Gone Since November: Udaipur & Goa

Udaipur

After Pushkar we took a quick five hour train ride to Udaipur, described as a “fairytale” city within India. We settled into our guest house and did find this city to be more relaxed than the previous Indian cities. It is built around a lake and is known to have lots of castles throughout the city. We enjoyed exploring the lake shores and were able to walk the streets without too much hassle.

One fun activity of Udaipur—Steve got another haircut! We’ve managed to experience haircuts in most countries thus far, but this was quite neat. It was in an actual barber shop (there were lots of people cutting hair in the streets in other Indian cities, but we couldn’t find this in Udaipur!) but all the man had was razor blades and scissors. He did a great job of cutting the hair without the usual clippers, and the use of the straight blade was quite neat. Unfortunately we were out without a camera this day, so no pics of this international Muff cut!

On our final day in Udaipur we headed out to the famous City Palace. This is one of many beautiful castles in this city and is still used by the royal family on certain occasions. We had a very relaxing afternoon within the confines of the palace, spending lots of time sitting in the little gardens throughout the grounds. We have found that one of the things we miss most in India is time to relax in green spaces, as parks are few and far between, so this was a nice way to spend an afternoon. The castle has beautiful views over the lake.

Our final evening in Udaipur was spent watching the James Bond movie “Octopussy”. As a tourist draw, most of the hotels have advertisements and banners stating we need to come and watch the nightly playing of Octopussy at their place! If you want to know what Udaipur looks like, look no further than this movie! It was filmed in the early 80s in Udaipur, and the city essentially hasn’t changed at all. It was probably the best portrayal of city in a movie that we have ever seen. It was also probably the worst movie we’ve watched, and we’ll never get those three hours back, but we did get to see James Bond in India so I guess it’s all worth it!!

Goa

Our trip continued with a flight from Ahmedabad, Gujarat to Dabolim , Goa. Goa is a state in India but the entire area is often referred to as if it is a city or township. Leaving Ahmedabad was very easy with no issues or hassle getting to the airport or flying into Goa. Our flight was directly down the eastern side of India flying over Mumbai. Our previous plan was to ride the train to Mumbai and then continue on the train to Goa. The waiting lists for the train from Mumbai to Goa was forty to fifty people long for each of the trains with little information regarding the possibility of actually obtaining a ticket on the train once we arrived in Mumbai. Rather than deal with the uncertainty of the train and two full days on train rides, we decided flying was the best option to reach our destination.

The fun ensued again when we arrived in Goa to continue to circus of obtaining a ride to our hotel. The airport had a prepaid taxi stand outside the airport where people can pay the fair to a specific place they want to get to based on the fares listed on the board beside the taxi stand. This sounds easy except the stand is outside the arrivals gate and forty five tuk tuk men are shouting and hounding everyone asking where they are going and we need to ride with them. The process feels like trying to get into a sporting event and as you approach the arena, the scalpers start to appear and every single one of them has great tickets at a cheap price, except the scalpers are not as frantic or feel you are locked into a business deal just because they asked you what country you are from or what is your name. So much excitement!!

We haggled with some taxi men and purchased a ride to the Best Western Devesthali where we spent the next four days. The location of our hotel/small resort was just south of the airport. What we were told is the town north of the airport is party central for British tourists and India tourists alike. The region south of the airport area is more laid back. We settled two kilometers south of the airport in our place which had a very nice pool and restaurant. The room was one of the best we have stayed in on our travels. Our hotel area was almost empty except for three other guests. It was as if we had the place to ourselves to relax by the pool.

The hotel provided shuttles to two of the beaches in the area. We wanted to explore a little bit of Goa outside the hotel so we decided to take a ride to the beach that was further away. The second beach was seven hundred meters from the hotel and within walking distance for the next day.

The beach was very nice and had few people at it when we arrived. A large resort backed onto the beach, a few beat up restaurants and souvenir shops were also setup on the beach, but otherwise it was undeveloped. The two of us were the only two foreigners at the beach. There were fifteen or so locals at the beach who were also enjoying the good weather. We were enjoying our swim in the nice water until we had realized a man who was looking at us when we arrived at the beach had followed us the two hundred meters down the beach to where we were swimming and was now standing in the surf staring at us. As this had become more of a usual occurence in India with some weird interaction with people, Steve finally went up to him and just asked what he wanted or if he was selling something. The man did not understand what we were saying and finally walked out of the water a little ways down the beach. This was another half creepy, but we are sure innocent encounter that was a daily occurrence in this country. As we went back to sit on the beach and dry off in the sun, we noticed the other groups of people in the water had moved down the beach closer and closer to us to have a better look at what we might be up to. We encounter more curious people, but a weird and uncomfortable vibe none the less when trying to relax on the beach.

The following day was a national holiday in India called Holi. It was explained to us that this was the colour festival and one of, if not, the biggest holiday of the year in India. When we walked to the beach the next day, people were covered in bright neon face and body paint in celebration of the holiday. When we arrived at the beach the setup of food and people was similar to what could be compared to Canada Day at the beach. We setup at the restaurant at the beach where we had some fantastic rice and Dutch beer. It was great because with the hundreds of people at the beach, no one cared that we were there, did not ask us questions and seem more than happy that we were there to be part of the fun and festivities for the day in the afternoon. We sat for a while at our table under the shade. The beach was a very nice, in a bay with surrounding palm tree jungle. We wish we had brought a camera with us, but had decided not to as taking pictures was a dodgy issue as once the camera came out people often wanted us to take their picture so they could get us to give them money. This was a spot where we could have taken lots of fantastic pictures as no one would care or would be more than happy to have their picture taken.

We had really enjoyed our time in what we experienced in Goa. The people seem a lot more laid back in Goa compared to the rest of the country. The hotel staff was very nice. It was refreshing to talk to the hotel staff about India without having the conversation directed to how many rupees we should pay them for a tour of the area or the market we should go and visit. A couple of days by the pool and relaxing were a great setup before our time in the Himalayas of Nepal.