Udaipur - Indian Hospitality
Sunday - December 28, 1997
This day was largely spent waiting in the Jaipur airport for our plane to Udaipur. The unusually cold weather in Delhi caused fog problems throughout northern India. Our plane picked us up about 12 hours late which meant we missed a full day in Udaipur. We arrived around 8 PM, discovered my luggage had been sent to Bombay, and had dinner at the Hotel Rajdarshan. I got my luggage back the next day courtesy of the staff at Rajasthan Tours. The hospitality in Udaipur was warm and sincere.
Monday - December 29, 1997
In the morning we went on a guided tour of the sites of Udaipur. The City Palace was quite grand with its ivory doors, mirrored walls, colored glass windows, and inlaid marble balconies. The Jagdish Temple was remarkable for its erotic carvings. One of our favorite stops was the Sahelion-Ki-Bari Gardens pictured above.
After lunch we went about exploring Udaipur on our own. We were marveling at some pigs by the side of the road when we saw this sign for a computer learning center. We walked down to the small building, climbed a flight of stairs, and met Seema Singh, the Director of the program. She was very nice and gave us a tour of the facilities, discussed computer training as a key to upward mobility in the Indian economy. Students in this school enjoy rigorous training in programming languages. Unfortunately, they are still unable to get an internet connection for their building. Technology infrastructure in India is not widespread.
During the day we heard a sitar performance and later that evening we enjoyed
a puppet show and dance performance at the local folk museum. The fellow on
the left here amazed the crowd by adding bowl after bowl to his load while continuing
a complex set of dance steps. I have assembled an audio collage that you may
enjoy if you have a high-speed internet connection or plenty of time for the
download. The collage includes music from this performance and ends with an
excerpt from the classical music we heard the next day at the Fateh Prakesh
Palace restaurant. The recording is a QuickTime
3.0 File (449 K).