On to Udaipur

Our original plan was to take a bus to Udaipur but getting bus tickets is a bit more uncertain than train tickets (we’re expert at that now) so we decide to splurge and take a private car.  Anu and Bantu had found us a driver making the return trip so the cost is manageable and off we go.  The driver is young (I learn he’s only 29!) but looks 40 and his parents are 59 and 60.  He asks me a few minutes into the drive ‘How many in your family (that’s everyone, children, grandchildren, sisters, brothers, the whole gang!)? And then he tells me everyone in his family and that his father is a tuk tuk driver – god, what a hard way to make a living!  Then he asks me ‘How old you are?’ When I tell him, he seems stunned and then asks Tim’s age – also stunned. 

Uneventful but long drive to Udaipur.  We decided to do the car because the route would be more scenic and I guess it is . . . we climb through a mountain pass with some hair-raising turns and our driver nervously beeping behind a bus he wants to pass!!  The roads are reasonably good and this area is formerly the mountain retreat for nearby rajahs and now the site of many ‘full service resorts’ complete with tiger safaris.  We are behind a jeep that must have 20 people in it (according to our driver who tells us the most he's seen is 50 people in a vehicle like this!!) and a camel by the side of the road.

Arrive in Udaipur (a beautiful city) and go to our accommodation – whoops!  My first boo-boo – it’s a 3-4 story walk up!!  We don’t even go up . . . our driver offers to take us to another place he knows (isn’t this something we’re never supposed to do??) and we end up right in the heart of the action.  Tim checks out the available rooms, and we agree on a lovely (‘the penthouse’) room right at the top (5 stories up with an elevator).  The restaurant is right outside our door and our three nights turn out to be a most magical stay.

We’re no sooner settled than we meet a fellow traveler, Paul, from the UK.  Well not actually from anywhere!  He and his wife are ‘homeless’!  What a fantastic story they have – sold everything, rented their home, and took off – for 18 months.  We get on famously and later meet Debbie, his wife, who’s been a wee bit sick but recovering.  Their first time in India and they are a wealth of information about long-term travel and inspire us, once again, to take the big plunge.  The four of us at the rooftop restaurant.