Ah, finally a full day in Udaipur to myself, no work!

Last night I booked a ride to Jaipur for Sunday that was both insanely expensive and yet still worth it because it stopped in both Chittogarh and Pushkar. These are two cities that were on my original itinerary and now are not.

I contacted the tour operator and explained cars cannot drive on the street of my hotel.  I gave them the address of the restaurant where my driver had dropped me off coming from the airport. The response I got was them asking me to go to the bus station “It is easier for everyone.”  Well no, not it is certainly not easier for everyone.  It is a further walk, although not very far.  A whopping 7 minutes per Google.  But I have walked that way every day so I know there are hills involved that I just don’t want to roll my luggage up.  I am paying way too much for this tour, you come and get me where I wish.

So I cancelled it and booked a new tour that only goes to Chittogarh.  Even though I am regretting that I will not see Pushkar, I also know this will get me to Jaipur earlier so that’s a win right?

I slept until noon today.  I didn’t get to bed until 5:00 am because work.  I packed most of my stuff and then went out.

I took a tuk tuk to the Karni Mata ropeway.  It cost me 250 rupees.  He offered to wait for me to finish and then drive me back, thanks but no.

The ropeway didn’t scare me as much as they usually do.  Although it being three in one was odd to me.

I saw a monkey while waiting my turn.

Bathroom sign:

Up at the top is Karni Mata temple.  Also up at the top is steps to get to the temple, even though you just took a ropeway.

The views were great but still not as great as from my hotel balcony.

Afterwards I wandered around a bit looking for Hanging Bridge.  As I was walking down a nowhere side street, a man tried to guide me towards the ropeway as he thought I was lost.

I said hello to a dog without stopping and the dog chased me whining for pets.  How sweet.

The walk:

Google told me this was Hanging Bridge and I am pretty sure it isn’t?

It also told me to make a left and there was zero way to walk to the left.

Back to the lake where I sat in a gazebo taking in the sights until a narcissist asked me to move so her friend could take 298743987483 photos of her with a phone.

I walked over to the boats area and took a luxury boat ride around Lake Pichola.  Udaipur is so gorgeous. That’s why I am here.  That’s also why I get annoyed when people who know actually nothing about India think it is all like Delhi and warn me against going.

I considered walking back to my hotel but Google told me to go through Udaipur rather than walking along the lake and I didn’t want to do that.  Google also told me there is a Starbucks only 2.5 km from me.  Oh how tempting.

I got a tuk tuk back and asked to be dropped of at City Palace as that is around the corner from my hotel.  He only charged me 150 rupees but also did not take me to City Palace.  But I recognized where we were and it was near Mavi, which is the place I had the best iced latte yesterday.   So I went there again and the latte was just as great as yesterday.

I passed a bunch of monkeys being fed.  Look how cute?  Then a large one made eye contact with me, growled while showing me his teeth and lunged at me as I ran away screaming with a background chorus of Indian men yelling at the monkey.

I am going to dream about Mavi’s iced lattes for the rest of my life. So good

Back to my hotel where I once again played Pied Piper to the dogs. I could not find my favorite one.  But my second favorite old lady was there.

There is a little stoop type thing outside my hotel that I sit on to rest while petting the dogs, while I cool off before hiking up the 67 steps to my room.  It is here where I also play Pied Piper to a bunch of kids.  They just gather around me and talk and talk and talk to me.   If you are familiar with me, you know I don’t like talking to anyone.  But traveling makes me a different person and I don’t mind listening to them talking about which of my dogs are their favorite.  Or how one wants to be a tuk tuk driver when he is old enough.

I am all packed for checkout tomorrow morning.  I am reminding myself I have 17 more legs of this trip, don’t be depressed at how fast it is moving.  Although I would very much like the next leg to go fast as it is the last leg I have to work during.

I love India so much.  I have said this before somewhere in my excessive posts about being here:  It is amusing to me that before I got to Udaipur, I was never going to rush coming back to India.  But now that the hell that was getting here is so far in the past, I want nothing more than to come back to India.

While reading a Las Vegas trip report last night with someone who got stuck at the Chicago airport overnight as her connecting flight was cancelled, she got compensation.  Wait now.  Why did it not occur to me that I also could get compensation for being trapped in Paris for 24 hours?  So I filed a claim with Air France and now we wait.

Last night I stumbled on THIS blog.  Because yes, even though I am on my own travels, I cannot stop reading other people’s travel blogs.  I loved the mix of useful guide type posts with diary type monthly recaps.  I want to be this person.  I want to be free just traveling and writing forever.

I need to get so much better at blogging.

And with that, off to bed I go to hopefully sleep an entire 8 hours.  Good night Udaipur.