Julies,
I've been eagerly awaiting your trip report! What a pleasure to read it - I, too, enjoy finding a balance of sites and more intimate experiences the best way to really connect with a place. I love how you've balanced your itinerary with urban/rural and diverse cultural settings.

I've been quietly lurking on this board for a while now, following your planning posts on this and other travel boards, wondering how it will fall together.

I'm planning a trip to Rajasthan/Varanasi for next winter. We'll have a much shorter trip (2+ to 3 wks), probably to the usual suspects, but I hope to incorporate some less well-known destinations as well.

Would you mind sharing the name of the travel agent/agency who you worked with in Rajasthan? I'm now starting to put feelers out; I'm curious, how did you work with them? What services did they provide? What did they do that you didn't/couldn't do on your own? And, did they make suggestions that you wouldn't have thought of without their help?

Looking forward to the rest of your trip!

Paule

HI Julie! Thank you for taking all the time required to post this fantastic report. I wondered how you and hubby were getting on! Glad to hear he recovered ok from the pre-trip scare, and you were able to enjoy yourselves.

Kumaon is on my "future trip to India list now! And a friend's son may be getting married in Jhansi (near Orchha and Gwalior) so your info will help both specifically and in general for your fellow Fodies.

Thank again, and welcome home! Did you think twice about drinking water from the tap, once back in the USA!! (-:

for udaipur, what does "with jhakaro" mean? is it a type of room?

More please julies...
Welcome to any "Backpacker", "Flashpacker", "Adventure Traveller". This forum needs you!!

A jharokha is a baclony. Not sure if this is just an alternate spelling.

Clothes and shoes and toiletries

I decided to post this section now since I just ordered two more of these blouses so I’d have some for future trips. I took one of these to India, and it was the absolutely perfect thing for there because it is lightweight, dried quickly, is modest and is very comfortable to wear in the warmer weather. http://www.sierratradingpost.com/roy...women~p~3268y/

India is pretty casual, and only once did I regret that I didn’t have anything at all nicer than a couple of silk scarves to dress things up a bit. I found that some of my normal travel clothing was great, and some (a tank top and a couple short sleeved tops) I typically use for warmer climates I didn’t really use at all. I had two pairs of pants that convert from regular length to capris, and I wore these a lot along with my indispensible macabi skirt. http://www.macabiskirt.com/ I never did wear the one pair of shorts I took along.

We used our fleeces a lot in the early part of our Rajasthan trip (actually the first few days in Jaisalmer we wore these under our jackets), up in the foothills and when we went on early morning safaris. I’d forgotten to pack a lightweight cardigan that I intended to bring and often wished I’d had it. Even though people always say that you can buy anything in India, I never was able to find one, and I looked even in the larger cities we were in. It is better to bring tan or khaki pants than black or navy because our darker pants were always showing the dust marks. At the last minute before we left I threw in a lightweight, long sleeved, v-necked tee shirt, and I was surprised at how often this was just the right thing for what I wanted. We took silk long johns and tops and wore them to bed in a couple of the places up in the Kuamon region.

We always did our own laundry in our room, and India is absolutely perfect for this because there is always a big bucket in the shower—works great for doing laundry. Although I know I could have had it done at any of the places we stayed, I chose to just launder our clothes myself because I saw how laundry is done in India—the primary methods I observed were the beating method and the scrubbing on a rock method. Neither one called to me. I got an absolutely great tip for doing laundry from someone here at Fodor’s, and I tried it for this trip. Buy Purell laundry sheets, and use them for doing your hand laundry when traveling. We cut each sheet in quarters, and they were the perfect amount of detergent for a sink full of hand laundry, and you don't need to worry about a liquid soap that will leak.

Unless your hair is very short, bring barrettes or clips to pin it up and away from your face and off your neck because you will find it often blowing around when you are in jeeps, most taxis, and in rickshaws.

I'll try to answer other questions if I get a chance tomorrow.

Whatever the spelling is, the jharokhra also indicates the cantilevered bos window seat-type extension we had in our room that is lined with pillows and cushions and is for lounging.

Where are the temples of Ramnagar? We stopped at Maharani Bagh after visiting the incredible Jain temple in Ranakpur.

Marija--

We've been back for 4 days now, and the day after we returned, my husband commented to me that I shouldn't do anything that required any brain power or any decision-making because lack of sleep and jet lag were getting the best of me. Apparently I still haven't recovered and got my "r"s confused. Ramnagar was the train station we left from on our way to Delhi and back home, so that is probably why it was on my brain. You are correct that the temples were at Ranakpur.

Lyndie--I so agree with you that more diversity in type of traveler who posts here (at Fodor's in general, not just the Asia board) is so, so needed. There seems to be way too much skewing toward the high end, 5* trip, and not all of us are that type of traveler.

Cali--We went through Jhansi, and I seem to recall a fort or palace or some such that our driver pointed out to us near there in Datia; I made a mental note becasue I thought it looked interesting.

And, finally for Paule, some comments on travel agents.

Normally agents are not my thing, and I do all of our trip planning on my own. In all of our travels the only time we have ever used an agent was when we visited Vietnam, and I wanted to book a very specialized tour of remote places that there was no way of doing on our own without an agent. But, the more I started looking into India, the more I finally realized that there would be a couple things a good agent could do that I wouldn’t be able to do on my own. First of all, I knew I would need to use some sort of agency to book a car and driver for Rajasthan, and, because we wanted to visit some very different types of places from the standard itineraries, I would need an agent who really knew his (I say he because it is predominantly men who work in the public in India) stuff. I needed someone who would be familiar with all of the properties I’d researched and come up with as possibilities and who would also know the best way to create a good route to include these places.

After sending out feelers to about a half dozen agencies, I quickly decided upon TGS which is headquartered in Jaipur but has branches all through Rajasthan. Nikhil there was absolutely, 100% what I was looking for and he demonstrated it from our first contact. He gave me good advice on the different heritage places I was considering and arranged for our car and driver. Some of the places we visited we reached by train, and he told me when it was more economical and practical to use the train than to use a driver. Even though I chose all of our lodging, he did call and make all of the reservations for us, telling me that we’d be paying the same as if we’d booked ourselves. This was pretty accurate, but one place—Castle Bera—the owner did charge us less than quoted after telling us that agents usually take a cut and since we didn’t have a voucher from an agent (with extra fees padded in) he would charge us less. We had a great driver too after I specifically requested one with good rather than just marginal English skills. Nikhil was extremely responsive, and he would call our driver every morning; the driver would then hand me the phone so I could check in with Nikhil who wanted to make sure everything was going as expected. And, when we did have our one lodging fiasco (in a place I’d chosen with reassurances from Nikhil that it would be fine), he was extremely responsive and quickly made some phone calls and helped to rearrange a few things. His rates were very reasonable too; I’d highly recommend him to people going to Rajasthan. TGS Jaipur [email protected]

Then, unfortunately, we had another not-so-good experience with an agent in Haridwar, Uttarkhand, whom I could not recommend to anyone as far as for making arrangements for anything but the most simple day trips. We had a couple red flags on this guy that we should have listened to, but he was recommended by both Lonely Planet and Footprint India, and he was a specialist in more adventure-oriented tours which is what we wanted, so we booked with him. Logically and rationally we violated some rules of common sense by booking with him, but we felt we could trust him and he is involved in some projects in India that we feel to be commendable so we ignored our qualms. He did some of the simple things fine—arranging a rafting trip for us in Rikikesh and taking us on a safari into Rajaji National Park but messed up some others that required more oversight and more detailed planning. He was difficult to reach to communicate with, but the main reason we were so unhappy (and angry) with him is because once he had our money and we had a complaint, he completely ignored us and wouldn’t take our calls or would lie and tell us he’d get back to us and then never did.

Here is how we screwed up: First of all, we had difficulty communicating with him in the first place, and we should have just given up on him at that point. We tried reaching him about 3 or 4 days prior to when we would arrive in Haridwar where we wanted some services to begin; after a couple tries we finally got a hold of him by phone. He told us to send him an e-mail outlining what we were looking for, and he’d get back to us with a proposal. He never did. So, when we still hadn’t heard from him, and had by this time arrived in Haridwar where his office is, we walked down to his office to talk with him. When we met with him, he seemed to know exactly what we were looking for and gave us an on-the-spot quote for organizing/booking several thing for (an afternoon of rafting in Rikikesh, a guided half day safari into Rajaji park, a mahseer fishing trip, and a several-day package visiting Corbett park) and for arranging a car and driver for us for Uttarkhand.

Our greatest concern and hesitation came when we discovered he did not take credit cards (this is not unusual in India) and he told us, since we would not be returning to Haridwar, we would need to give him all of the money upfront because we wouldn’t be in a position to come into his office at the end of our trip to make a final cash payment. We were paying this guy a big chunk of money, and operating this way meant we were using several different cards in several different ATMs for a couple days in order to be able to come up with the amount of cash we needed. I know, I know, I know. Big red flags, but we did it anyway because he had put together what we wanted and we thought we could trust him. We did get pretty much everything we’d paid for so I can’t say he was a scammer, but there were several screw-ups on his part and we had no recourse whatsoever because we’d already paid him in full. In particular, our Corbett trip was poorly planned, and he put us in absolutely awful lodging and wouldn’t move us to what we thought we’d paid for and agreed upon as far as level of lodging. And, finally, after we complained to him about the lodging and arrangements in Corbett, he just ignored us and wouldn’t even take our calls and messages.

So, there is our experience with agents—both good and bad. I have realized that I am quite picky and anal about where we stay (even though we certainly aren’t looking for 4* or 5* luxury) because I know lodging can really affect the overall experiences one has on a trip. If you are like me, I’d suggest doing the research and booking your own lodging or directing the agent to book the lodging you have chosen rather than relying on the agent to choose places for you. One out of the eighteen lodgings I chose on our trip was a fiasco (not too bad a percentage), but 2 out of 3 of the places chosen and booked by the Haridwar agent were bad and not at all the types of places we’d ever chose to stay. We’ve learned our lesson for the future.

The old "pay up front in cash" trick! Done it too...won't EVER do it again....there is just no need. julies, you tailored your trip to your unique requirements, which must be truly satisfying rather than relying on another to understand and implement your plans. I find in India, the cultural differences are usually so great that few understand what I hope to experience. They seem to think we all want the same itinerary. Mahendra Singh at www.jasvillas.com is one guy I trust implicitly for car/driver and great accommodation and input.

Another tip about clothing is to take very little from home and buy your clothing in India. If you are a standard size up to say US10-12 you will find cheap disposable salwars and baggy pants that will last for a few weeks then you can toss them out and go home with bags full of gifts instead of your clothes. I'm an Amazon size 16 AUS (Anokhi has that size)and I also had stuff "whipped up" in a day, for less than $10 for two pieces. Outfits that helped me fit in with locals in small villages. Kinda like Jack Reacher does in a Lee Child novel.

Julie,
Thank you so much for the detailed description of your experiences with the agents. I,too, am typically a do it yourself planner, but sfter poring over the many posts and travel boards, I see that traveling in India is of a different order, and one pretty much needs some form of agency in the country. I did note TGS in my reading, and it's one of the agencies that interested me, so I appreciate reading your comments.
Of course, I won't be going till the end of the year, but at least I can have fun planning! As I'll be there at a very busy time, it won't hurt to start now. And I do so love the planning!

Looking forward to reading the next installments,
Paule

We did not use an agent, but rather booked all our accommodations on line with only one small hitch along the way - we were not satisfied with our hotel in Orchha and left one night early. While many people use agents to book their rooms, we found it quite easy. For any planning a trip, note that the taj group often offers a third free night stay with two paid nites.

Also - we did stop in Datia and also sonigiri (sp?) neither of which we found remarkable, but worth a short stop along the way.

Enjoying your report and looking forward to more.

The train from Delhi to Jaisamler ... is it a direct train or does the train makes stop at places like Jaipur and Jodhpur, etc., before ending at Jaisamler?

Is it possible/ better to book all train travel in advance? arrive? Should one also try to book all hotels in advance also? Thanks.

Re agents:

Yes, all cash and all upfront is something we would never do again. Learned our lesson!

I too booked some of our hotels online by myself, and it worked okay. dgunbug says s/he did all of the hotel reservations that way, but I also notice mention of the Taj group of hotels. The more fancy and expensive hotels do have standardized online booking using credit cards that we are all familiar with. And, some of the government-run hotels also have the same. For example, Sheesh Mahal where we stayed in Orchha wouldn't do anything for us by phone and told us to go online to book. The problem with some of the smaller places (the places we tend to like to stay) can be that they don't take credit cards and want a bank transfer. This can be very, very pricey if you end up booking a lot if places ahead of time that require this. And, this is where an agency could help you with booking; the agency makes the deposit or payment, and you make one lump sum payment to the agency.

I did book some of our places online by myself. Using e-mail I booked the B & B we stayed at our 1st night upon arrival in Delhi; there we had to make a Paypal payment upfront. Then, I booked via e-mail the hotels we stayed at it Jaisalmer & Jodhpur (the next two destinations on our itinerary); these were both honor system and didn't require any downpayment. For all of these places I also arranged airport or train station pick-ups too. In the last half of our trip, where we were just planning a couple days out, I just phoned ahead to make reservations.

In Rajasthan I primarily needed an agent to help me with the routing and to make arrangements for a car and driver. If you intend to follow the usual, well-trod tourist path, you should be able to figure out routing yourself. If you intend to hire a car and driver you don't necessarily need an agent to book for you, but most agents have trusted drivers they use. Our driver in Rajasthan drives only for TGS customers. The driver in Uttarakhand is a free-lancer who will drive for anyone.

Trains:

If I get a chance I'll go more extensively into these later. It is imperative that trains be booked waaaaaaay ahead of time. In fact, getting a train often proved to be the major hassles of our trip. You can book these online by yourself as we did, but I my agent at TGS did tell me that often agents can help with changes to train tickets IF they are not e-tickets like you get by booking online yourself. I believe him becasue everyone related to the travel industry in India does seem to have all of these connections, so this could be a reason to use an agent to book your train tickets.

Finally, one more comment about trains in India. These are not the nice, new fancy trains all of us who have taken trains in Europe or the US think about. Indeed, we laughed and said to ourselves that these just might be some of the same trains we took in Europe 40 years ago, and after talking to a conductor on one of our trains, I think we may have been right. No train we took anywhere in India was at all anything we'd consider express, even when the train name indicated it was an express. The train from Delhi to Jaisalmer made tons of stops all through the night.

Julies - how true about trains. Getting tickets was a major pain and we solicited the help of our agency who provided our car service.

Re: <b>trains</b>: yes, they're very popular. Booking for most trains opens 90 days ahead. If you're taking a lot of trains buying an Indrail pass can make sense (if you're in the US you'll have to use the UK agent). It will come with all your reservations. However, I found cleartrip.com easy to use and booked almost all of the tickets for my last trip with them.

If you wind up booking IN India, you're better off using a travel agency (any agency, just walk into the nearest) rather than tackling the train station, unless it's a small, rural one, or unless it has an International Tourist Bureau (e.g. in Delhi). Note that the Bureau will come with an obligatory local telling you that it is closed and you need to use the agency across the street.

Re: <b>hotels</b>: I made all the reservations myself for my last trip. They included three small one person operations for which I had to wire funds, on up to to two Taj Gateway properties. I booked a couple of smaller chains - Ginger and Keys - and booked another couple of places through agoda.com. My previous trip, back in 2001, I "booked" most of my hotels by showing up, or calling ahead from the previous town, but there were few people traveling that year, plus I was mostly staying in cheap places - not hostels and with attached bath and AC, but very basic.

Hotel booking--

We too were traveling more in shoulder season, so we were probably lucky in that reservations weren't absolutely necessary. If, however, you are traveling in peak season and want prime places, it is probably a completely different story.

Before I get back to my narrative of what we actually did on our trip, here are a couple more background items I thought might be helpful to some people.

GUIDEBOOKS

As I said earlier, as soon as we started to think about this trip I went to my local library and checked out just about every book that has been published as a guidebook to India (our system is rated in the top 5 in the US). All the books have their pluses and minuses (some many more minuses than pluses), and after looking at them all ended up buying only two guidebooks in hard copy to take along. Footprint India, I feel, is the best and most comprehensive of all of the guidebooks published, and, to make it even better, the publisher uses very thin paper so the book does not weigh much and isn’t too bulky. So, we took that along in hard copy with the Lonely Planet Guide to Rajasthan, Delhi and Agra. Early on in the planning process, I also bought a copy of Alistair Sawday’s Special Places to Stay India, and this gave me lots of good ideas even though we only ended up staying at 3 or 4 of the properties listed.

We also had some guidebooks in e-reader format (this is the first time I have ever tried using my e-reader for travel guidebooks). I bought Rough Guide to India and loaded it on my e-reader so we’d have another resource without having to drag along another book. Then, after we’d finished the Rajasthan portion of our trip, we decided to buy Lonely Planet India for our Kindle Fire. In case anyone is interested, I much, much, much prefer having a real hard copy over having an electronic version. Of the two that we took in electronic version, the Rough was definitely easier to use than the Lonely Planet in e-reader format. When doing my research months before our trip, I had also checked a couple of photo-heavy, e-format India guidebooks out from my library. These proved to be absolutely worthless because all of the data needed to display photos kept locking up my color Nook.

COMMUNICATION

We took an unlocked phone with us and purchased a SIM card and minutes the first day we were in Delhi. Our B & B had arranged a taxi driver for us for the day, and we just asked the taxi driver to take us to a place where we could buy a SIM. We ended up with the Idea network, and other than 1 or 2 times when we were really, really out in the middle of nowhere, we had service. Having a phone was absolutely indispensible for us, and we couldn’t have managed without one because we used it to call ahead to make reservations, we used it to contact our drivers during the day, and we used it to call agents. If, as we did, you buy a SIM in Delhi make sure to emphasize that you will need the service for all of India, or you may have problems. We added minutes later on in the trip by stopping in small shops several different places, and the first question always had to do with where the SIM originated.

Getting phone service in India is a pain. You need passport photos, have to practically give them you life history, and it is time consuming. But, it is worth it to have the convenience of a phone; we used our a lot. We only made calls within India, but I think it was only something like .04 cents a minute for calls to the US.

We took our netbook with us, and Internet access at many times proved to be problematic, especially since we spent much of our trip in the rural areas. Many of the smaller, more remote lodgings had no access at all, and the one time we did try to use an Internet café in a smaller town, it turned out there was just one computer, and it was being used. So, we never did use an Internet café at any time in our trip. We only had a couple hotels where we could actually get a connection in our room, and many of the heritage hotels that did have Internet had really weak signals, so we would have to sit in the lobby to be able to connect. And, several places that said they had Internet had service that wasn’t working.

After realizing that we wanted/needed more readily available Internet access, we decided to buy a dongle so we could use that to connect to the Internet through our phone. The owner of the place we were staying out in the countryside made a couple phone calls for us and sent us off with our driver to the nearest town (about an hour away). We bought the dongle and used it throughout the rest of our trip to connect to the Internet through our phone, but we never were able to figure out how to find the right type of plan that would give us access as cheaply as we knew could be done. So, every time we connected, my husband kept insisting that we use it only briefly so we wouldn’t burn up all of our phone minutes. Plus, it was a hassle because we had to keep taking the SIM card out of our phone to put in the dongle and then vice versa. If we had it to do over again, we’d have purchased a second SIM card and would have had two completely different phone plans so one could be dedicated for use with the netbook. But, this would also have meant the hassle of a second set of photos and all of the paperwork needed to set up a phone account.

I knew I rely heavily upon the Internet, and can’t conceive of how I used to plan trips in the days when there were just guidebooks, but since we were planning the second half of our trip more-or-less by winging it, I knew we needed to be able to have access pretty available. If you have everything booked ahead for your trip, your need for Internet access may not be as strong as ours was.

Oops. Because I asked this question here while researching our trip, there is one more thing I wanted to comment on before going back to my narrative.

WINGING IT VS. HAVING A SET ITINERARY

This was a question I had before I left because we like to have some flexibility in our schedule and didn’t want everything locked in. Our compromise was to have the first half of the trip (the Rajasthan portion) planned prior to departure. That meant we had our train reservations, our driver lined up, and our hotels booked. One of our questions was how hot it would get by mid-March, so we wanted to have the option of completely changing our plans if we decided we needed to escape the heat, and that is why we left the second half of our trip open.

Before leaving home, I had done a lot of the research for the second half of the trip so, I had a loose, tentative itinerary and some ideas about where we wanted to go, where we wanted to stay, and what we wanted to do. But, it was still more difficult (especially without good, constant, reliable internet access) and more time-consuming than I’d thought it would be to make arrangements on the fly. And, it truly was transportation realities/difficulties that dictated the itinerary for the second part of the trip. Our recommendation would be to have the major transportation (planes and trains) between different major locales all booked before starting the trip because this was the most difficult part of trying to set things up a week or two in advance. Then, leave your winging it to places within that general locale because you can easily get a driver (or bus if you are willing to go that way; we aren’t) to move within a general area.

Having done the winging it bit for the second half of our trip, I have mixed feelings about taking this tack in India unless you are someone with a backpacker’s time, flexibility and mentality. Yes, when we realized how hot it was going to be we were able to X out the tentative plan we had to stay at a lodge in Panna National Park for a few days. And, yes, we were able to get the lodging we wanted with no difficulty. But, we also ended up spending a lot of time just trying to get logistics and other things figured out. This was difficult for us even though we had some pretty set ideas and had done a lot of our research before we left home, so I can’t imagine how hard it would be for someone just doing it cold.

Thanks, Julies for your useful observations about logistics.

Kathie--

I took the time to make some detailed comments on logistics because these types of things impact all people no matter where they choose to go on their rip or how they choose to travel.

Now back to the narrative of our trip..........

Our lodging disaster that I chose (we had another one chosen by the bad agent we used in Haridwar) was Darbargahd Poshina just over the border from Rajasthan into Gujarat. I had had great hopes for the place because it is in the center of the tribal—adavasi—areas, and we were very interested into getting some insights into how those tribal people live. The promise had been for an exciting Holi celebration at Poshina itself and also jeep safaris to the surrounding villages. Upon our arrival it was obvious we weren't expected at all because we were shown into a dark reception room and then abandoned for about ten minutes. Finally, we were shown to a dark and musty room in what seemed like it might have formerly been the lower level stables (we’d just requested a standard room). And, it wasn’t as though this was the last room available because the place was jam-packed with other guests; the place seemed quite devoid of guests. After the welcome receptions we had been given at other places, this place was not at all friendly. Other than being asked if we wanted a cup of tea, we were left on our own with no one asking if we wanted lunch (we arrived in early afternoon and our arrangements were for a package complete with room and board) or telling us what the possibilities were for activities during our stay. The grounds didn’t seem all that enticing, and right outside of the estate’s gate was a small town jam-packed with people and food stalls.

After about a half an hour, during which time both of our guts told us that this was going to be disastrous (especially since we'd been told by our agency we couldn’t use the car the next day since it might be damaged by all of the paint thrown around for Holi), we'd had enough and decided to call our agent to tell him we wanted to leave. He did some phoning for us and told us that we could move up our arrival at our next location and get into Udai Bilas two nights early if we wanted, but we'd have to take a suite rather than the regular room we had reserved for two days later. The suite was certainly more than we'd planned to pay, but at that point we were ready to pay anything to escape and not have to be stuck in this place for two days. Perhaps we just had bad timing and bad communications with this place (but we did have several e-mails confirming our dates) and others would have a different experience at a different time. The owner, who dids seem friendly, did come out to very briefly greet us after our wait in the reception room. And, by the time we’d made the decision to leave and were actually on the way out of the door (and he had somehow been told or figured it out that we were unhappy), he did come out again and apologize for being busy when we first got there. But, that was our experience. I should have listened to Dogster who told me not to go here.

So, at 3:00 we set out for the three hour drive to Dungapur.

Dungapur Udai Bilas

Originally Udai Bilas was planned to be our splurge place because I'd been told by Nikhil (our agent at TGS) it was so beautiful we needed to stay there and experience the setting where a 15 gun maharajah (the higher ranking the maharajah the more salutes fired) lives in rather than just the homes of the more minor royalty where we’d been staying during the rest of our trip. Our suite turned out to be a not particularly large bedroom with a bathroom nearly as big as the room. What was great though was that we had a small balcony we could sit on overlooking the small lake the palace is set on, Meals (pricey and not worth the price in our opinion) were extra and were buffet style which is never our choice. Breakfast was large enough that we just ordered a veggie pakora snack in the late afternoon and had that rather than a real lunch.

Plus, since it was Holi we were virtually prisoners in the place. We were told several times by all of the staff that we should not leave the grounds for the entire day of Holi because for many people Holi is just a drunken bash. Apparently many of the men leave small towns like this and go off into the large cities to find employment. They return for a major celebration like Holi with a pocketful of cash and spend a lot of it on booze. (I’m guessing this would also have been the case it Poshina, so I suspect it might have been somewhat the same situation there.) There was supposed to be boating and birdwatching for activities at Udai Bilas; what this means is a man will row you around on the rather small lake with the town set at one end and the palace set on another part of the shore. Late in the afternoon on the day of Holi we were told we could go out in the boat if we wanted, but we turned the offer down because to us, coming from a state full of gorgeous lakes, this was not much bigger than a pond ringed with development in many parts of the shore. There were some guest cycles available, but we weren’t able to use them because of Holi. Perhaps in different circumstances we might have taken them out for 45 minutes or so.

Udai Bilas was also rather odd in that the manager seemed to be going around encouraging togetherness in the evening, or else he was trying to move liquor from the bar. The second night we were told cocktails would be in the garage, and this seemed rather strange to us since they'd been on the lakefront terrace the previous evening. But, then again, it was cooler and windier than the night before, so a half an hour or so after cocktail hour was supposed to start we set off looking for the garage. What a garage it was! The current maharajah is a classic car collector whose collection must include about thirty cars all of which are like new, sparkling clean and on display in this edifice that is hardly a garage but more like a huge family room with cars on display all along the walls. Not only is it decorated around a car theme, but the lounge seating area decorated with sofas and chairs upholstered in a car print is on a hydraulic lift so the entire lounge section, maybe 15 by 30 feet, can be elevated. The fortyish maharajah joined us for drinks for perhaps 20 minutes, showing off his toys. I know some of the guests were impressed by all of this, but I was disgusted by this obscene display of wealth in a country where so many people are so very poor. Apparently ostentatiousness is still a cardinal value for some people in the maharajah's social class. All I could think of was how the money spent on this hobby could have built houses with running water and toilets, fed hungry people, educated children and provided for many people's unmet basic needs.

All in all, this stay at Udai Bilas proved to us that we really do not care to stay in these types of properties where the major feature or attraction is a display of how India’s truly rich, historically noble families live. One such place was enough. Probably the highlight of the visit to Udai Bilas was when we were leaving and stopped on our way out to visit Juna Mahal, a decrepit former castle that this maharajah's family had built many centuries ago—maybe 13th or 14th century. It was both haunting and contained gorgeous wall paintings from centuries ago. Much more appealing to me than the conspicuous display of wealth at Udai Bilas.