An elephant ambles over to share Colin Whitchelo's breakfast in Udaipur

click to enlarge

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Lengurs waiting for the bus?

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Dinner on a rooftop with a view of the palaces and temples

puppet show

Jack with a Nazi motorcycle, now on exhibit

outside a hotel (the sprayed on logos, not)...

A dusty, bone-rattling Auto-rickshaw ride to the village of Sisarma

click images to enlarge

Today we took a bone rattling, dusty ride out to a village, Sisarma, in the more or less desert outside Udaipur. From the looks of it, it won't be a remote little village much longer. As we approached the village, there were signs of construction everywhere. A large group of people were building a bridge over a very wide looking arroyo. Apparently, the village often cut off in monsoon season.

We visited a beautiful, rustic, old temple, where we were invited in after we left our shoes outside. The interior (where I did not take pictures) was painted in a rainbow of subtle pastel colors that almost looked like they may have been mixed in with the plaster, al fresco style.

All the children, and people we met when we got out and walked through the village out toward the bridge were extremely friendly. Keelin and I spent ten or fifteen minutes chatting with a very nice government worker--the guy who reads the electric meters in town.

All four of us piled back in the auto-rickshaw for a ride back to town, the other way, which was much smoother, but also brought us through the outskirts of what looks to be rapidly developing Udaipur, pushing its boundaries outward.

The village temple

The village water pump

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Interesting signs along the street in Udaipur, Rajasthan

note: click all images to enlarge

an art store, of sorts

Teeth, eyes...whatever

click to enlarge (and remember the swastika was a Hindi

sign before Hitler appropriated it for his nefarious purposes)

a sign says post no bills, and yet there is cow manure

up and down this most odd pasture-street

Not a weird sign, but I like the idea of a Hari Krishna art school

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Rajasthani dance performance in Udaipur

The Bahratiyal Lok Kala Museum holds a Rajasthani folk dance performance with music in a stone courtyard every night at dusk. We attended one last night, and it was a gas--not too long, with interesting music and some gone dancing.

The music was was rooted with a hand-pumped harmonium (like the one I saw Allen Ginsberg play in my class in Bellingham in 1977), a tabla, other drums whose names I don't know, and a variety of cymbals and shakers.

Some of the more "Out" parts of the performance included live coals transferred from a brazier to a bowl with a guy's front teeth, a woman walking on broken glass as she balanced 9 heavy clay pots on her head and danced, and a particularly demented puppet/marionette performance where the puppet took off its head and then juggled it, rolled on it, spun it with his feet, and reattached it. Here are some photos from the show. We'll try to upload a video too--but that is always shaky due to the power spikes and brown-outs.

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Hare Krishna!

[Udaipur, Rajasthan, Wednesday 3/24/2010]




I`ve been hearing the Krishna Mantra all day long (it must be a festival day). I`ve always loved the mantra since I first heard it way back when:

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
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Jack Brummet and the Rajasthani Danny DeVito

Jack in a craft shop with the self-proclaimed

"Rajasthani Danny DeVito" - click to enlarge

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On the lake in Udaipur, Part 2 - Pichola Lake, the City Palace, The Lake Palace, and Jag

Click any of these photos to zoom/enlarge

Udaipur is a fascinating town, with a rich and varied history. It is now largely known for its fabulous palaces, but the city has many other claims to fame and charms--both discreet and right in your face.

It's in the high nineties here, but actually gets cold in the winter. It's hard to fathom this town gettng cold, but there you have it.

Over half a million people live here now, and judging from what we find on the narrow streets, nearly all of them drive scooters and auto-rickshaws, and spend much of their time honking their horns (always good naturedly) at each other as they thread their way through cattywompus intersections and crossroads. I've seen many packs (strings?) of donkeys and oxen as well. As always, one of the most fascinating sights are people on scooters in every possible configuration. There are women in Burkas with sunglasses riding scooters and motorcycles, and there is always someone carrying an improbably heavy or tall load. There are families of four on one motorcycle or scooter, and women in traditional dress ride sidesaddle as passengers. Fortunately, no one goes very fast and they always take care to warn cars, other scooters, and pedestrians when they will cross paths. For westerners (at least those of us not from England or Bermuda), driving on the left-hand side of the road poses a potential hazard--you must always remember to look both ways

Compared to other places we've visited, Udaipur's residents dress in both western dress, and a beautifully rich mix of native costumes, with colors, turbans, jewelry, etc., all indicating your caste, martial status, and even whether a woman has had a son. The town is about mid-way between Dehli and Mumbai, and is also known as a center of those famous miniature paintings.

Just now, as I was writing this, I heard singing and bells. I went out our gate to the crossroads where there was a fantastic parade celebrating Krishna. People were dancing, smiling, burning incense, shaking percussion instruments and carrying flags and banners. They were dressed in fantastic colors and robes of linens with variously colored headdresses. Hari Hari Kirshna Hari Krishna Hari Krishna Hari Hari. Wow, and what an assemblage of 150 watt smiles! I was so absorbed I forgot to go grab a camera.

The most famous and notable here are the Lake Palaces along the lake (we are staying in a former palace, although it is not directly on the lake, but a couple of blocks away). Aseries of palaces built at various times since the mid-16th century line parts of the lake, and the tiny islands in the middle of the lake.

Jag Mandir is an island in the lake with a charming palace and sylvan gardens (no flowers right now--it's too hot). You take a little boat over there from the City Palace (300 rupees). We did that today, and that's where most of these photographs are from...

The City Palace is the first in line of the impressive string of palaces. You enter City Palace through a fantastic triple-arched gate built in the early 18th century. To get to the lake, you folow walkways past the inevitable stern-faced guards (aren't cops the same wherever you go?) through a series of courtyards, terraces, sidewalks and gardens.

The Lake Palace was built around 1750 of marble. It sits on Jag Niwas island. It was built as a royal summer palace, but is now a five star hotel.

There are other palaces along the lake: Monsoon Palace, the Hindu Jagdish Temple, and Bohara Ganesh JI--a temple to Ganesh, where thousands of worshipers go every Wednesday.

One thing we noticed about Pichola Lake were numerous areas where people bathe and wash clothes.

Udaipur was named Best City of the World in 2009 by Travel & Leisure. On the more mundane side, it was also the site of much of the James Bond film "Octopussy," (you seem some pretty hilarious posters and memorobilia ariound that) and recently Darjeeling Limited was filmed there.
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