All evening and morning I agonized over whether we should go with Mr. Chohan. Wolf, silently, but simply by his very presence, brought me back down to earth, and I began to think that I had agreed to this for nothing..
I’m such a strange person; independence and freedom of action matter so much to me. I mean, I was afraid that I would have to eat somewhere with Mr. Chohan and then go for a walk around Udaipur too..
Wolf kept saying, “You’ve gone so wild”… Easy for him to say, since I’d be the one having to carry on the conversation.
Either the owner or the hotel’s chief manager offered to give us a ride to the temple, and we agreed. The three of us (together with the driver) climbed onto an old motorcycle and set off.
The temple opens to visitors at 12 o’clock, so it was quiet and peaceful there.
It was almost 11 o’clock, but there was no sign of Mr. Chohan. We sat down on the beautiful benches. Waiting for who knows what — the bus or Mr. Chohan. About 5 minutes later, Mr. Chohan’s car appeared, and I decided to say that we wouldn’t be going with him. We went up and I told him we had decided to take the bus. He said his signature line, “As you want,” and drove off. Well, good.
While we were waiting for the bus, a pleasant and neat-looking Indian man came up to us and said he was a guide, waiting for tourists from Germany. He himself said that Indians are the kind of people who need nothing but food, so they don’t strive to work and earn money. They work from time to time, just enough to have food.
About 15 minutes later our bus arrived, packed to the brim with Indians. Wolf stood on the last step, and I slyly sat down on the side step. That’s how we rode along the Raknapur mountain road. The nature here is beautiful, hills covered in greenery. If you want silence and peace, this is a wonderful place. There are almost no people here, and no villages at all. Only from time to time do you come across hotels of various levels, from cheap ones (like the one we stayed in, where the room cost 1000 rupees) to expensive ones. But even our hotel, Roopam Resort, was very pleasant, with a beautiful green grounds area, very conducive to rest and relaxation.
The little bus barely climbed the low mountains, and then sped downhill. Soon we reached a fork in the road, some people got off, and we were shoved to the back of the bus. But it turned out that at the next stop almost half the bus got off, and we rode like kings, seated. I liked riding the bus. Sometimes I drifted into a pleasant half-sleep. Sometimes I stared out the window. It was sunny, and I felt the real journey, the spirit of adventure, the unknown ahead, and we were rushing toward a new world. And along the road, little monkeys sat amusingly on the stones.
About 3 hours later we arrived in Udaipur. Wolf skillfully bargained with a tuk-tuk to take us to the hotel for 30 rupees, although it wasn’t very far. The hotel turned out to be a guesthouse called Mewari Villa. It is located on a hill, so the windows and the rooftop terrace offer a magnificent view of the lake. Our room was nice. It was clear they had recently renovated it. Freshly whitewashed walls, clean bedding, and for the first time on our trip in India, clean blankets we could wrap ourselves in just like that. And they were warm too! Too bad we were only here for one night…. A nice bonus was our own water boiler, small but ours! After settling in, we went for a walk around Udaipur. Udaipur’s main attraction, the palace, is very close by. At a leisurely pace, we reached it in about 15 minutes. Near the palace we drank some delicious tea. It’s always tasty here, but sometimes it’s very tasty, and sometimes just tasty J
We decided not to go inside the palace, and simply continued walking around the city.
