Chillaxin' in Goa, Enjoying the Lake City of Udaipur

Sorry it's been so long since the last entry - we've been travelling and doing so much in such a short amount of time. Anyway, in the last post we had just arrived in Panaji, Goa and were about to check out the famous beaches of North Goa - in the morning we rented a scooter from the owner of our hotel and zoomed off on the narrow winding roads along the coast. Our first stop was Calangute, the southernmost and closest to Panaji. Upon arrival we decided it was not for us - its beaches were congested and overcrowded, and the town teemed with Indian partiers and overweight, sunburnt Europeans on their two-week package-tourism holidays. After we had a spot of lunch we consulted the Lonely Planet tome and decided to just go as far north as possible, to Mandrem, which was supposedly not quite so "discovered". Driving the scooter through the small villages and markets peppering the coastline was a blast, and we got to Mandrem about an hour later, just as the sun was starting to come down over its pristine, unspoilt beaches. Mandrem's look is idyllic, with the classic palm trees bending over and lining its long, wide stretches of sand, and we found it to be remarkably quiet and sparsely populated by sexy Euro-hippies. We immediately inquired as to the price of one of the beachfront's bamboo huts, and Michael was able to haggle one guy down to 350 rupees a night, and we deccided then and there to move our stuff out there from Panaji the next day. We left Mandrem at dusk, and it became increasingly dark as we drove home on the scooter (the headlights wouldn't turn on), making for a mildly terrifying ride back. Thank God for the occasional street light.

The next morning we packed up our stuff (I have a backpack and Michael has 2 large suitcases) and cut a deal with the hotel proprietor to let us hire the scooter for the rest of our time in Goa. We had to get a taxi to take our luggage to Mandrem, but we got to our beach hut around 11:00 on the 26th and had the next 4 days to just kick back and do nothing. Our time in Mandrem was just awesome - lots of relaxing on the beach, sunsets, fun on the scooter, long chats over meals at the numerous restaurants lining the waterfront, and time to exhale and contemplate after the 5-month DTS and time in Pune. It was such a wonderful time, in fact, that Michael and I have been exploring the possibility of returning for a summer to work at one of the restaurants in return for food and shelter on the beach. Here's hoping.

We left Mandrem, and Goa, on the morning of the 30th, taking a taxi to Old Goa's Karmali Station to catch our train back to Mumbai. We left at 11:00, and the trip was far more enjoyable for than the first one, mostly because of the complete lack of vomiting or diarrhea. We arrived in Mumbai late at night and immediately took a taxi to the Church Mission House where one of Michael's friends in the city had kindly booked us a room.

We slept well at the House, but left early in the morning for Mumbai's Central Bus Terminal to snag a sleeper bus to Udaipur. We bought tickets for the bus which departed at 11:00 from a kind of dense travel agent (he listed the departure times as "11:00 PM , 12:30 PM, 2:00 PM, 3:30 PM" and kept insisting they were correct after I questioned them), and then we went across the street to have some breakfast and wait the 2 hours till our bus left. When our bus finally arrived and hour and a half late (I don't blame them, traffic in Mumbai is a bitch), we stowed our luggage under the bus and climbed aboard. I was surprised by how nice the beds in the sleeper class are - individual compartments for every two beds with a nice big window and reasonably soft padding to sit and snooze on. It took a long time for our bus to get out of Mumbai because of its incredibly bad traffic, but at least it afforded the opportunity to take in the city - a muggy, sunny, congested, polluted, cosmopolitan, hive simply swarming with people, vehicles and animals. I'm glad I was able to see it out of the window of the bus, because I'm really not that interested in seeing more of it or spending more time there.

Our bus trip was a 16-hour affair which was quite tolerable except for the fact that as we got further north we realized we were pitifully ill-dressed for night-time in northern India, and all of our warmer attire was locked away in the belly of the bus. I ended up sleeping in a little ball with my knees up inside my shirt, hugging a cup of chai at every stop the bus made.

We arrived in Udaipur at about 6:30 on the morning of the 31st, and we could see our breath in the chill air. The moment I had access to my backpack I shed my flip-flops and broke out the socks, sneakers and sweatshirt. We took a rickshaw into town and were able to find a good hotel very quickly where we put our stuff and had breakfast on the rooftop restaurant overlooking the lake city.

Udaipur is a unique place, called the "Venice of the East" - a white- and blue-shaded city built around the beautiful Lake Pichola and surrounded on all sides by serene mountains. It's also a very touristy town, and as such is just a very convenient place, with restaurants, fabric shops, tailors, email cafes and bookshops sprinkled throughout its narrow streets and charming alleyways. During our day-and-a-half there we visited the City Palace, an imposing structure which watches over and boasts beautiful views of the city as well as a labyrinthine series of halls and passageways in its interior. We also took a paddle-boat (screw those snobby rich tourists on their guided, motorized boat tours) out on Lake Pichola and got a closer look at Jagmandir Island and the luxurious, whitewashed Lake Palace Hotel, both situated in the middle of the lake, until we were ordered to cease, desist, and turn around by their respective security people. In fact, the Lake Palace Hotel was featured in the 1983 James Bond film Octopussy, approximately half of which was filmed in Udaipur. In one of the city's funnier idiosyncracies, more than 2/3 of the hotels in the area show endless reruns of the flick every single night at 7:00, one of which we caught.

When our time in Udaipur was over, on the evening of the 1st, I was very happy to have visited the place and experienced the city, but I didn't see much of a reason to stay for longer - it's just so touristy and, while it's very aesthetically pleasing, it's kind of a "been-there, done-that" place - I was eager to check out the sights, sounds and smells of Delhi.
(picture from goapassion.com)