Woke up early, dressed, kept our bags ready. Removed some dirty clothes for laundry as we were returning here again tomorrow after an overnight trip to Banswara and Dungarpur.
9.00 am - Had breakfast and paid for for the room - Rs 1500 and left the laundry to be picked up on our return. We had already paid for the food as and when we ate it.
9.30 am - Left Hotel Raj Palace for Banswara.
9.52 am - Exited Udaipur. Talked with Asha Hansraj for about 10 minutes confirming our plans for Tina's wedding.
10.42 am - Reached JaiSamand Lake. Needed a cup of tea, but took a boat ride first. Paid Rs 100 total for the ride of about 1/2 an hour. It was a nice, the boat was old and one could see all the uncovered machine parts. Took some pictures of the surroundings and the inside of the boat with its driver. Some urchins were selling fish food and Pavan paid them to feed the fish so he could take some pictures. The fish were ugly and brown, so except for the wavy water nothing is visible in the photos. Sarawan meanwhile asked a chaiwala to make tea for us, as I did not have any change, Sarawan Singh insisted on treating me to tea (Rs 5 each) - it was very sweet but very nice. I thought it may not be a bad idea using the facilities in a nearby hotel. The toilets there were so bad, and the guy wanted me to pay him to use them. Needless to clarify, I did not use the facility there but made a note of reporting it yet again - Rajasthan authorities really need to look into creating public faclilites for tourists in order to keep them coming.
11.20 am - Left JaiSamand Lake. Talked with Asha Kastia - nee Thakkar. She wanted to come and visit us in Mt Abu, Ahmedabad is only about 4 hours drive to Mt Abu.
Banswara is our 22nd District.
1.45 pm - Stopped for lunch at Banswara Dining Hall, a rest station on the highway. Ordered Daal, Bundi Raita, Methi Palak, Jeera Aloo and rotis, papad etc. Saravan also ordered for himself and we told the waiter to add his bill to ours. We paid Rs 236 + tip. Sarawan Singh was by now getting used to our ways. Pavan tipped him Rs 100 daily and wherever he did not get free food, we paid for him. He did not get enough from the hotel to buy the goodies, just the basics.
2.15 pm - Left Banswara Dining hall.
2.30 pm - Reached Dailab Lake. This was great place, and we had not read about it (although we had printed literature with us).
2.50 pm - Left Dailab lake.
3.10 pm - Reached Abdulla Pir. We wanted to see the Pir from inside and were very cordially invited inside by the Priest. He gave us a tour and explained in details about the significance of this monument. He also showed us some future site plans for Dargah complex.
3.30 pm - Left Abdulla Pir. As we were leaving the gates to this dargah, I saw a very friendly and attractive fruit seller, who was very gracious in allowing me take her pictures. I paid her Rs 20 after the photo shoot.
3.37 pm - Left Banswara for Dungarpur.
Dungarpur is our 23rd District.
6.45 pm - Reached Dungarpur and went to Udai Bilas Palace. This was the recommended place to stay overnight. But the staff there was quite unprofessional, it was not the rate of Rs 3850 + tax, but the attitude that clearly put us off. We decided to stay anywhere but here. Sure, the Palace must be very nice as it had a lake front veranda, but they really need some Hotel Management Graduates who know what customer service is!
So, we tried some budget hotels on the market street, they were all quite bad. First one we went to was priced at Rs 125, and they recommended Hotel Dave down the street. We stopped by a local store and asked them to recommend some decent hotel in the vicinity. They also recommended Hotel Dave...we could not see any Hotel Dave, then we spotted Hotel The Way!!!!
Wow, creative.
We went to check their rooms, quite bad, and the rate was Rs 500 for an AC room and Rs 250 for a non AC...we took an AC room and also checked out a room for Sarawan Singh for Rs 100 - subject to getting clean sheets for all. The sheets HAD to be changed as they looked used, so they brought me some clean sheets and pillow covers. They had no towels till next morning, but fortunately we had one towel and a napkin which we preferred to use anyways. After we made ourselves comfortable, we decided to go out and get something to eat. I had seen a restaurant called Sagar when we were driving in. But after going out, we decided to go and check other places in the neighborhood. We were basically looking to get some soup and sandwiches, or find a grocery store for bread, butter and some soup packets. We did locate "Food Plaza" where we not only found bread and butter but they also had a restaurant in the back. We ordered tomato soup and vegetable sandwiches, plus a bottle of mineral water (Rs 12). We also found a vegetable vendor from whom we bought a couple of tomatoes for next mornings breakfast. We walked around some more because we wanted to buy a knife ( to slice tomatoes), some chaat masala to substitute salt and pepper. We borrowed a steel plate from the restaurant below the hotel to be returned next morning.
I was carrying a pomegranate which I peeled and we ate, which was very refreshing after a shower. We were learning to make the best of any situation. The room looks so much better after all the changes made to it. I just asked them for the clean set of sheets but made the bed myself.
Made some tea.
We argued that night about attending the wedding in Ghaziabad on 13th and 14th. Pavan wanted to attend and I did not :-)......I would rather see more of Rajasthan and not cut short our trip.
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