Author: Louise Riley

We made the journey to Udaipur with ease. The trip from the hotel to Mumbai airport was very different from our arrival. The driver chose the coastal route where a new motorway makes it an easy journey as well as giving spectacular views. We did pass some more of the slums but the guide assured us that whilst they are grim-looking from the outside, inside they will have all mod cons—washers, tv, marble floors etc. The popular opinion is that food is cheap & plentiful & that rarely does anyone go hungry. It is the price of property that prevents people moving on & often they are sitting tight knowing that they are themselves occupying prime development sites.
At Udaipur airport the local agent + car & driver were waiting for us. The agent saw us on our way from the airport & another one met us at the hotel jetty. Vikram is our driver & he will now be with us until the end of our holiday. From airport to Udaipur town took about 30 mins & Vikram delivered us to the jetty from which the boat took us & our luggage across Lake Pichola to our hotel —The Leela Palace. The hotel is lovely & definitely made us welcome. We were greeted by local musicians & were showered with rose petals & had our photo taken. The hotel is about 4yrs old & is spacious with lots of water features & polished marble. UK ‘elf&safety’ would have a fit if they saw it! The one very noticeable thing was the pronounced drop in temperature. We now know why we have been carting warmer clothes around with us. We did have dinner outside but wearing scarves, sweaters, shoes & socks & with a gas heater belting out at maximum revs.

Will upload photos ASAP——having wifi problems.

A Happy New Year to all. We have had a great night in the Souk restaurant. The food was great & the staff were ready to party. We started off the dancing & then of course everyone followed suit. We have really enjoyed ourselves. We tried a selfie for the first time—efforts attached. Enjoy yourselves wherever you are & may 2014 bring all that you wish for. With much love to all our friends & family from Doug & Louise xx

We left the resort on Sunday just before lunch. On our way we were taken to a Hindu festival for blessing of a new house belonging to one of the chefs. I think the manager thought we should see something local other than a luggage shop! The ceremony that we saw was carried out by a Holy man & is usually only seen in the Temple. It is called a Tayyum ceremony & involved the Holy man spending a lot of time decorating his body with different colours before dressing In quite an elaborate costume. His headdress was made up of flowers & he wore bangles around his ankles & wrists. He blessed the house & the owners etc—all quite symbolic & easy to follow. We didn’t have a camera with us so missed out on some great photo shots. This ceremony is only seen in Kerala so it was quite a unique occasion.
From there we went to the House boat——a huge converted rice barge beautifully styled following the theme of the Retreat. There are 2 bedrooms but we were the only guests aboard & had 4 crew to look after us. We began our cruise on the Backwaters straight away & we started off with a lovely lunch. I had imagined the Backwaters to be a bit canal like but in fact they are a huge expanse of navigable water south of where we had been. We went to Monkey Island where we were able to feed some monkeys near a Temple. I wasn’t that keen on doing this but the crew assured me that the monkeys were well behaved & this proved to be the case. They were really only interested in the fruit that the Chef had taken for them. When we got back to the boat the water was swimming in Jelly fish—-some of which I did manage to photo. We then whiled away the rest of the afternoon on the sun deck being objects of friendly curiosity to the local fishermen & ferry travellers. Just before dusk we made a further stop & went to see a Hindu Temple where during festival time thousands of people arrive ( a bit like Vaour during August ) & receive free food & shelter. We were the only visitors this time along with our guide Sajith from the boat. The local children were very curious & wanted to try out their language skills on us. As we left the Temple they waylaid us with gifts of petals & one girl gave me a note with a drawing of a Xmas tree & all their names listed.
We left them on shore & moored up for the night in the middle of the water. Chef prepared & served a beautiful four course meal which we ate by candle light on the sun deck before eventually turning in.
The next morning after a lovely breakfast we headed back to our starting point & the car came to take us to the airport.