Udaipur - A Travel Guide

Good morning everybody from Udaipur. Now despite the fact I've actually spent quite a lot of time in Rajasthan previously, this is my first time in this beautiful city of the lakes. Now I'm so excited to be here because Udaipur has so much history and as such I've decided to stay at the absolutely gorgeous Shivnivas Palace which is inside the city palace complex. I've got a few days here so I've got some time to relax but I'm also going to be looking around the markets, taking a boat ride on the lakes of course and even heading a little bit into the mountains. So just outside the city gates is city palace road which you can see bustling behind me. There's shops on either side selling materials, books, silverware, lots of arts and crafts things as well. It's clearly a very popular spot with the tourists and then just on the other side of the building are all of the different ghats leading down to the lake which I'm going to head to in a moment. Can you tell me a little bit about the statues here? Sure sure so this is a cannonball. It has seen some rough days. Wow that is really heavy. It is indeed heavy. Some of them were sort of deformed because they had to make collisions with you know armour and actually so they were not really in a good shape. The streets of Udaipur have some amazing markets filled with antiques, art sellers and tailors. So it's not possible to walk all the way along the lakeside but you can come down the various streets and visit the ghats. This is Gangoghat, one of the primary ghats by the lakeside and this area is actually used for festivities and performances but of course one of the best ways to view this is actually from the water on one of the regular boat trips and that's what I'm planning on doing later on today. So the city palace complex was built over a period of 400 years in impressive Rajput architectural style. The complex actually houses a number of different palaces as well as the city palace museum which you can see part of just behind me and it's an incredibly popular spot for tourists to come. Udaipur just has the most incredible royal history and I've just come inside the city palace museum. They have a very handy timeline here of all the Maharanas of Mewar right from 1537 up to present day at this site. The city palace museum is housed within the centuries-old royal palace with huge collections of armour and Mewar art and paintings. So just a couple of kilometres outside of town and I've come to Shekhar Badi which has the most perfectly countryside feel to it. Now this was a royal retreat and previously it used to be a royal hunting lodge as well so the royals would come out here and hunt tigers and white-spotted deer but of course now it is a protected area. It's a lovely place to come just as the sun is starting to set and see all the birds around. A highlight of visiting here is coming to watch the white-spotted deer feeding about 4 30 every evening. They lay out the food and all the deer come people watching having high tea there as well and there's a peacock coming past. It feels very real. Welcome to my boudoir. So there are a number of suites which overlook the pool and I'm in suite five and whilst they're all very lovely rooms mine is actually my favourite room. So this was the hotel room that was featured on the James Bond film Octopussy. It's absolutely stunning. We've got red and pink chandeliers above the bed, a seating area over here which is very nice. This little balcony area overlooks towards the lake. There's also a huge Indian flag there as well and then through here there's a whole office area which I have actually been using to do some of my edits for YouTube and I always have lots of nice touches in this room so every day they've been bringing me fresh flowers. It's so nice. So I've just got a tuk-tuk to the Vintage and Classic Car Museum here in Udaipur and this is actually a whole collection of the Royal Family's cars over the years which I think is going to be particularly interesting. I've never seen a car collection like this in India before so it'll be a first for me. There's some very impressive cars here. This one is a Rolls-Royce Udaipur 2 which is from 1924. So obviously the Royals must have been some of the first people in the state or indeed in India to have a car like this. These two are British cars, Morris Minors. I do actually remember a teacher from my school driving one of these when I was a kid and even then it was an antique but they're in incredible condition. Udaipur is just so gloriously relaxing by the water. Of course you can't come and visit here without going out on one of the lakes on a boat and it's about 3.30 now so the sun is not quite so high in the sky and I've decided to do a little tour on the lake and then head out towards Jagmandir which is just in front of me there for some dinner as the sun goes down. Sounds perfect. So most of the boat tours on the lake do stop here and for good reason because there's so much history. It's a beautiful courtyard here. This was started in the 15-1600s. There's also a lovely restaurant and a spa area as well and it also seems like the perfect place to watch the sunset so I'm thinking I actually might stay over here and have some dinner as well. So behind me is the first structure that was built on the island which is called the Gul Mahal but actually one of my favourite things about here is that it is like a proper little oasis. There's trees everywhere, you can hear the birds. Very, very peaceful. Jagmandir is in the middle of Lake Pichola and is also known as the Lake Garden Palace. It's pretty much set now and just in front of me it's an absolutely beautiful pink sky and I've come into Dharakhana restaurant. I've got the corner table with views right across the lake. The elephant's behind me. I'm going to have a couple of cocktails first and then the chef said that he's actually going to surprise me. I've told him do not worry. I know I'm British but I want spicy food so he's going to make me some spicy special teas. Hopefully Lal Mas which I have tried before but not for quite a while so that's going to be a treat. It is my final evening here in Udaipur and I've had a really wonderful time. In fact I probably should have booked a few more nights here because it's just been absolutely magical and now for my final evening I've decided to stay within Shivniwas. I'm going to have a meal here and a few drinks overlooking the lake and I did dress up a little bit. I've got a sari on and this is a chestnut sari which is from Tamil Nadu, South India which might seem like an unusual choice here but the pink actually matches the flowers of the palace so I thought it'd be a nice choice and I do hope that you guys have enjoyed watching my Udaipur video. If you have please do like and comment and subscribe for more India videos.