Trip to Udaipur was more of an adventurous trip with my bae(now wife) as it was our last memorable trip together as a bachelor.
Why was it Adventurous, will let you know later, let's continue with our trip details.
We were basically planning how to celebrate her last birthday as a bachelor and were exploring day trips nearby Delhi and just accidentally thought of Udaipur and it's scapes. After discussion, we slept at night and all of a sudden I woke up and thought of doing something unique this time rather than giving a gift full of roses, teddy etc, randomly booked the trip to Udaipur via AC sleeper bus from redbus which was at 11 PM from iffco chowk, Gurgaon, then booked guest house from Booking.com and rest at feasibility of each other.
Now I'll explain you how it was an adventurous trip for us, we planned our trip on Friday night and returning was on Monday morning and her birthday was on Tuesday. As it was her last bachelor's birthday, both the families planned to meet and celebrate her birthday together and her family planned to visit Gurgaon on Sunday and this we got to know when we were exploring in Udaipur and suddenly due to some reason their visit postponed to Monday evening and this trip was not disclosed to either of the parents as they are bit conservative by nature. We felt relaxed soon after hearing this news and devoted our time in exploring this beautiful city rather than finding ways to send her back to Gurgaon.
Such an adventure is our story (how we met and came close to each other) as well!
After all the planning and packing, we headed towards the busstand to catch the bus and left for the adventure which was waiting ahead for us in Udaipur.
We reached Udaipur in the morning @8 and de-borded the bus few km near the guest house and took an Uber for rest of the journey.
Upon reaching, we freshened up ourselves and left for the excursion.
1st on our list was city palace which was just 1.5km from our guest house. Before that my bae encountered a temple and we visited that before proceeding towards the city palace.
After the darshan at the temple, we were starving like anything, so just before city palace's back side, there was a South Indian restaurant, the only one on the street to offer that , had our breakfast there and that restaurant was highly rated on TripAdvisor by the foreign nationals for its quality.
We ordered masala dosa, which coated us Rs. 160 and had buttermilk along with it over there and then resumed our footsteps towards city palace.
Entry ticket to city palace is Rs.30 and charge for the museum is Rs. 300 per person.
In city palace only there is Pichola lake(don't get fooled by the auto walas as a separate place to visit) and the boat ride in it is for Rs.480 per person and mostly foreigners do that ride as it's too expensive, and for us there is an alternative, which I'll tell you in a while. In Pichola lake there is magnificent JAL Mahal and the pond where the shooting of Movie Dhadak took place.
The sun was so bright that too in the month of November, we had some pictures clicked of ourselves and moved ahead.
Kind Attention: there are many auto drivers available outside charging heavily for travel and the rate is Rs. 100 from 0-3km flat.
Note: most of the monuments are in old Udaipur only, so if you want to spend less(to avoid auto charges), then have to walk a lot for exploring the monuments.
After city palace, we headed towards Bagore ki haveli, while returning, we enquired about kumbalgarh fort and it's tour, so we booked a day tour to kumbalgarh and ranakpur Jain temple for the next day.
Tour charges :Rs. 2100 which covered kumbalgarh fort and ranakpur Jain temple.
Entry to Bagore ki Haveli is Rs.50 per person.
Bagore ki Haveli hosts cultural events in the evening which comprises of local dance and music and puppet show.This monument is again situated near the ghat of Pichola lake.
Bagore ki Haveli also, comprises of the puppets Alligned in such a way that they describe you , how at that time the darbar was held in the king's presence. Also, the description regarding the marriage ceremony of the king depicted by statue in the other building.
Plus Bagore ki Haveli has the world's biggest turban in it. Do check that out in the pics below.
After that we had an option to either move towards fateh Sagar lake or to sahelio ki Bari and while discussing this with the local people, we were told to visit fateh Sagar lake in the evening as it hosts beautiful sunset, so we proceeded towards sahelio ki Bari, and explored it. It has some of the painting placed in a separate room as well.
Thus after it we moved towards fateh Sagar lake which was about 2.5km from sahelio ki Bari and this time we preferred to walk and upon reaching there, we still had time for the sunset, so we found aquarium adjacent to the lake, which had an entry charge of Rs. 180 per person and explored some unique species of fishes.
Then we proceeded towards fateh Sagar lake and the time was 5:30 P.M. and was the right time to get into the slow boat which takes half and hour to complete one circle instead of speed boat which takes 2-3 mins. We preferred slowboat in order to witness the sunset.
Charges are Rs. 225 per person.
And fateh Sagar lake is the pick for boating instead of Pichola lake that I was talking about in the beginning.
After completion of boat ride, it was little dark and timing to visit Maharana Pratap's statue was also over, but the light show was available to explore but we were too tired to walk till the statue, instead we planned for romantic candle light dinner date across the lake in a rooftop restaurant.
After the dinner we proceeded towards our guest house for sleep as we had to start early for kumbalgarh fort next morning.
Morning at 8 our cab arrived and we started for the fort which is located 60km outside Udaipur and the route is very bumpy. After 2 hours drive we reached the fort at around 10 AM and purchased the ticket for entry and moved inside the fort.
The entry was so amazing that I clicked some pictures at different sites. It took us more than 2 hours just to explore the fort and we were completely drained at that point of time and we had to return to the driver by 12 noon, so that we can proceed towards ranakpur temple.
Upon reaching back to our cab, we started our journey for ranakpur temple, while doing that I asked the driver from where can I click the entire fort in a single frame, so he dropped me to the view point just 350m before the fort to have it clicked.
Note: Kumbalgarh fort has boundary of 36km, which is 2nd largest after great wall of China.
The route for ranakpur temple was again bumpy with great inclinations. It took us again 2 hours approx to reach there and upon reaching the temple, there was separate entry charge of Rs. 25 for the individual and Rs. 100 for per camera or Mobile phone. So we just clicked the picture of the temple from outside and proceeded way back to Udaipur.
On our way back we told the driver to stop by a restaurant and he took us to some amazing place which was village themed and the bullock cart driver(shown below in the pic) was the owner of the restaurant and upon hearing this I was kind of speechless as how grounded a person can be. And the cart was for tourist attraction and was collecting water from the stream flowing downwards and a pathway was formed to water the agricultural land. Which was kind of unique. Soon after completion of our lunch we headed back and on the way we told the driver to leave us at Monsoon palace as we had some time left to explore the same.
Monsoon palace entry charge :Rs. 160 per person and shared cab ride of Rs. 95 per person and if you have your own car then car entry fee is of Rs. 200 per car.
Monsoon palace is built on hill top and the view from there was surreal as you can see entire Udaipur.
But the palace was poorly maintained and was very bad experience after paying heavy amount just to reach there. Monsoon palace is again famous for sunset and the sunset happens little late as compared to the other parts in the city.
While returning back from there, we booked a cab for some souvenir shopping and got us dropped at hathi pole for the same which is a market place for locals and Indian tourists to shop, as it is way cheaper than the market adjacent to city palace. Once done with it, we headed to Chand pole for again rooftop candle light dinner to end another wonderful day.
This was our last day in Udaipur, so we checked out of our guest house and had our Breakfast and headed towards our last destination that was Shilpgram, a village themed museum with all the wonderful culture of Rajasthan clubbed in it.
When we reached there, the cultural program had already started and soon after that we did a camel ride and explored the entire Shilpgram from a height. After exploring it , we had some traditional Rajasthani thali before heading towards the bus stand.
That was the entire trip of Udaipur summed up with my experience above.
