Yup! Our very own Venice of the East dethroned last year’s winner – Bangkok to become the World’s Best City for Travellers 2009. Fortunately, this was declared around the same time when my company was finalizing the location for our annual conference, so between 20-23 July I was visiting this beautiful city.

First impressions
The recently renovated Maharana Pratap Airport is sleek, neat and quite efficient. It was nice to see that though the terminal was newly constructed, the authorities had not let ‘terror-paranoia’ affect their judgment, and there remained a modern ‘Visitor’s Gallery’ with a scenic view of the two runways. 

The Trident, Udaipur is located 27 km away from the airport, and is on the banks of the famous, but quite dry this season – Lake Pichola. The verdant surroundings, beautiful weather can sure make one forget that the inhospitable Thar Desert lies in the same state!

The Trident, as expected, was grand and overwhelming. Though it’s a business hotel, the architecture in keeping with the traditional style of Mewar, resembles a Rajputana Palace.

The evening before departure
That was the only window available to explore any part of Udaipur. As luck would have it, a mela had been organized in the city and all major roads had been blocked from vehicular traffic. Two colleagues of mine, Tina & Tashi, and I didn’t want to squander this opportunity to get a glimpse of the city, hence we hailed a local auto and were soon on our way.
To beat the road blocks, our sensible auto-wallah took us towards the city through some narrow gullies and narrower bridges.  Foreign tourists, local residents, cows and small vehicles all squeezed their way around the little curio shops and busy internet cafes. Our auto-wallah, turning out to be quite an informed fellow, revealed that most of the clothes that were sold at these little shops were made out of old clothes or chindis, bought mainly by foreigners; margins often exceeded 200-300%!

Driving along the Fateh Sagar Lake, we wanted to reach the old city to shop for some Bandhani & Lehariya work before sun down.

We had as much as given up on visiting any monuments or tourist attractions because of the road restrictions and the late hour that we had ventured out, but we were in for a grand surprise!

Luck
No, I am not referring to the latest Imran Khan & Shruti Hassan starrer; I am referring to that inexplicable, off-chance that makes your trip memorable. Sometimes it is finding a great dhaba on a rainy, long drive, it could be some perfect weather or good lighting that helps your photography, or a quick-moving queue when u visit the Taj (the real thing, not the hotel) on a weekend.

For the three of us, that evening,  it was finding ourselves here!

The gentleman on the ticket is Shriji Arvind Singh Mewar with the Phantom II Rolls Royce that was featured in the bond Movie ‘Octopussy’ that released in 1983. This museum is actually the garage of the royal family of Udaipur, and houses twenty vintage vehicles. Some of the best pics of that evening will now follow. Soak in the splendor of these vehicles and the opulence of the Maharaja lifestyle. Life really couldn’t get any better than this!

This is the royal coat of arms. Notice the sun above the two figures. The rulers of this place are considered to be ‘suryavanshi’. Loosely translated, it means, descendants of the Sun God.

Notice both the ‘R’s in the logo to the left are black in color. The original logo had both the letters in red. Apparently, after the death of one of the founders Charles Rolls (died on 12, July 1910 in a flying accident), one of the letter R’s in the logo was made black. The remaining one was colored black in 1933 after the death of Henry Royce. Queen Elizabeth and Jacqueline Kennedy sat in this vehicle when they visited India.

Under the hood!

This one had two red R’s in the logo. And was manufactured in 1924. Wonder if the tale is true?! I loved this one too; it won the ‘Best Maintained Car’ at one of the vintage car shows in Bombay.

Now for some American muscle.

Wish she was mine. I usually do not gush over a car/bike/plane/helicopter. But this one really stole my heart!  Check out the black and white wheels too.

Tina caught between the two Mr. Morris’s!

I’m a gangsta - straight from flicks of the ’60’s!

...and to wrap ‘em up >>

The royal family today uses a few Mercs, Audis, etc. But nothing that beats these beauties!

Still mesmerized.
Namrata