After a long night on The Slow Train to Udaipur, we finally arrived the city. We were picked up by our second driver, and drove us into our hotel by the river. And guess what? We got a room with a view. 🙂
We freshened up and ate a hearty Indian breakfast composed of an Indian bread paratha, deeply fried potato and green pea mix, a homemade yoghurt, tea masala, and a refreshing mango juice. Yum yum. It was the best breakfast I had in India. 
On our way to the city, this kind of scene got me curious.
I had then learned that these stainless containers carry fresh cow´s milk being sold to the neighborhood every early morning in India. Nice noh? Fresh creamy yummy cow´s milk. Perfect for a freshly brewed coffee or a homemade curd or yoghurt. 🙂 I remember me and my mom used to make yoghurt back at home in the Philippines using fresh milk from Philippine Carabao Centers. This just got me miss home so badly 😦
The first stop for the day was a Hindu temple. We got a bit of educational tour about their religion and beliefs, their gods, and their ways of worship which I must say I could not comprehend. However, we were impressed with the engravings on the marble blocks which made up the temple. Marbles are one of the hardest stones- just imagine how painstakingly they had carved these impressions on the stones without using machines but simple tools, their hands, their ingenuity and patience, and a lot of adenosine triphosphate or ATP 🙂
On our way out of the temple, I caught this guy up on the temple fixing a banner to the elephant’s trunk.
We then went ahead and visited a local park where we saw children playing with the water fountain 🙂 What a lovely sight (!).
These children are adorable! Aren’t they the cutest? And they’ve let me photograph them while they play and threw me some of their cutest smiles!
Inside the park lies a mini science children’s museum where we entertained ourselves with some puzzles. I should say this is not the place for me. What the heck?! I am a scientist and I can’t even break a simple puzzle! I’ve sweat it out trying to solve them. Well, I’d solved some, but not this one. Stupid me 🙂
While the tour around the city was lovely, it was hot. I reckon hot enough to fry an egg under the sun. It’s amazing how much water one can drink in a day and don´t even look for a toilet to pee. I mean, where do all those water go?!! Do they just evaporate from our bodies? The heat can even drain all the energy you’ve stored in every fat of your body, and so we decided to go back to our hotel rooms and get some rest.
Later that day, we went out to the city by ourselves (without any guide or driver). Wow, this is what I’ve waited for. I really want to go out and just experience the real India- the present day India. After all, we’ve experienced too much of the old India already- the kings and the prince, and the palaces, etc. So I thought this is it. I’m gonna go out there as a traveler, and not as a mere tourist. And so I did.
At the top on my list is to experience the streets and the markets, so we roam around and I had enjoyed every second of it. These are what I saw…
This taxi is pretty much alike with the Philippines´ pedicab or tricycles, only that this has the reverse gear. Pretty cool huh? Taxi anyone?
And if you are not up to a taxi or pedicabs, you can also hire a camel for transport 🙂
The streets are just full of stuff that entertained me, just like these group of old ladies chatting the afternoon away.
The market is full of stores selling textile and colorful saris.
And I also caught a curious girl staring at the lad in a lovely blue sari.
There are colorful bangles hanging around for display which lures ladies into buying them. Ha! It almost got me 😉
And of course, the wet market is full of vendors selling fresh vegetables.
And policemen were patrolling around to maintain peace and order even in the markets. How reassuring, noh? 🙂
While these babies caught my eyes, they look lovely and classic I wanted to ride them.
I also braved to taste some of their street foods and I was glad I did. It was yummy! I just love street foods. Who doesn’t?
This was our first glance of the city, and it was a fine one. Coming up next is our adventure on our second day in Udaipur, the city of lakes.
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