Udaipur Nightlife

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The grounds of the trident hilton udaipur organised a theme rajasthan night. the concept wa to create the ambience of a rajasthani fair ground during evening.apart from the illumination and fireworks the "mela" or fair was complete with camels beautiful dressed up rajasthani ladies snake charmers astrologers bangle sellers puppet shows and traditional dance performances.
the atmosphere was lively and the accompaniment of dance music and sound made it all the more memorable.

Dress Code: casual/ethnic rajasthani chic

Every evening at either 6pm or 7pm, you'll find most hotels will show the James Bond movie Octopussy. Why? Well a large part of the film was filmed here and helped put Udaipur on the tourist map. The obvious and most well known location that was used in the film was the Lake Palace Hotel which was Octopussy's island home but other scenes were filmed at the City Palace (Bond's hotel) and it's gardens were used in a hunting scene, Jagmandir Island and the Moonsoon Palace. Various streets were also filmed for the auto-rickshaw chase scene. After you see it the first time, you'll want to try and escape seeing it over and over again in other places you may end up eating in!

The Meera Kala Mandir is devoted to the preservation of traditional dance forms, of which the Bhawai Dance, mentioned by the other VT tips on this subject, is but one of some 30 forms. Here you have You Tube video clips of some of these dances. These many forms represent the wide variety of tribal traditions, thematic stories told through the music, and purposes for which the dance is performed. The Bhawai performance act of dancing while balancing terracota jars on the head is very entertaining indeed. One trick is to balance as many jars as possible with the grand finale being the dancing over glass shards in bare feet. The Mayur dance which is based upon the dialogues of the peacock and peahen is very colorful for the feathered costumes. There are also various sword related dances performed by the men. However, my personal favorite for both beauty and musical skill is the Tera Taal Dance, not so much for the acrobatic balancing of pots, but for the rhythmic use of the tiny cymbal-like manjeeras that are tied to the hands, legs, arms, and shoulders of the colorfully costumed women. The version I saw was much more impressive than the You Tube video clip suggests, with many beautiful women dancing together. The dancing is often performed to live music using traditional instruments. The link to Meera Kala Mandir provided below gives more photos and explanation

Dress Code: Casual clothes OK. Video cams and cameras OK, but I really didn't like the constant flashes during the performance, so please avoid this insult to others in the audience.

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The Dharohar Theatre is one of the places to go to watch Rajasthani traditional dances and puppetry. You are seated around a small entertainment area on mats or benches with dim lighting reflected in the walls. A lady dances with clay pots progressively increasing the number she carries on her head until she has around 9. This is quite common for women in the Thar dessert who carry water in this fashion for some distance.