Udaipur

Unlike its desert counterparts in Rajasthan, Udaipur is situated in the forested, hilly region of Aravalli Ranges in complete contrast to the arid deserts in the northwest. The city of lakes is set on the banks of freshwater lakes, the Pichola, Fatehsagar, Doodh Talai and Swaroopsagar. Lake Pichola, the largest and the most beautiful of Udaipur’s Lakes is surrounded by hills, white palaces, mansions, bathing ghats, gardens and temples. Jag Mahal and Jag Niwas are the two island palaces that add to the lake’s romantic ambience. A boat ride in the evening to the island where Jag Niwas is situated promises to be a mesmerising experience and the view of Uadaipur reflected in the lake at night in all its splendour will leave you spell bound. City Palace is a magnificent and awe inspiring citadel that hosts a ‘Mewar Light & Sound Show’ every evening. Jagdish Temple, Bharatiya Lok Kala Museum, Pratap Smarak, Nehru Park, Saheliyon ki Bari, Gulab Bagh and the Monsoon Palace are other places to visit. Udaipur is connected by air and has a wide network of roads and railway services connecting it to major cities of India.

Best time to visit: October to March

Languages spoken: Mewari, Hindi, English

Climate: Hot and dry summers and cold sometimes freezing winters

Heritage Sites and Holy places: Jag Mahal, Jag Niwas, City Palace, Jagdish Temple, Pratap Smarak, Monsoon Palace

Parks and Knowledge Centres: Nehru Park, Saheliyon ki Bari, Gulab Bagh, Bharatiya Lok Kala Museum, City Palace Museum, ‘Mewar Light & Sound Show’ at City palace

Road Journeys – Udaipur to Daman (UT)

By AJAY SHARMA

Locals suggested visiting the Jampore Beach in the morning for the oblivious tangible apprehensions of countering unreasonable clashes with drunken-brawls. Being sensible, when with your family is I feel is an intelligent act though, the macho mind always resists fearing such instances. I suppressed my macho-ness and preferred to visit the beaches next morning and utilized the evening in walking along the bustling market place counting the wine shops which were more than 39 within 2 km, later stopped doing it and entered into one of the eateries. Every small or big food joint is equipped with a bar too besides those shops I referred. A bottle of KF strong costs Rs. 60/- in shops and Rs. 100/- to 140/- in bars depending upon the size and shape of the furnishings inside. We were in one of the best hence had to pay the maximum. Every table had a countable number of bottles in different colors and shapes with families enjoying wining with dining in loud atmosphere. The liberal city has no age bar supposedly for serving alcohol because a group of very young stags sitting beside our table were so intoxicated that two of them fell down a couple of times while making way to the loo.

Jampore beach is a nice and cool place and worth visiting. A row of hutments on the shore blocking the sight of sea serves liquors, sizzlers and sea food mostly comprised of small sized prawns and pomfrets. You need to make way to the beach only through those shops which have small openings on their back, fronts are sea facing. Plastic chairs specially designed for a leisure seating, half immersed in the sand are arranged in sequence in front of the shops. Early morning, we found a number of tourists mostly with families enjoying their drinks leisurely on the beach side budget-resorts. Fresh catch of prawns lured us to give a try and we ordered a plate containing 8 pieces at Rs. 150/-. The prawns were definitely fresh but cooking in too much of spices spoiled its natural flavour. We therefore, again ordered a plate without spices and the later was better. The sea was calm with a far stretched beach along the timid water which was creeping gradually closer in natural course. On the way back we were amused to see a decorative piece in one the government office premise and couldnâ€™t resist from putting the image here.

Road journeys – Delhi to Udaipur-the Lake City

By AJAY SHARMA

Enjoying the splendid landscapes we reached Baewar by 1.30 pm on our first major stop for refreshment and lunch. I was so energetic till then that my wife didnâ€™t ask me why we are heading towards Udaipur and not Chittorgarh for the break journey. Filled the tank of the car alongwith our tummy, we were again lost in the nostalgic picturesque landscape full of greenery, on an average speed of 100 kmph with ease due to good tar and less traffic. Our first visiting place was Rajsamand Lake which soon appeared with an awesome view of a natural wild lake on the left side of the road. Rajsamand Lake is an artificial lake created in the 17th century by Rana Raj Singh of Mewar. We stopped and hurriedly captured the view both in our eyes and in the camera. Surprisingly, none other was available to enjoy the serene virgin beauty of the so natural place in wilderness. A clear water in the lake, yet uninterrupted by artificiality, was a soothing sight. A rusted board mentioning victory of Maharana Pratap over Akbarâ€™s huge army in 1582, fought there was boasting its historical importance. We stayed a few minutes clicking photographs and watching the silence in the tranquility, glooming hearted was back to our seats. It was sad to see that a place of so rich history, so beautiful is so unattended.

By Mukesh Bhalse

By Mukesh Bhalse

By Mukesh Bhalse

Lake City Udaipur

By Kiran

Other important landmark in Udaipur is Maharana Pratap Smarak on Moti Magri. On top of small Hill, this smarak is located, where we can go in our own vehicle. There used to be â€œMoti Magariâ€ mahal built by Maharana Udaising. Light & Sound show is organised here every evening. The smarak has big statue of Maharana Pratap and a small garden surrounding it. The smarak also has one museum where different weapons and models of forts- Chittorgar, Kumbhalgar and battlefield of Haldi Ghati are depicted in nice manner.
The history of Mewar cannot be complete without the great Maharana Pratap, who never surrendered to the enemy, while other Rajput kings decided to surrender or established relation with Akbar by wedding their daughters to Akbar. But Maharana Pratap had taken oath not to live in Mahal, not to sleep on bed and not to eat in Utensils until he could free all his kingdom from enemies. He lived in forests, slept on straw bed and ate meals on hand for twenty six years. What I came to know here that Maharana Pratap used to keep two swords with him as he would never fight with anyone who did not have weapon. When local people tell the history of great Maharana Pratap, you can sense the proud feeling they have about their Maharana. Such a great feeling to witness the heritage!

A trip to Mewar – Nathdwara and Ekling Ji

By Rakesh

But I could not take this decision till we reached the main entrance point of the temple. There was no queue at all. Worst fear of temple being closed down for that day was coming true andÂ IÂ just told that boy to take the money and arrange for the Darshan. His answer was money afterwards , firstly Darshan of the Lord . He ordered us( yeah, order) to deposit our camera and mobiles at the counterÂ quickly. I deposited the belongings quickly and he just took us along with himÂ to a sideways entrance leading to the Garbha Griha( exact location of installation of beautiful statue of Lord Shrinath Ji. Oh God, now we were in front of the Lord and just as we paid our respect, purohit of that place put down the curtains and closed that door also. What shall you say now? sheer luck, convincing power of the boy or my gut feeling. Can,t say? But overall feeling as that we were extremely lucky as we had planned to go to Udaipur and not stay there overnight. The boy asked then the amount for parshad. I thought and said O.K bring the parshad for Rs. 21. His answer surprised me that the minimum amount to be spent on parshad was Rs. 101 . Well fine , the option before us was to have the big famous Ladoo for parshad or big Rotis. We wanted him to bring Ladoo finally.It was single Ladoo and prepared from different raw material than normal Ladoos are prepared.

Now we were in the Bazaar bustling with activity. Another feature that we noted was the selling of Bhog laga hua parshad in form of fruit pieces for Rs. 10/ paper plate. We took that also and

A trip to Mewar – Haldighati

By Rakesh

How one could forgetÂ the deep loyalty of Chetak towards its master when in todays time loyalty is missing amongst the human beings. We were also thrilled to find so many peacocks in that area. It was just beautiful. I had never dreamt of visiting the famous Haldi Ghati battlefield site that also along with my closest kith and kin and that also driving my own car. After a few minutes we were on highway and from there Nathdwara town was about 4 km towards left. The beautiful evening was soon on the verge of merging with the queen of night as it was winters though the time was just about 5.20 p.m. Mausam khushgawar tha,door ghar baar tha , main apni car mein sawar tha aur kuchh hi doori par Srinath ji ka dwar tha. And the song playing in my mind at that time was yaara sili sili birha ki raat ka jalna from the movie Lekin. Lekin kyu….. pata nahin.

A trip to Mewar – Kumbhalgarh and Ranakpur

By Rakesh

The drive looked like very good till I encountered a steep slope drrive as in hills. Though I had driven the car a few times in hilly area but God knows what happened I just lost the confidence here when I saw that it was down and down and down. Oh God what to do now. I was trembling with fear and had put my car on to first gear . My wife and Bhakti just motivated me to carry on slowwly and remember our sojourn in the hills. I saw Â Mahindra scorpio coming uphill. I just stopped him and asked him about how long it would continue like this. It was about 5 kms like this, according to him. and the situation became hilarious when he also asked how it would be like this uphill .

hahahahhaha……….. Any way the ordeal became less and plain road was there . Â We were passing through Â the forest area now and after a few minutes we entered the temple complex. So serene was the atmosphere there and about 30-35 vehicles parked inside the complex. Main reason that I found for heavy rush was that people from Jaina community revered the place and comee there just as they have Dilwara temples at Mount Abu. So a mixed crowd of foreigners and Indians there. And there stood the vast sprawling temple structure in white marble, so clean and so serene and so pious.

A trip to Mewar – Karni Mandir, Ekling Ji and Sukhadia circle

By Rakesh

It was about 3 p.m that we exited from ahar museum and decided to go to Ekling ji which is situated on Udaipur-Ajmer highway before the historical Nathdwara town. When I was on my way to Ekling Ji just after 7-8 kms it resembled as Iwas driving in some hilly state(hills on one side and deep gorges on other side was the scenic view. So it was now only 2nd and 3rd gear for me. Frankly I didn’t expect such a terrain in Rajasthan. We as a unit were awed by the beauty this stte was offering. When we reached EKLING JI, the temple was closed and it was full one hour foe the gates to open. We paid our obescience from outside only and vrooom back to Udaipur. I would like to mention here that the temle is under maharan mewar trust and security guards posted there also bore badges of mewar security. Historically it is said that Bappa Rawal, founder of Mewarkingdom got blessings at this place only from god Ekling Ji to esrtablish the mewar empire.

SUKHADIA CIRCLE
It was fourth day in Udaipur and now it looke like this was my own city. I Â felt so attachment with this city.Clean roads, sensible traffic sense, good ambience and culturally strong, this city had just cast its spell on us. I don,t know which route I took but that route took us straight to Sukhadia circle which looked like a min picnic cum entertainment spot. More than me, Bhakti and Pavani were happy on reaching there. The spot which excited Bhakti and me was a large common place with about 30 shops under one roof filled with street food and fodies we are though I try to control this urge(plz insert 20). And the square (Sukhadia circle) was in form of a very small lake (gol-gol) with small boats in the shape of ducks in it(that excited little daughter, Pavani). I think the place got its name from Mohan Lal Sukhadia Ji, if I am right or someone kindly correct me.Agenda at Sukhadia circle:

A Trip to Mewar – Udaipur Sightseeing

By Rakesh

JAGDISH TEMPLE: The temple was an historical one in grey stone.Â Lord Krishna, we bow to you. Had aÂ PRIKRAMAÂ around the main garbha griha. clicked some photographs for yaadein and came downstairs. We had planned to walk through this market to our car parked on the other side of the palace. The bazaar was known as Bhatiyani chohatta. It was full of shops selling handicraft items, Rajasthani clothes and souvenirs. It seemed paradise to Bhakti and Savita, my wife. So t one shop after hard bargaining a dress for Pavani was bought. And at one corner shops some souvenirs were bought to gift to dear and near ones. After that we reached at the parking place. and there it was our trusted maruti. Our next stop was fatehsagar lake and shilpagram.

A Trip to Mewar – Jalandhar to Jaipur to Udaipur

By Rakesh

When I touched the Ajmer road on my way to Udaipur, I was just mesmerized by the highway. I had read a lot about this highway that this one is one of the best in India , on 31st of December I became witness to that. Till Udaipur I got four toll barriers on the way but it was worth. Normally I am slow traveler rarely peaking at 100 km/hour. but this highway tempted me. About 30 km before Ajmer there was a diversion towards left and I just took that following my gut feeling and I was on national highway 76 . I must mention here that on this way Chittorgarh and Bhilwara comes but remain on side so not quite a hurdle to travelers who want to reach Udaipur directly.

Kids were happy on this travel as we had experimented a long drive. Just before Chittorgarh felt hungry and stopped at a roadside dhaba offering garmagaram khana. A lot of trucks had been halting there bearing number plate mostly of Gujarat and Rajasthan. We had ordered saadi chapatis (tawe wali) and Karhi. The food was just delicious, to say. I had found in this trip that chapatis are brown in color not like Punjab where dhabas normally offer white chapatis indicating the use of maida instead of atta. After filling our tummies we proceeded further on our dream destination and it was at about 2.30 P. M we encountered a hoarding welcoming us to the city of lakes.