Udaipur

Lake Palace
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W

4.07,2007 Udaipur, India

We were awakened at 4:30 AM, met in the lobby at 5AM for coffee and boarded the bus for the airport at 5:15 AM.for our flight to Udaipur As we left the hotel grounds, Hem asked if everyone had left anything behind. Suddenly, Bob Bocci from Portland shouted, “stop the bus, I left my valuables in the room safe”. We finally got to the airport for a 7 AM flight ,arriving at 8 AM we were met by a bus for transfer to the famous white marble Lake Palace Hotel in a fairytale setting in the middle of Pichola Lake. A motor launch took us out to the hotel but rooms weren’t ready, so after having a lovely breakfast we returned by boat to The City Palace for a tour. It was a hot morning and Sallie chose to wait for us on a bench in the shade. Again, she was smart to do so because there was a lot of walking and stair climbing as we went up to the top of this beautifully positioned palace. Again it was amazing to see how well the Raja’s built these beautiful palaces and how well they lived as far back as 1568 when Udai Singh established residence here. Part of the palace has been converted into a beautiful hotel where I believe, Helen Hellmuth, Maryanne Stohlman, Thelma Morrison and Peggy Cunningham stayed just a couple of months ago during their trip to India.. Part of the palace is still used by a Raja who is a descendant of the original builder.

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We then returned to the Lake Palace Hotel to check into our rooms and a late lunch and afternoon of leisure. At 5PM our group had a boat ride tour of the lake and visited Jag Mandir, the island retreat of Maharaja Karen Singh. Legend has it that his young son, Jaget Singh once sought permission of his father to visit this island retreat with a group of friends. The old maharaja declined, telling his son to build his own pleasure palace. As a defiant response the prince did just that by building a four acre palace of pure white marble in the middle of the lake. Fortunately for us it has been converted into a fine hotel. It’s hard to describe the beauty of this hotel and difficult to imagine the challenge of transporting all this pure white marble long distances and building a beautiful palace in the middle of a lake. Everything about the place except the doors is made of white marvel. Some of the marble is beautifully carved and the gardens are perfect as you can see by my pictures.

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By any standards, I think you could rate the three hotels we stayed in during our visit to these three royal cities as fine, in every respect, as we have seen in our travels.. Likewise the level of service and quality of food left nothing to be desired.

After the boat ride we showered and dressed for dinner in time to enjoy entertainment by two lovely dancers and three musicians on a patio adjoining the bar. We were up at 6 AM for breakfast and trip to the airport for a 8:20 flight to Mumbai. We were joining the ship after a four night absence and we had missed the ship’s visit to the port of Mormugao (Gao) and a chance to spend 2 days in Mumbai but we are glad we did. Like everyone, we had always dreamed of seeing The Taj Mahal but the tours offered by the ship did not include one that would let us see what we did plus The Taj Mahal. Knowing that Agra, the city where the Taj Mahal is located offers nothing besides except for crowds and filthy slums we opted to take the longer trip to visit the palaces and stay at some great hotels. Our friend and travel consultant, Joy (Nadine) Cottril recommended this and we were glad she did. More than 100 fellow passengers chose the shorter trip (3 nights) to see the Taj Mahal. Unfortunately their trip resulted in less air travel but long periods, 6 -7 hours on buses and as Joanne West reported it took 20,000 workers six years to build The Taj and they were all still there trying to see what they had done. Furthermore the small size of our group (9) and the good fortune of having Ass’t Cruise Director, Carola Giardini accompany us and a fine Indian Tour Guide, Hem Singh, made for a great experience. Besides Marilyn & Bob Bocci from Portland we also had Roberto & Fenanda Sanchez from Mexico City and Susie McCurry and daughter Sweta and sister Karol Holden, all from Naples, Florida were the others. We all mixed and got along very well.

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Before I forget I want to make sure our recollections of this trip include mention of our travel agent’s thoughtfulness. Prior to our trip she sent us a gift certificate for dinner at a fine Indian restaurant in Washington and several books on India. Upon boarding the ship we found a credit of $300. had been established for dinner at the ship’s special Le Champagne Restaurant(the only thing you have to pay extra for on the ship). You can imagine our surprise when we checked into each of the three hotels mentioned above and found a note and gift from Joy. What JOY that added at each spot. Had an e-mail from her today telling us she will be on a trip to Nepal with plans to climb to the base camp at Mt. by the time we arrive home.

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Just discovered that I have lost all of my pictures from Udaipor and Mombei. Am sad and sorry. Fortunatedly, Bob Bocci who was in our group, has offered to e-mail some of his and I'll add them to this chapter later.