Day 15 Nov 1 2009 - Udaipur: Morning Hygiene and Udaipur Surroundings

Unlike Saturday, my Sunday in Udaipur starts off quite relaxed. The agreed upon plans for an early departure have changed overnight and we are here to stay until the late afternoon, as the plan is now to see some temples close to Udaipur, do some last minute shopping here before going back to Ahmedabad. The day before I had already made arrangemens with Éva to meet early to go down to the lake, which is just a stone-throw from the hotel. Éva and me meet in the breakfast room, Susanne joins us later but is rather busy taking pictures as we have a beautiful view of the lake from up there. It is just around 9 am as we are at the banks of the river - not to watch the beautful view there - but rather to see the locals do there morning hygiene there while others are busy washing there laundry just a few meters away. Men and women are separated. While most men either jump into the lake or sit besides it with only there pants or trunks on, most women wash themselves with their clothes own. Something we had already seen the day before, when we took a boat ride on the lake. No wonder that diseases here spread easily. Luckily I had already taken a shower back in the hotel.

After the quick stop by the lakeside, Éva and I take a little stroll of the still mostly asleep Udaipur, at least judging by the number of still closed shops. Apart from the area around the Jagdish Temple where tourists get hassled by all kinds of business men - "Where are you from? Ahh, Germany - my cousin lives in Germany, nice country!..."and so on trying to get you to come into their shops and businesses just a few street away the experience is very different and we get to see all kinds of craftsmen - tailors, men making metal pots, stone carvers, etc. - which is a welcome change to the tourist business.

At 10 am we meet again with the rest of the group to take "our" bus to two temples just about 20-25 km outside the city. When we get there, we are the only people there, except for some locals who either live or work there. I have a quick look at the temple while the others stay there. The farmworkers down at the road seem far more appealing to me. So I take a walk down towards the river, where a famer is ploughing his field with a plough drawn by two water buffalos. Behind him his wife who is sowing. I also meet several other people down there - a young boy with his sister giggling as I take their picture, the boy not forgetting to ask me for a dollar, which of course I do not give him - as well as farmer's wife who is selling fresh produce using the wall around the field to display her agricultural produce.

After a short chat with the bus driver who only speaks little English I head back for the bus to not lose track of the others but they are still in and around the temple. Behind the wall I see a very young girl, maybe 3 years old girl. As I come closer I see the rest of the family or better the rest of the children of the family there, while the parents are away on the field. After having taken a few pictures of them and showing them the pictures on the display of my camera, the kids become more and more open and friendly. We wave each others good bye as the bus leaves again for Udaipur. Quite a touching experience to see them there, living in a small cabin on the field.

Day 14 Oct 31 2009 - Udaipur: Lakes, Palaces and 007 Octopussy

So finally were here in Udaipur, also known as the City of Lakes. Udaipur is small city by Indian standards, with a population of only about 550.000 (as compared to Ahmedabad which has 10 times as much) but at the same time it is also considered one of the most beautiful cities in Rajasthan and India. It is the historic capital of the former kingdom of Mewar.

Saturday begins with a hectic start, at least for me, as the tour guide that Éva has booked through the hotel shows up far earlier than expected. So within 20 minutes I have to get dressed, have breakfast and show up in the lobby to meet the others. With only a slight delay I manage and off we are to visit the numerous sights of Udaipur. We start with Jagdish Temple built around 1650, a beautiful temple with lots of stone carvings. When we enter the temple we see a group of locals celebrating loudly inside the temple with music and dance - they radiate so much liveliness, happiness and spiritedness - a sight hard to picture in the churches back home.



Next on our list is the city palace, a huge and impressive complex of buildings with probably hundreds of rooms. The tour of the city palace alone tooku us about 1.5-2 hours but one could easily spend more time there. Next on our list is a boat tour on Lake Pichola, an artificial lake which has several islands one of which features Lake Palace, a palace which nowadays has become a hotel and covers the entire island. Lake Palace has become widely known as one of the settings of the 1983 James Bond Movie Octopussy.Have a look at the trailer below:



Last on our tour after a very tasty Banana Curry and a brief stop at an artist house was Nehru Garden, a big park with flower gardens and a lily pond, named after the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru. The rest of the day it is up to us to discover Udaipur.

Day 13 Oct 30 2009 - First meeting with IBM in Ahmedabad, Start of Udaipur weekend

As Friday was the day we had planned to go to Udaipur, we went to work somewhat earlier to document the week's new results as well as to prepare for the meeting with the IBM Territory Sales person which had been scheduled for the late morning. Our IBM collegue from Ahmedabad arrived on time and held the meeting together with Mohammadi and Rushi from the SEWA IT team. Mohammadi did a short intro on SEWA before we continued discussing the project's current status and next steps, asking for the local IBM team's support. After the meeting Soon and I continued to work on the documentation before we headed home or better to the hotel in the late afternoon to get ready for the trip to Udaipur, a trip we had planned and arranged before our trip, thanks to Eva's, Susanne's and Soon's research and booking upfront.

At around 5.30 pm we left Ahmedabad in a 10 seater Force bus, heading North towards Udaipur. This was going to be a long drive as Udaipur is about 4-5 hours away, most of it on highways. Highways here however do not mean that you will not see any cows, pedestrians, cyclists or other potential accident causes on the street. It is always an interesting sight to see people clinging to the back of a truck or bus. One wonders that one does not see any more accidents here but surprisingly it all works out quite well.

We made it to Udaipur around 10 pm but it took us quite a while to find the Tiger Hotel, the hotel Eva had previously booked for us. The hotel turned out to be a very nice one, with cozy rooms, directly located at Udaipur's main lake with the famous lake palace of which more is to come later on. After a quick check-in the Rangolis headed for the roof-top terrace where we enjoyed a cool beer after having been in the dry state of Gujarat, where one can buy alcohol only with a special tourist permit.