Udaipur - remembering casual racism from James Bond in Octopussy

Sorry to post yet more sunset photos, but I couldn't resist these. If only to mention the bats the size of pterodactyls that you can just about see in the top and bottom one. They were literally about 3ft across.



My expectations of Udaipur were shaped by Octopussy being one of the first Bond films I was aware of. My brother collected crisp packets (often from ashtrays at the cricket club) for an Octopussy wrist watch with James Bond theme tune alarm. I'd love one of those now. Swatch missed a trick with their new line of Bond watches.
A big chunck of Octopussy was filmed here, and the camp classic is cram full of Indian cliches that my still child-like brain has found hard to dispel; "That oughta keep you in curry for a while!"

From our comically un backpacker like hotel (see Nic on the rooftop restaurant above) we could see not only Octopussy's lycra catsuit clad female only lair, the Floating Palace, but the Monsoon Palace where the bad guy Kamal Khan lives

The Lake Palace, now a plush hotelThe Monsoon PalaceThe years have been harsh on this lady from the Octopussy cult. Even Bond girls get old

Every single shop or hotel or restaurant has some kind of Octopussy reference to sell itself, and the film is shown at 7pm every night in every guesthouse.

Some temple or other (sorry, have got a bit templed out)

Our 5 time daily chai fix being delivered

The clock tower and a rank of rickshaws ready to quote ridiculous fares to goras

Udaipur is heralded as India's most romantic city, and I can see why because the winding streets of white washed buildings really are beautiful. It feels like a Mediterranean citadel a lot of the time, except that there are random sacred cows blocking traffic, sadhus wandering around and streets of brightly coloured saris, and people doing their washing on the banks of the lake





We visited Vijay at his Spice Shop and signed up for a days cookery lessons. Vijay hadn't got rid of the tracksuit he had from his days as the all India swim champ, sported a cheeky moustache that he only had because 'foreigners are scared of me when i have a beard' (I saw a photo of him with luxuriant beard and it was indeed menacing) and although proud of his shop and cooking enterprise would rather have been a policeman like his father and his father before him, but he was too short for the entry requirement of 5'8". He was small even by Indian standards. Nicky dwarfed him.
We also took some sitar and tabla lessons, from which our fingers have still not quite recovered. I was OK at the sitar, I suppose plucking at a single string isn't too complex, but proved once and for all that I have inherited my fathers lack of rhythm and couldnt match Nic's tabla playing skills.

Oops, another sunset shot...