The Venice of the East

JULY 3, 2017 - UDAIPUR

Welcome to Udaipur, the Venice of the East. Like Pushkar, the city is built around a series of lakes. These lakes have all been dug out to be much bigger than they were naturally. Consequently, the lakes are very shallow, so when it doesn’t rain for a few days, sand banks appear in the middle.

As any good, old city in India, Udaipur has three palaces--the winter palace, in the middle of town; the summer palace, in the middle of the lake; and the monsoon palace, 5 miles out of town on the top of a mountain. I can visit the first and last; the second I can only visit if I want to pay $800 for a room at the palace-turned-5 star hotel.

Udaipur’s City (winter) Palace is the second largest in India. It was built in the mid-16th century and was built by a royal family that has ruled for 76 generations. Incidentally, they all have had great facial hair. The current prince now runs a train of hotels (a few are located on the palace property), and we caught a glimpse of him as we were touring.

Given how old India’s culture is, I keep expecting everything to be centuries older than than are. Additionally, I know that India has been the center of trade routes for hundreds and hundreds of years, but until this palace, that fact did did not hit me. Like any good palace, this one is elaborately decorated, overly so -- the mirrors are all imported from Germany; the glass from Belgium; the tiles from the Netherlands.

There are some fun things you learn only if you have a guide. My two favorites:

(1) People got creative with entertainment back in the day. The palace here used to house elephants, which the royal family would occasionally drug up on opium, place them on opposite sides of a wall, and have them play tug-of-war with their trunks. The first elephant to touch the wall would lose. This form of entertainment continued until 1951, when it became illegal under the animal protection laws.

(2) The king of Udaipur did not wish to surrender his kingdom to Akbar, the Mughal emperor who took over huge parts of India. A mighty battle was fought. Akbar's army had elephants; the army of Udaipur’s king had only horses...on whom they would attach fake elephant trunks. The actual elephants would mistake the costumed horses for baby elephants and would not charge, allowing the cavalry to get close enough to kill the riders on the elephants. We don't fight battles like we used to...