Udaivilas is grand when you see it from the driveway. It is grander still when you actually walk in — the kind of grand that arrives with its own soundtrack, because someone at the hotel had the good sense to greet us with live music the moment we crossed the threshold. (Here’s the Spotify playlist that got stuck in my head for the rest of the trip — you’re welcome, or I’m sorry, depending on your tolerance for earworms.)
Day One: Wi-Fi & Word Puzzles
The first order of business upon checking in, obviously, was reconnecting to civilization. As I posted on FB at the time:
Now that I have Wi-Fi, I’m catching up on a backlog of word puzzles — crosswords from my favorite setters (Sowmya Ramkumar, Kishore M. Rao, Satyen Nabar, Mona Sogal, etc.), the ever-growing pile of Wordles, Quordles, and the rest. As always, getting my ego thoroughly humbled by Lalgudi Krishnan.
And as always, for lack of a better answer to “Is this a special occasion, sir?” Sridhar Iyer’s go-to answer is “the wife’s birthday” — works every single time, mostly because she has one every year, would you believe it?
PS – no more birthday greetings, friends; it’s not even the same month anymore.
Some men bring flowers. Mine brings a birthday that apparently never expires, redeemable at check-in counters worldwide. It is, I will admit, an excellent strategy — free upgrades, warm smiles, the occasional dessert with a candle in it.
Joel gave us a proper tour of the hotel grounds — all 33 acres of them. Peacocks strutting about like they own the property (they might), birdsong doing a better job than any curated playlist, and exotic flowers filling the air with fragrances that made the whole “resort” label feel like an understatement.
Our tour of the city was equally fascinating — lake after man-made lake, and no shortage of luxury hotels taking full advantage of the view of the hills, the water, and the palaces stacked on top of each other like a very well-curated postcard.
It was also the day I lost my diamond bracelet somewhere between breakfast and the palace tour—minor panic. Fortunately, our guide found it behind the entry gates, and by the time I got back to the hotel, every single Oberoi staff member — and I do mean everyone — was on high alert about my bracelet. I have never felt so thoroughly looked after by a workforce that, twenty minutes earlier, had no idea I existed.
Dinner that evening was at 1559 AD — named, fittingly, for the year the city of Udaipur was founded by Maharana Udai Singh II.
There we met a moustache. There was, in fairness, a man standing behind it, and he graciously agreed to a photo for a generous tip.
Later that night, somewhere between naan and negotiations with a cab, we made it back to the hotel — my review of the meal, verbatim and unimproved:
Achaa Thaa!Garlic naan, onion kulcha, ghatta, masala papad, mojito and a cab.
Day Two: Chetak, Karni Devi, and a Proposal Missing Its Ring
Udaipur’s history turns out to be far more interesting than the average palace-tour audio guide lets on. The Rajputs of the Mewar dynasty never submitted to the Mughal invasion — and historians credit them, in no small part, with keeping the Mughals from ever reaching South India. The legend of Chetak, the injured horse that leapt across a river to save his master, Maharana Pratap, despite his own wounds, has the same self-sacrificing sheen as Kalki in the Kali Yuga — the one who shows up, at the cost of himself, to hold the line for dharma.
One day the hotel arranged a heritage walk, which turned out to be the most efficient sightseeing of the trip: a jetty, a boat over to the old town’s ghats, a leisurely walk through the streets, and finally a ropeway winch lift to the Karni Mata temple. Our guide, Nishanth, whose own ancestry is closely entwined with Udaipur’s royal family, led us through it all with the easy authority of someone narrating his own family history rather than a script.
Meanwhile, back at ground level, our driver Rattan had quietly appointed himself logistics chief — chasing down tailors to shorten roughly three inches off every Amazon.In(dia) skirts and dresses I’d bought, and hunting for dry cleaners for the laundry we had, somewhat impressively, been hauling unwashed since Delhi.
At the Karni Devi mandir, we stumbled on a heart-shaped frame that apparently every visitor uses for a romantic photo op, or a proposal. My husband, ever a man of the moment, got down on one knee. He had, however, forgotten the diamond ring — proving once again that in this family, the grand gesture and the actual follow-through travel in separate suitcases. It was also, reassuringly, a temple with its priorities straight — the bathroom sign read “Men on the left, Women on the right, because they are always right.” Karni Mata clearly runs a tight ship.
Three Days Later
We left Udaivilas with a recovered bracelet, a photographed moustache, a wardrobe finally tailored to fit, and a proposal that was 90% romance and 10% “we’ll circle back to the ring.” Not a bad average, all things considered.
Proof We Were Actually There
ScreenshotScreenshottraffic lights in a palace room. Why?
