My day starts off with aloo parotha (potato stuffed Indian bread) and a sweet lassi. Sometimes i sub for eggs. Ale is not a breakfast person, so I get to enjoy myself alone on the rooftop. Well, with some other hotel guests. It's so peaceful up there and the view of Udaipur is so beautiful. I have moved to the floor tables, where I get to lounge on mats while delicately taking bites of my aloo parotha. It's a mix of sunny with a cool breeze.
During our shopping expeditions, we often get complimentary chai (-a tactic they use to guilt us into buying something. It works.) We've made a handful of shopkeeper friends. The trustworthy ones teach us how to figure out the cheats. I always use my go-to "is this hand done?" On an obviously machine done shawl. We were also taught that the liar pashmina sellers tell you the pashmina comes from the scruff of the neck (they do this little hand movement on their neck), so I also like to ask "what is pashmina?"
Everyone here looks at Ale strangely. She looks North Indian, though she is from Venezuela, but dresses like a tourist. They always look at her and ask "Hindi?" Or "you Indian?" One of our shopkeepers actually thinks she is Indian and that her name is Vanetta. He gives us Indian prices. And we help him sell his clothes. It's more like we hang out there when our clothes are being tailored, as his uncle tailors some of the clothes we buy, so while we wait the 30 minutes for it to be done, we drink chai in his shop and sit on little stools. We have noticed the shops attract more buyers when there are happy looking tourists inside the shop already. Our shopkeeper friend has taught us a lot about which tourists get which prices. Ale bought a dress from him for 220. He sold it to another lady for 450. I bought a dress for 600, he started at 1200 with another lady. When you show too much interest in a product, they won't go down. As soon as you leave a store saying "too much", the best price suddenly drops down.
In another shop, while drinking chai and buying tapestries we didn't intend to buy (but they were so pretty!), the shopkeeper even offered us a shot of whiskey. We told him we don't like whiskey, but actually could use some rum since our hotel only has whiskey and beer. We drank our chai as we waited for our shop delivery of rum. It was unopened, don't worry, and we enjoyed it in our drinks with dinner last night.
We went to The City Palace two days ago and took a boat ride to view the Lake Palace up closer (of course we couldn't go in, since they don't take casual lunch reservations) and then got to go to the other island to see the gardens and another hotel. I believe this used to be the Mahara's garden island. We took a tour of the palace on mainland and got to enjoy using all Ale's different lenses to get some beautiful shots.
We will be leaving at 530 tonight to go on a sleeper bus to Jaisalmer, a city built inside a fort. We will be staying for 3 nights there. We plan to do some Camel riding through the desert. Other than that, we have just been living the good life.
Pic: sipping chai in our rum-buying shop.
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