the day. So we first went to the street shops and Matt and Britt bought the hippie clothes. When in Rome, behave like Romans. That was a must in their agenda: D We then went to Fatehsagar. 

I’ve been to Udaipur earlier and I like the Auto system there. Readily available at any point in time but wish they would run by meters. The walk inside the Maharana Pratap Memorial till the statue of Rana Pratap Singh was nice with a pleasing weather. Since I was with 2 foreigners, many asked me “Aap inki guide hai?” (Are you their guide?). I was short of words to explain them that they look foreigners but they are Indians in a lot of ways. They know the skill of negotiating, can’t be fooled easily and Matt knew many common hindi words. If he would find any guy with long mustaches, he would start “Aapki moochein bahut achi hai” ( The way he says it is hilarious!) And the other person who would be smiling and blushing! After taking a look around the memorial we whiled away a bit at the Fateh Sagar lake. I wanted to take a round in the lake in a ferry but Matt and Britt, being adventurous, made me sit in a speed boat! I was shit scared initially but was soon able to let go of the inhibition and loved it! 

Speedboat @ Fatehsagar, Udaipur

We had dinner at Millets of Mewar. Of our entire trip, this, according to me, was the best place in terms of ambience, price and food quality. A 5/5. After a sumptuous dinner, we figured our way back strolling. Nothing beats late night lazy walks with crazy friends. :)

Day 2: The amazing explorations!

Addi joined us from this day. We were happy to see him! :)We all got ready and chose to first see the City Palace. In the palace, a part of it is the living quarter of the erstwhile royal family. I am not much of an artistic or history person so found the palace ok :) ( Please pardon me if you Love the place :) 

We had lunch at The Ambrai. The best, rather the only good part of this restaurant was the view. Sitting and eating right besides the lake..gazing at the water and observing the impact inside..listening to the gushing sound and feeling the breeze. I found the place too pricey with the food quality being moderate. We then went window shopping in the small lanes near the lake since we wanted to pass time till about sunset to take a boat ride in Lake Pichola. We were told to take the boat around 5 pm to witness the sunset. And I think that was the best decision made. The sunset experienced in the middle of the Lake was estupendo! Priceless moments, full of divinity. I am scared of deep waters but that point in time, nature seemed my best friend. :)

Sunset @ Lake Pichola, Udaipur

We thought of going to Jag Mandir but that’s really expensive. A few thousands per person! I would rather prefer to go to South India adding some more money ;) We settled for dinner this day at a rooftop restaurant. I am not able to clearly recall but I think it was at Jaiwana. Didn’t have much food there so can’t say much about it but rooftops with a lake view are undoubtedly awesome.

We also saw the Dharohar Dance show at Bagore Ki Haveli. The show is worth a watch and icing on the cake was the Bhavai Dance where the lead dancer did this! It seems easy but it isn't and I was spellbound when she actually did it in front of us - she started with 2 and kept adding one after the other and danced barefeet on broken glass!! #DanceBasanti in true sense ;)

So the 2 days at Udaipur ended well and we were looking forward to our road trip now starting early next day which had its own set of adventures! The next leg of the trip in the next post:)

Keep smiling :)

Swati

You may also like to read:

• Travel Diaries #Jaisalmer
• Travel Diaries #Jodhpur
• Travel Diaries #Pushkar

Dreams do come true :)

This ideally should have been shared last year. #LazyMe. But it was my best trip of 2014. Those 10 days were a dream come true!! We've all heard of the phrase ," And when you really want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it."  It did happen :) There is a background to the whole chronicle with a guru story. :)

The Background

So I met this Lazy Soul (Ok! Don’t call him lazy, he gets offended! ;) Mathew (Matt ) in 2013 during an Art Of Living course which I was facilitating. He had come to India on a holiday and his friend Additya (Addi) pushed him into the course (I do give you credit for this Addi :) Addi had to repeat the course so that Matt comes all 6 days of the course. I still remember the excitement on some of the volunteers faces, “Didi, Australian bhi hai is course mein!!” :D Apparently he is a Canadian whose been working in Australia for a while. In the course, he used to be a good listener but used to HATE any physical exercise! After the course ended, I met him after a week in some event and it was my birthday the next day, he wished, and god knows from where our conversations started.

I took him to Chandni Chowk like a good Indian host and he loved Kake Da Dhaba and the Dal Makhani. Every foreigner loves Chandni Chowk, the true India. I took him to meet Sri Sri too!! Not able to find that pic :( Guruji talked to both Matt and me for a while. Guruji asked him " How did you find the course?" And this mean guy replied ," Oh! don't ask. My knees hurts! She was my teacher" then Guurji looked at me and sweetly said " Aise kaise course sikhaya. Dekho kitna dard ho raha hai use." ( How did you teach the course, he is in so much pain). I was listening with head bowed and hands folded. A sweet scolding from the Master was also seeming good to me. Atleast he was talking to me :) And Matt was all happy 'coz he saw me getting scolded by Sri Sri! Duh! But for me, those were precious moments with the Master :)

Matt used to ask me a lot many questions relating to life, India and spirituality. A lot. Infact, in my answers he would dig out the next question :) :) Matt and I are both Librans and I guess that’s where the common connect is. We both have a similar perspective towards life.  Take it easy, travel, explore. Of course, we differ in some things too.  As much as I am particular about things, he is that much carefree and easy going. He came to do video shoot for one of the competitions which my ex-organisation  (sigh!) had organized and we and Addi later went to see Ramleela in which he went all bonkers over Deepika :D I still remember how he was like Leelaaaaaa while coming out of the theatre. Lol

We talked a lot about travel and exploring India, he went to Amritsar and Manali but I had work commitments so couldn’t. But I so wished to go on a hippie trip together. Soon his India trip came to end.  The dream remained unfulfilled :( I went to drop him at the airport and realized I would miss him for a while.  But friends are friends. And distance doesn’t matter much when you seriously want to stay in touch.  So from end of 2013, I had a foreigner friend with whom I could talk about anything , who would give me a foreign perspective on things, not coated with too many emotions unlike Indians (I still love you India!). I wished and longed for our travel plan but he said he wouldn’t be back before 2017 unless it was Addi’s marriage. This “unless” worked ;) Addi’s marriage got fixed for November 2014. So Matt booked his tickets to India along with his sister Britt. 2 weeks in India, one week for travel and one week for the wedding. Since Addi had the wedding, he couldn’t join in for the travel plan. It was truly a guru story for me. A conspiracy plotted ONLY to fulfill my travel dream. Why? Because Addi’s marriage broke off (Relax! Addi was happy too so don’t do that awww please). He called all his friends to inform not to book / cancel their tickets. Matt had the option of cancelling his tickets but that would have meant a loss for him perhaps so Britt and Matt decided to come to India anyhow. So now we had 2 weeks of travel instead of one! Whooppy!!!! I was on cloud 10! (If there is any beyond 9)

Matt and I used to discuss at length to select places to travel. Dropped the plan to go to a hill station since they are Canadians and are already exposed to severe snowy winters (Talk about snow in front of them and watch their expressions, it’s funny!). We thought of Darjeeling too, then dropped. And finally decided on Udaipur – Jodhpur- Jaisalmer. Matt had been to Jaisalmer alone in his earlier trip and was all gaga over it so it was a must. We decided our travel roles too – I would get the tickets done and he would get the hotel bookings. Foreigners follow trip advisor like a bible :)

About the awesomest (wish there was such a word) trip in the next post... 

Keep Smiling 
Swati :)

Job is a Love-Hate Relationship

In my earlier post, I had mentioned about Avishkaar Box. My Avishkaar journey is really close to my heart. Sri Sri's new year message said " Take the learning from the events and drop the emotions". I have been putting in my best efforts to apply this knowledge w.r.t to Avishkaar Box. I haven't been successful 100% so far but efforts are on :) So you may find drops of emotions in this post here and there  :)

I've always felt a good job is like a love-hate relationship. There are different phases.

1.  Initially when the relationship starts, a lot of time is taken to decide whether you want to get into it or not. There are initial hiccups whether it would work out or not..is it the same kind that I am thinking..the careful baby steps… :)

2. Then the phase when a comfort starts coming in…you start settling in, enjoying it thoroughly, it’s the most beautiful phase, the “honeymoon” period :D everything seems hunky dory…you surrender yourself to it and are willing to go to any extent to make things work..you do everything that relationship demands.

3.  Then a phase where differences starts creeping in. You start feeling you are not understood or misunderstood, your own desires are neglected, you did so much in the relationship and yet there is not much acknowledgement. You start feeling suffocated and try to sort things out.

4.   And if things don’t get sorted, you finally decide it’s time to move out.  It’s hard, very hard to take that step considering all the good times you’ve had. But you know it’s good for both. You are not happy together. Things are just not working out.  You will miss the relationship immensely but are killing yourself being into it. And with a heavy heart, you call it quit.

Keep Smiling

Swati :)