Exploring the BEST city in India! 🇮🇳 (First time in Udaipur)

Hey it's Phoebe and today I'm in Udaipur located in Rajasthan in India's northwest. Udaipur has been dubbed the most romantic spot in India, perfect for me as a solo traveler. Now it's famous for its beautiful lakes, gorgeous palaces and charming surroundings and in this episode I'm visiting Udaipur for the very first time with no idea what to expect and no clue what's to come. This is hands down the most beautiful thing I have seen in India so far. Baby you have not eaten Indian food until you've eaten it in India. I want to introduce you to somebody very important. I arrived into Udaipur last night. I flew right here from Jaipur and I can tell you right now even just driving from the airport to my hotel and then having this little bit of time exploring this morning, I love it here. I think we are at the start of a real fairy tale. This is my place. I'm so glad I did the golden triangle and I had a nice time and I ticked off all of those things but honestly there was a lot about it I didn't like and a lot that frustrated me. This I am loving from the top down. I'm loving all of it and we'll dig into why a little bit later because I'm still kind of experiencing that and figuring it out but I have to tell you I'm so into it. Now we have started our morning here at the city palace and this is hands down the most beautiful thing I have seen in India so far and I was at the Taj Mahal and the Taj Mahal was amazing and I've been to a lot of beautiful forts and palaces since but this has blown me away for some reason. Now the hot tip is that we got up and we got here really early. We were like some of the first people in here. It's summer so it's not peak season. That means it's extremely hot but it also means there's not many people around and we got so many of the beautiful places in there to ourselves, me and our guide and I'll see if he's comfortable being filmed in a little moment but honestly my mind is blowing. Marianne who I've mentioned a couple of times in the last episode she told me that she loved Udaipur. It was one of her favorite places in India. After the time I had in the golden triangle I just wasn't sure. I was like maybe India just isn't for me. It is for me you just have to find the right cities and I think I think I think this is going to be one for me. Let's go and keep exploring. Just next to you? Yeah you can come next to me. Where are we? You look great. I want to introduce you to somebody very important. This is our tour guide today Singh. Namaste. Singh is the best tour guide I've had on this whole thing. He's a gentleman. He knows so much about history it's not even funny and he's an amazing guide. If you are coming to Udaipur and you want an incredible guide I 10 out of 10 recommend him. He has been kind enough to share his whatsapp number and I'll put that in the video description for you. Just reach out and contact him and he will take care of you. But I feel so safe and so happy and I'm loving Udaipur but we're on a bit of a walking tour right now. Where are we? It's so nice in these back streets. We are walking through the narrow lanes of Udaipur city old city area and going to visit one of the biggest temple of north India called Lord Vishnu. That sounds amazing. It is so nice getting out of the car and walking around the streets and I guess I didn't feel like I wanted to do that in any of the places that we visited. It's just been so intense but here I'm just so happy to be out exploring. It's amazing and all the people are so nice. Sometimes the light is not right and something looks better than Jill's ginger. This is a cafe I saw pop up a lot. They said the views were amazing and the drinks were good especially the coffee. So I had to come and check it out and the views are amazing. We're right overlooking this place to me feels like Europe. I feel like I'm in Italy honestly. I thought this is the Italy of India. I can't get over it as I'm walking around the streets. It's so relaxed and calm and yeah people are driving fast and they're still like looking at me which is I mean I'm so tall and so blonde. I totally get it. I just feel like I try to be so honest with you guys and I just feel like sometimes you go to a destination it's just not for you and when I did the golden triangle it's one of those things I feel like I had to do in my life. It's such a big thing to do in India. Glad I did it but we'd never do it again. Glad I saw the Taj Mahal. It was beautiful. Would love to maybe just see that again but in general I feel like that whole itinerary was very rushed and forced and I was just being shoved from place to place. Just you know have this experience, do this, eat that, whatever and I felt like I was very much being squeezed for money and prices were jacked up and all these things. Here I don't feel that at all. It's so genuine and so lovely and everyone's so sweet. The locals on the streets. I feel very safe walking around by myself. I can't believe I'm solo traveling in India. I don't I don't know who I am sometimes. I don't know how I do these things. Anyway enough chit chat for now. Let's try this. I got a peach iced tea. Kind of looks like a beer in that shot. That's really good. I heard the guy hand shaking it too. I love it here. I love it. I'm very happy. I wish I had longer. I'd come back. I'd come back. I'm looking for someone to raise the bar. What's the name of your shop? Fabric House. Fabric House. We're at Fabric House in Udaipur and I'm going to try on the saree. This lovely man is going to drape it for me. Let me put you guys down here because I don't think I can hold that and get sareed all at the same time. Yeah that one's a bit big. That's okay. That's okay. I'm tall. I have a little middle. Built like lullabunny. You don't wear this cut so you make like this. Oh grab this. That looks beautiful on you. You're so kind. So beautiful. 12, 13, 14 and 15. Every time it has to be 15? Yeah and then you tuck inside here. Okay you're going to here. How long is the fabric in meters? Six meters. Six meters of fabric. It's amazing. The colors are so beautiful. In addition to being able to try on the saree, if you did want to buy any fabrics while you're in Udaipur, this really is the place to do it. They have so many gorgeous textiles and whole rooms dedicated to different things. This one is like your home wears textiles. They can custom make stuff for you. Scarves, skirts, beautiful pashminas they have. They can do linen tunics. Basically whatever you want from really good quality Indian fabrics, this is the place to come and have it done. Now I am not in the market for anything today. My luggage is already maxed out but if I was going to get something, this is where I would come and get it from. It is time for lunch and when I was researching where to eat in Udaipur, one place kept coming up. Yummy Yoga. I looked at the menu. It looked great. People said that the location was really good. There is a rooftop. It is just too hot in summer to be up on the rooftop but they have this like next level down area. Fans on. Great view of the lake. I can see the city palace from here. It's just honestly it's beautiful. Now when I was looking at the menu, there was so much good stuff to choose from but I thought we should have a thali. Why not right? Try a little bit of everything. So I asked the guy who works here, hey you've got like three or four different kinds of thali. Which one should I order? Without hesitation my guy turned around and went full thali. He was very intense about it. Very passionate and I like that. Especially in a food recommendation. So we've gone full thali. So we're just going to try little bits of everything. Now this bread, guys if you could smell that. You know when bread smells like wheat? Do you know what I mean by that? It smells so good. Oh my gosh. Now I will tell you this much. I do not know what all this stuff is. So I'm going to need your help. If you're from here and you know what this all is, please tell me. This one I feel pretty confident about. This one's like a yellow dal. We know we love dal. Yeah. Excellent. Baby you have not eaten Indian food until you've eaten it in India. I tell you. And this is coming from somebody who eats a lot of Indian food in little India in Singapore. What's this one? Tell me. Let's just get in there. Excellent. There's like a whole bunch of veggies in there. I like that. I found the servings in India to be so big. I'm like not really eating dinner. I'm just eating this massive lunch every day. The paneer is 10 out of 10. That's my favorite one so far. Now this also comes with a dessert. What is the name of this? It's like a like a ball. Let's just... I like it. It's just maybe a little too fatty for me. Like too oily or something I think. Now all of this is excellent value. This whole plate of thali was 300 rupees. 300 rupees. Let's just take a second to reflect back on what they did to me in the golden triangle. They took me to some roadside stop just along the highway. I got one tiny little bowl of malai kofta. It had like two of the potato paneer dumplings in it and one naan bread and it was over a thousand. This for 300. I'm not letting anyone choose my meals anymore. I'm choosing it myself. This place is amazing. Chuck it on the bucket list. So to get around here I have the world's most amazing driver. I'm vlogging. I'm gonna introduce you. This is our amazing driver Sohan. Oh wait my seatbelt is starting to think. Hi Sohan. Hi. Are you in there? I can't see. Is he in there? Sohan is an amazing driver. Not only is he incredibly safe and a very good driver, he's a really really sweet man. He has been taking such good care of me, pointing things out as we go. He just has the best energy. Highly recommend him. And honestly that that combo of Sohan and Singh, the dream team. The absolute Udaipur dream team. It's been really easy to get around. In general I just feel like here in Udaipur the streets are better. Like the actual roads are better. The streets are cleaner. There's significantly less traffic. Singh was saying the population here is around 700,000 I believe. So there's significantly less people than the places we've been to. And I often like a place that's kind of chaotic. I love Hanoi is a really good example. Here you will feel a difference as soon as you get off that plane and you're driving to the hotel. If you have been to those other places, the really big built-up spots and you come here, you will feel the difference. Even the air quality is different. I can breathe better. I don't know. I'm raving about the place. I can't stop. Can't stop. Won't stop. In case you're wondering what this is, if you ever see me doing this in videos, this is the lens cap that goes over the cover like that. Protects the lens. So if you see that in my hand, I'm holding on to it because I always lose it. It's not like a cookie or something. So right now we are making our way back to our hotel. I want to show you where I'm staying. Again it was organized by the tour company but it's a great hotel. I'm really happy with it. Best one I've stayed at so far. So I'll show you around. I'm probably going to say this wrong but one of the things I saw everybody recommend you do when you come to Udaipur is a boat ride on Lake Pichola. I hope I'm saying that right. So I'm doing the boat ride on Lake Pichola. Now I think it was, oh I can't remember the cost. I'll put it on screen for you. It is beautiful. It is absolutely, I feel like I just keep saying that over and over in this episode but it's so so gorgeous here. The boat ride is really lovely. It's just like a slow little putt along the river. Nice and gentle. The hot tip that Singh gave me was when you get on the boat if you're doing the sunset ride, sit on the right hand side of the boat so you get the best views of city palace and he was right. I would definitely recommend doing it at sunset and try and time your run for as late as possible without actually missing the sunset because it is still quite hot and I'm visiting in the summer months and there's a catch-22 with that guys. On the one hand if you visit in the hotter months, yes it is incredibly hot. I'm not finding it that hot. It's unbearable but there's a lot fewer tourists around. If you were to come in the high season which is the cooler months, you're going to be battling with a lot of other tourists. So personally I don't mind the heat. This is absolutely fine for me and this boat ride is spectacular and we have a little 15 minute stop off right now where we're just jumping off and having a little explore of this island. Then we're going to get back on the boat and keep going. Just want to talk to you guys about something quickly because I need to vent and maybe you might notice my energy has changed. I'm having a really tough time with men in India. I have had phones shoved in my face since I got here. Photo, photo, photo, photo. I try to be very calm and kind about it and say I'm sorry but no. I've had so many men sneak photos of me today and they think they're so sly with it and they're not. I can see when the um when the camera is clearly pointed at me and you are taking photos of me without even asking. I was sat there before that boat ride and a man came up to me and said, he started off quite polite, excuse me madam can I please take a photo of you? And my voice was a lot kinder than it is now and I said sorry no and typical oh come on why not just one what's wrong with one photo come on and I got very firm with him and I said no and he said just one selfie and put the phone off anyway and that's when I yelled at him and I said I didn't say it I yelled at him I said no I've said it twice no and I'm blocking my face trying to get away from him and he finally got the hint and walked off. It happens not just here in India, everywhere. I don't share it with you but if you knew how much I get sexually harassed when I travel and how much sexual harassment I receive online in comments, DMs, emails, it would horrify you. It would horrify you the things that people say. I don't know what to do about it, I'm just frustrated by it and it just really ticks me off. Anyway I just have to get that off my chest. My sweet driver, my sweet driver is here to save the day and we're on to our next activity. I'll be really honest with you, I don't always enjoy a cultural show. I just don't but I had read someone's blog post and they had highly recommended this one so I insisted on going there and I'm so glad I did. It was really really good, the dancing was good, I'm not really one for puppet shows I have to be honest, but the dancing was good, the music was good, I really really enjoyed it. I think it was about 300 rupees which is great, good value and the people who perform are just absolutely lovely. So if you want to check out a bit of a cultural show and have that kind of experience, definitely put that on the list. Again I just feel like if I had my time over I would not have done a tour package like this. My advice to you would be do it yourself, choose your hotels yourself and arrange your drivers as you go. It is very easily done. I've met so many other travelers and I've been surveying them and saying how have you been getting around, did you book a tour, what did you do? They did that, they booked their hotels and then they're getting drivers and stuff to help them in between. That's the way to do it honestly. I am stuck in this tour now because I paid so much money for it and I've been very lucky with my guide and my driver today. They've been so amazing but genuinely I have loved Udaipur. I would have loved to have seen more of it. It blew me away. It is so beautiful here, it's not even funny. I cannot get over it. The whole energy of the place is different. It is stunning, stunning. I felt like I spent a couple of days in Europe somehow. It just took my breath away. If you were thinking about visiting India, I would say absolutely put Udaipur on the itinerary. You have to. You know, you have to. It is the best place I've ever been in India. I absolutely love it. Now a couple of other tips for you. If you are visiting India, you definitely need to get a visa sorted. You apply online. I will have a link in the video description for you. Please only use that link to apply. That's the real link. There are going to be scam websites out there. Don't fall for them. I got a local sim card. Just I've been really happy with that decision. I get mine from Aerolo. I'll have a link down in the video description for you. I'm also going to link a whole bunch of other hotels for you so you can find a hotel that you like at a price that you like. There are a few hotels I really would have loved to have stayed at. There's some amazing luxury hotels here right on the lake that would be unreal. I'd love to come back and stay in one of those hotels. If you see this video, please invite me to come and stay. Love you. I've had to have mostly cash here. Some places have taken my card, some of the bigger places to eat, and that has been great. I've also found it really handy traveling with an umbrella, just a small little umbrella that I keep in my tote bag that has like a UV lining. That way when I'm out walking around in that really intense heat, I'm able to protect myself from the sun and it's making such a big difference. Without that umbrella, I would definitely have gotten heatstroke. I'm telling you. With that, that brings this week's episode to a close. I really hope you've enjoyed it. Now, if you don't already, be sure to subscribe right now so you never miss a single episode and say hello in the comments below. I hope you have a great week ahead and I will see you with a brand new episode in Mumbai next week. Love you.