bottled sunshine: Nostalgia about Udaipur

I told Jasmine, my friend who is spending her summer in Japan, that I dream of making a travel blog that also provides Mass schedule. I hope she's willing to write about her adventure in Japan and share with us about the churches in small towns in Japan! ^^

So now I am trying to recall my journey to Udaipur, a small town in Rajasthan, India, three years ago, to make this "travel page" filled (since I don't have travel blog yet =P)

I took a night train from New Delhi. I would strongly recommend that you take class 2-AC (with air conditioner and beds). I spent 12 hours on train and we stopped a lot on the way. On train, you can see that there are many people who entered the train without buying tickets. Therefore, it is not too safe to take non-airconditioner class for an overnight train journey.

I went to Udaipur with two other interns from the same company. We planned to meet our two friends who did internship in Udaipur and two other friends who did internship in Jaipur that is only a few hours away from Udaipur. I slept really really well on the train =)

We reached Udaipur at 7am and paid Rs 50 to go to Jakdish Temple. We have booked a hotel name Lal Ghat Guest House. (We thought it was Lal Ghat Hotel, so we went to wrong hotel @.@). It was clean and it had a nice roof-top view of Pichola Lake. All hotels, guest houses, and cafes at Udaipur offer roof-top view =P We had a walk along the lake to explore the area around our hotel. We also walked along the market until we reached Chetak Circle. (Chetak = horse). We actually planned to go to Fateh Sagar Lake. After walking for quite some time, we gave up and took auto-rickshaw. This auto was the one similar to the auto in Haryana, we paid Rs 5 per person. I really love the view at Fateh Sagar Lake!!!

Jakdish Temple

View from the top of the hotel where I stayed

another side


Another side. I took this photo to show the "unpopular side" of the beautiful Pichola Lake. Poverty is indeed a big problem in India.

We took boat to Nehru Garden (in the middle of Fateh Sagar Lake) for Rs 125.

A Camel "parked" at the side of Fateh Sagar Lake

Yeay!! =)

The white wall is Nehru Garden

View from Nehru Garden

I hugged pilar everywhere like in the Bollywood movies =)

In the evening, we finally met up with our friends from Udaipur and Jaipur. We had a nice Western dinner near City Palace. (After 1.5 months eating Naan or Uttapam every day, weekend is our only chance to eat non-Indian food =P)
Our friends who did internship in Udaipur brought us to this hidden spot to enjoy the beautiful view of City Palace and a hotel in the middle of the lake:

The following morning, I left hotel at 6.15am because I didn't have any idea about the Mass schedule. I got the address and phone number but the person who answered my phone call didn't seem to speak English, so I thought, "How early could a Sunday Mass in a Cathedral be?" My only worry was I would miss the Mass because it is only a small town, that's why I tried to leave as early as possible.

Since I didn't know how far the hotel from the church was, I just agreed when the auto-driver charged me Rs 80 (1.20 Singapore dollars). But...it was quite near! (not walkable though). The mass started at 8am so I spent 1.5 hour exploring the Church, reciting rosary, and spending time in the Adoration room.


first impression: Why is the church so empty? Apparently it is a huge space to sit during Mass

Everyone rushed to Our Lady after Mass to honour her

So...here's the funny story about my adventure in this Church. I was kneeling in the empty Church once the church was opened, when suddenly a priest approached me and pointed to the church door:
"Put your footwear outside"
me: "huh?"
Father: "Put your footwear outside"
me: "ohhhhhhhhh"
(no wonder the Church is sooo empty).

Apparently in this Church, people take off their shoes during Mass. They also separate themselves based on gender (ladies at the right, and men at the left). One thing that amazed me was even though it was a small town, all people really wore their Sunday best! (If you notice the type of Saree that they wore in the photo, it was not the usual one that they wore on the streets).

So yeah..I finally attended the Mass in a local language (not Hindi, not Malayalam, I'm not sure what language they speak in Udaipur!)

Oh when you take the autodriver, you can just mention "Catholic Church" and the area (Bhupalpura). I think this is the only Catholic Church in Udaipur.

Details of the Church:
0294-2412279
Our Lady of Fatima Cathedral
St Paul's Campus, Bhupalpura, Udaipur Post

After Mass, I went back to hotel and started my adventure with my friends. We went to City Palace. It was very beautiful (and crowded!). They were really strict about photo-taking restriction. We needed to deposit our cameras (that's why I don't have any photos of City Palace). There were a lot of Rajasthani paintings inside the palace.

After going around City Palace, we had this very cheap buffet ( I think Rs 70 for free-flow Dosa) at Natraj Hotel.What I remember was I walked quite far from the market area and found lots of interesting things along the way.

After satisfying ourselves with abundant lunch, we took cable car from Doodh Talai Sunset Point. With Rs 69 we could enjoy the beautiful view of Udaipur. It was drizzling during noon time, so in the afternoon we really had very cool and nice weather.