Udaipur update

Arrived in udaipur without a hitch, after a 13-hour train ride in AC class 2. Thank god for iPods and iPhone episodes of Entourage. At the station - far less sketchy than the monkey-overrun Agra station where we waited and napped for nearly two hours - we were promptly ushered to an auto-rickshaw driven by a nice, plump man named Salim. Seeing we only had 500 rs bills to pay with I offered 50 rs (~$1) for a ride into town if he could provide the change. My plan was to eat downtown, but when we arrived he offered to guide us for the day for 350rs ($7). We accepted. After dropping stuff off at our converted 19th century palace hotel (with a balcony and sun seat) we were on our way. First stop was breakfast at a hole in the wall stand, with delicious swirly thin donuts, saffron rice and potato cubes. Then, a quick stop at a crumbling water basin, where we spied on people washing their clothes. That was followed by a view of Pichola lake, and the floating palaces, which is what udaipur is known for. Then up some cable cars to a hilltop vantage point swarming with chipmunks, where we could see the full urban sprawl below. Lake Palace, of Octopussy fame (apparently many Udaipur hotels and restaurants play the movie non-stop) was gleaming white and beautiful. Too bad, then, that only guests can visit it. Also spotted the mountain-top Monsoon Palace, which we would end up skipping. Back down, Salim takes us to a rose garden with no roses but with a monkey enclosure featuring a pair of unsuccessfully amorous simians. And then back to our hotel where I showered...and Tiff didn't. Then on to the cenopath park, filled with the white mausoleums of dead maharanis and their sati-ed wives (which, grotesquely and appropriately, kind of sounds like "sauteeing"). Salim claims to bring so many visitors here that his patronage caused the cemetery to post guards to keep nosy tourists from taking photos. Didn't stop us! We even posed with Bessie...holy cow! Then the "girlfriend garden" built by one royal dude for his lucky concubine, and a monument for Mewar's (aka Udaipur) equivalent of George Washington. All hail the conquering hero! At this point, Tiff was once again stopped by a crowd of Indians clamouring for a photo. Say sayonara! Somewhere in here, Salim was kind enough to take us to a textile shop - where he clearly gets commision for leading in hapless tourists, since he knew everyone inside. We ended up spending $50 on clothes - real silk, really! The best quality! - for the wedding. Here's hoping our man got a hefty kickback, since we were also suckered into buying $50 worth of miniature art from an "art school" in the boondocks, where the proceeds would benefit the students, definitely not the head honcho who runs the place. Gift shopping partly complete, we went to the City Palace complex on the waterfront, where the main attractions are apparently an English tea, doorfront sets for Bollywood productions and room after crowded room of slightly shitty paintings of various maharajas and war heroes. Caught a boat stuffed to the gills with white people (we haven't seen many tourists so far, must be off-season) and checked out the least awesome of the lake palaces, which was charging more than American prices for beer and water. Eventually, Salim left us at a local museum for a nighttime dance show, featuring a woman balancing 9 pots on her head and a puppeteer whose marionette kept removing its own head. Alas, Tiff missed the excitement, having long since passed out on Erik's shoulder. Walked past more cows back to the hotel, where they tried to charge us 2500 rupees for our room, claiming we were in a suite. But I had specifically asked for a 880 rupee small room. Many back and forths and a 5 am citywide Muslim prayer wakeup call later, we compromised and paid 1500 rupees. Walked over to the Sunrise hotel for a delicious Lonely Planet-approved "breakfast of champions" and then were whisked by Salim's brother-in-law to the airport - nearly two hours early. We boarded our Kingfisher propeller plane, and readied for Jodhpur!