Udaipur Warnings Or Dangers

You might experience some shortish powercuts whilst staying in India. However, be warned that Udaipur, and a lot of other places in Rajasthan, have daily powercuts that last a couple of hours. Udaipur's last 2 hours between 9am and 11am. I never quite understood the reason behind them so if anyone can shed some light on it then let me know!

3 more images

Considering all that's done with the water, I would not recommend drinking or swimming in the lakes around Udaipur. I saw soap suds, fabric dyes, and plenty of floating garbage, among other things that certainly pollute the water. So, nevermind the water sports here, simply enjoy the romantic views, particulary at dusk. There is incidentally, some effort to clean up the lakes, but given the pressure of population and the manner in which these bodies of water are used, I think it will be some time before the environment can be fully restored. At least there are unlikely to be really serious toxic chemicals as is found in some lakes within the USA and Europe.

It may seem amusing at first, but these guys can quickly steal your lunch, and maybe even your wallet. We saw people feeding the monkeys, usually with a savy driver who carried a stick, as in the photo below. But, my wife was beginning to eat a sandwich near the car when suddenly a monkey jumped on her, took the sandwich, and then disappeared.

We travelled through Rajasthan during summer - completely off-season. That is nice because there are less tourists around, but this has its reasons of course! The HEAT of the Thar desert! We measured above 46 degrees Celsius, even one room reached 39 degrees in late evening (the upper floor of a sandstone building turned into an oven - thats why you see many Indians sleeping outside on the roof, which is cooler than indise).
Ok, so rule number one was drinking lots of water, just like camels do.
But still we suffered from heat pimples like Omed documented on this picture. But we also saw Indians with the same symptoms. Scary picture!

This is a very big problem in Pushkar, moreover in the Gaths area or in the old city part.
Everyone will offer you every kind of drugs, simply avoid them and there will be no problem.
There is no reason to get worried about that...simply take it easy...

If there is one thing you have to learn as quick as possible is this: Bargain! Regaurding whatever, from stuff, to food, to drinks. When somebody is asking 100, you gotta pay not more then 30!
There are only few items that has a fix prices, like BIRI, which costs 5Rs!!!

It happends a very strange thing to me.
I book a bus ticket for the route and I paid normally the rate.
Once we were dropping on the bus, the man told us “you do have to pay for looking forward your bags”…and what tha hell does it mean?!
So, despite the normal rate they will ask you for some Rupee for looking forward your bags…When this will happen, DO NOT pay anything and go stra8 to the manager, he will settle the matter…

Since Udaipur is is full of Tourists during Oct-March, its better to have Hotel Reservation, well in advance. BUT Beware of Big Travel Agents as they might mislead to bad Hotels at outrightly wrong prices.