On the night flight to Udaipur I gazed out the darkened window and reflected on my journey through India from low caste rail car to high caste plane. I had wanted to be a traveler, living and breathing the country, exploring it alone, the hard way, to feel and experience the very innards of it. But I had transitioned to pilgrim traveler as a pseudo-tourist on large buses led around by someone with an organized-for-India itinerary. And that was okay. That was more than okay. The Buddhist pilgrimage was an incredible experience, a gift, an unexpected jewel discovered in the nation’s armpit, in the dirt and stench of Delhi. And then with Steve I became a full blown tourist – the kind the Indians

love. We were gullible and easy to scam with the Rajasthan tourist camp tent in Pushkar. We would neglect to barter and to bargain for the auto-rickshaws and taxi and hotel rooms as if stingily quibbling over nothing when to them it is their culture, their traditional way to do business. They respect their system of trade and I think they disrespect the foreigners who don’t, as if they are too weak or too stupid. Although they may give you a theatrical disgruntled look or a pout, and of course are not happy that they are not getting the extra money, they esteem the hard bargain, the foreigners who know the system within the system, the two tiered prices they quote – one for tourists and one for locals. And with Steve I stayed in nicer touristy hotels like the Mughal Sheraton in Agra and the classy Pushkar Palace. These places came with all the fringe benefits of tourism – bellboys that expected tips and jacked up prices for everything from postal stamps to bottled water for five times the going rate just outside the hotel door at a kiosk. But the food in those fancy hotel restaurants was a relief – safe to eat salad and fruit. And for the extra expense the agent at the travel desk would facilitate sight-seeing tours and taxis and onward tickets – with a hefty commission paid for making life easier, for being able to avoid the world of untouchables and touts in the streets. I was thankful, really, to have the whole range of experience, working my way through the rail and bus and rickshaw systems to the long distance taxis and airplanes, from the six dollar a night guest houses to the over one hundred dollar hotel rooms of the more financially fortunate. I’d had the experience of a lone woman traveler, of being with a group of friends, of traveling with a lover to some of the most romantic places in India, like Udaipur, the city into which we were flying.

Steve and I had made a plan. From the guide books we had picked out two or three hotels in the area where we wanted to stay, all near each other within walking distance. We would tell the taxi driver to take us to one, look at a few rooms, see what was available, and go from there. But in the airport there was a travel desk with a sign that said they would help people make hotel arrangements. While I was getting the luggage, Steve had the man at the counter call our number one picked hotel, and they had a room, and they reserved it for us. And then they wanted 500 rupees, twenty percent of the cost of the room. That was their commission for less than two minutes of work. We had picked the hotel without their help and we were already on our way there. It’s another sucker trap in India for tourists. There was no need for the service. We just generously stopped by their booth and gave them ten dollars on our way through the airport for nothing. Ten dollars is a lot of money in India. You can live on ten dollars a day – food and lodging and travel expenses - if you try. But it worked out okay. We found a room at our second choice place in the guide book for a better price (as the first had been increased the 500 rupees to pay the travel desk agency). And Steve actually got a refund on his “down payment” for the room, which really surprised me.

Our room in Udaipur was fantastic. It was a suite with a super large bathroom with a usable clean tub and a bedroom with a domed ceiling and a window seat jutting out over Lake Pichola replete with cushioned seats to watch the sun set over the hills beyond the famous floating Lake Palace. Not that it actually floats, the large white palace turned five star hotel is built on an entire small island, appearing to be in the lake, suspended in water. So dramatic, so enchanting and romantic, the palace and Udaipur with it had been the site of the filming of the 1980’s James Bond movie, Octopussy. The movie was played every night in most of the local restaurants so we could view on TV those places we were seeing from the rooftops as we dined by the water – the floating Lake Palace, the Monsoon Palace high on a mountain above the clouds, the City Palace and ghats. I bought a traditional blue batik sari at one of the open air shops in town and as I was paying the owner handed me a booklet on Udaipur in which was his smiling face and that of his two proud brothers. The caption stated that they were the outfitters for many on the movie set of Octopussy.

Steve and I also tried to do some shopping at Rajasthali, the Rajasthan government’s “fixed price” store mentioned in the guide book as a good place to go to get an idea of what is fair market price for all the stuff seen down in the bazaars. That turned out to be a classic India fiasco. A well dressed and well spoken tour guide with a badge for the City Palace overheard us tell a rickshaw driver where we wanted to go. And he, as a friendly gentleman acting as a host in his country, would let us in on the scam that it was just another tourist place with high prices and not such nice stuff. And, of course, he would help us. He would tell the driver to take us to a nice place. I thought it might actually be for real until he jumped into the auto-rickshaw with us at the last minute. He wanted to make sure the owners of the shop would see him so that he could get his commission, his cut for leading the lambs to the door. We left without buying. But then, of course, the next rickshaw driver just could not seem to understand our English very well, that we wanted Rajasthali, the government shop in Chetak Circle. He took us to Rajasthali Arts further away, waving at the man on the upstairs balcony when we approached so they would know it was him that was leading the lambs that time. Not sure at first if it was the right place or not in the confusing streets of India, we left without buying, eventually convinced it was a knock-off copy shop complete with a sign that said “fixed price” prominently displayed to convince tourists they were at the government shop. Leaving we noticed the same rickshaw driver, circling back around, hoping to come back for a pocketful of suckered tourist cash. Getting wise, we told the next rickshaw driver that we wanted to go to Chetak Circle, then found the government shop ourselves. It was a bit of a disappointment after all of that as the selection was limited, but the prices were fair and the Indian couple working there seemed honest. I bought my traditional Indian ankle bracelets there with tinkling bells – and chose to believe they were actually made of real silver. “It’s a government shop, madam.”

Along with shopping in Udaipur we visited all the touristy places. We took a boat out onto Lake Pichola for breakfast at the five star restaurant at the Lake Palace. On arrival we were greeted on the steps by the water by two beautiful Indian women in sarees dropping flower petals at our feet as we walked up on the rolled out red carpet. Breakfast was fantastic and we strolled around the gardens and peeked in at the fancy hotel rooms. There was another boat also, a tour boat that went all along the lake shore that we took, visiting the smaller island in the middle of the lake as well, the one a maharana had been exiled onto for several years from which he led a revolt against his father. Steve went up to the Monsoon Palace and loved the monkeys and seeing where some of the scenes from Octopussy had been filmed.

At the City Palace we paid for a tour guide to give us the colorful history. He pointed out much of it on the large paintings decorating many of the walls. Before cameras there was painting and each one would depict a certain battle or ceremony or some event from history they felt needed to be captured for posterity. He asked how many brown bears were on one, and there were five bears but they represented just a single bear during different phases of his hunting and killing. We ducked our heads going through the tiny doorways. He pointed out that these were not because his ancestors were short but because the enemy would have to duck if invading the castle, slowing down their charge through the narrow hallways designed as such to force invaders to come in single file. We also heard the story of the beautiful princess who took her own life by swallowing a diamond ring. Her father had commissioned the artists to paint the entire story all over her bedroom walls. Two princes, one from Jodhpur and one from Jaipur, had shown up to marry this most beautiful of princesses on the same day. They had brought their armies and were prepared to wage a battle between the two for her hand. Rather than live with the guilt of knowing that men had lost their lives in a battle over who she would marry she took the ring from her finger and swallowed it, killing herself. And, of course, there was the painting depicting the famous battle in which the white horse, Chetak, saved the maharana. The horse now represents Udaipur in Rajasthan and is a symbol of strength.

I took my turn at a sick day while in Udaipur. I guess I got cocky and a little braver with the menu, thinking how well I had done over five or six weeks not getting the travelers diarrhea. I lost a whole day between the comfy bed under the dome and that big nice bathroom. I was tired of rice anyway, then, after throwing it up, I don’t care if I ever eat rice again….

And so I was ready to go home. Our flight left from Udaipur at 8:20 at night and took two hours to get to Bombay. We hung out at the almost western airport until our morning flight at 5:55 am and then boarded to wait another one hour while they unloaded all the bags from the storage beneath the plane. It seemed someone had checked in a bag that didn’t belong to a real passenger. Then in London after the ten hour flight we were supposed to de-plane for one hour for cleaning and refueling, a chance to stretch our legs some. They wouldn’t let us off. Agents came on and checked all the on board luggage and our boarding passes and even made everyone pull out their passports. We spent that whole hour on the plane too before taking off for our eight and a half hour flight to Chicago.