Udaipur

Finally, off those god-forsaken highways and byways and back onto the airplane. I don’t particularly like flying, but compared to road travel, flying is grand. A short 30-minute flight takes us to another city and another world. After days of dehydrated, desiccated lands thirsty for even a drop of cooling rain, Udaipur soothes the soul with wondrous water. Like an apparition appearing to a tortured desert traveler, Udaipur refreshes the spirits and reinvigorates the body.

If you do decide to travel to India, I highly recommend the itinerary I have previously mentioned. Trekking through Northern India in this fashion keeps the wonderment coming and coming, with each new destination and sight seemingly better than the previous one.

Stepping off the plane we are met by our driver who mysteriously, after just a short distance, drops us off at a small jetty on the edge of a beautiful lake. A cooling breeze awakens us from the drone-inducing fog of the jet ride. An stately boat captain, standing proudly on the bow of a antique wooden yacht, graciously waves us forward, and after a brief formal introduction proceeds to launch us across the waterway. To be on a lake after all those days in the desert is a fantastic feeling. Udaipur City slowly meanders by as finally in the distance several structures appear. To the right, the sprawling Castle, to the left a fortress in the hills, and dead ahead, our first destination, the Oberoi Udaivilas.

I promise this is the last time I will blog about a hotel on this trip. This is IT. This is the best hotel in which I have ever stayed, anywhere, in any country, ever. I have included some pictures, but these cannot do it justice. It is just dazzling.