In the morning we leave Udaipur. We check out of the hotel we had already grown fond of, with its beautiful view of the lake. We decided to get to the bus station by tuk-tuk; the tuk-tuk driver turned out to be quite amazing — first, he took us for 40 rupees without bargaining. Second, he didn’t honk at anyone along the way at all, which here is simply incredible.
Buses to Chittorgarh leave every half hour, and we were lucky to arrive just in time for departure. We bought tickets and jumped on the bus. The ride took 2.5 hours.
The bus dropped us off not far from the hotel and the train station. I didn’t like the town right away. It felt somehow too crowded, with lots of barefoot beggar children and slums.
The hotel turned out to be rather gloomy too. They are renovating it now, and the rooms are old and a bit scary. We looked at three rooms and chose a larger one with a balcony. Then it turned out that there was no Wi-Fi there, so we had to move to another room, smaller and without a balcony — but with internet.
The mood was somehow strange; Volchiy even said I was losing my traveler title. I was frightened by the prospect of spending even a couple of days in Chittorgarh. We couldn’t leave earlier, the hotel was already paid for. After the bright, colorful touristy Udaipur, Chittorgarh seemed like a Godforsaken place where no tourist had ever set foot.
Besides, the fort was 6 km from the city, and in India it’s very difficult to cover that distance on foot. So we couldn’t even go for a walk in the fort — we decided to go there by tuk-tuk tomorrow morning and spend the whole day there.
It was only 2 p.m. Sitting in the hotel was cold and hungry, so we decided to go out for a walk and scout out the situation in the city. It wasn’t entirely clear where to go — we headed toward the train station. Near the train station there was some bustle — fruit is sold there, pastries are fried, and tea is brewed. Along the way there are quite a few hotels, seemingly nicer than ours. We went into two of them to ask about the price — the price was twice as high as what we were paying. After the train station, people and civilization gradually come to an end — only stray dogs remain, so we decided not to tempt fate and not go any farther. We returned to the train station, bought pastries that the vendor had literally just fried. We bought bananas, cookies for later, and went back to the room to eat.
Thanks to the internet, the time until evening flew by quickly.
