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<\/a><\/p>\nBy 6:30, we had mounted out bikes and set off on a sunrise trek through Udaipur and around a nearby lake.<\/p>\n
It was dark and the streets were uneven, and although early there were still a few tuck tucks and motorbikes careening through the streets. Precarious and scary, especially since I haven\u2019t ridden a bike in decades. I had a really hard time with the gears but eventually it mostly\u2026 kinda\u2026. sorta came back to me.\u00a0 It go a little easier once dawn broke as at least then I could mostly… kinda\u2026 sorta see where I was riding.<\/p>\n We took our time appreciating the sights and views of the area\u2026 and riding through water buffalo was an experience to be sure.<\/p>\n With the sun risen we headed to a local coffee shop to grab a 5 rupee chai masala (which is\u2026 what? Seven cents?). I snapped a photo with our guide \u2026 who\u2019s name is\u2026 oh, man\u2026 this is embarrassing. Wait! We traded Instagram handles \u2013 Devvrat! Phew. I\u2019m terrible with names and because I am writing this several days after the fact the details are fuzzier and already fading. This is why I like to write down as much as possible as soon as possible for these blog posts\u2026 but sometimes I feel like I\u2019m too busy documenting and not focused enough on living, ya know?<\/p>\n Like a lot of places in India… and frankly the world… I am constantly astonished at the amount of trash that gets left behind by we humans… nature is all too often spoiled by our actions.<\/p>\n Having returned to the hotel and having been welcomed back by Milo, we returned our bikes and prepped for a Katie-guided walking tour of Udaipur.<\/p>\n First stop: The City Palace<\/strong>, where construction began in 1553 and continued through various heads of the Mewar dynasty for over 400 years.\u00a0 And here I thought I had trouble with contractors.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Is it common and gauche that perhaps the most impressive thing I saw here were props from the movie Gandhi?\u00a0 I had just seen the movie after all.<\/p>\n Not to detract from the architecture, just that, ya know — Ben Kingsley’s glasses!<\/p>\n Second Stop: A Boat Tour to Jag Mandir<\/strong>!<\/p>\n Boating past the abandoned and left to rot Lake Palace (which was still stunning to see even in a dilapidated state), we were ferried over to the Jag Mandir, a palace on Lake Pichola but that instead of just floating on its own in the water was built on a small island.<\/p>\n It only took about 100 years to build in the early-1500s and was used as a summer palace and a, ahem, pleasure palace for the royal family.<\/p>\n Back in Udaipur proper, we were walking back to the hotel to regroup when we happened upon the third “classic” stop in town: The Jagdish Temple<\/strong>.\u00a0 It’s an impressively imposing structure that featured, ahem, unpaid guides who after guiding you around the double-storey Mandapa (hall) to a double-storey saandhara (with a covered ambulatory) sanctum, would then “guide” you to their shop and to the donation box.<\/p>\n And because when compiling a list of “to dos” my brother long ago wisely told me to put “have lunch” on there as an easy one to check, we went to a non-gluten friendly place at Katie’s direction: the Yummy Yoga. My stomach was a bit overwhelmed by the cooking class the previous evening so I opted for one of the lamer meals imaginable \u2013 an order of French fries (known here I guess as “finger fries”) and a Coke Zero. Sometimes being the cautious American traveler is the better part of stomach valor.<\/p>\n While Katie shopped, I endeavored to upload photos and stories to here\u2026 and it proved frustratingly unsuccessful. So now after I\u2019ve written it in a car days later, you\u2019re reading it days removed from that.<\/p>\n Time and blogging are fickle mistresses… but I do try and satisfy them when I can.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At 6:15 AM we met Milo. He\u2019s a beagle. He lives at the hotel and his human runs it. He runs the human. By 6:30, we had mounted out bikes and set off on a sunrise trek through Udaipur and around a nearby lake. It was dark and the streets were uneven, and although early […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36380\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a>\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a>\u00a0 <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a>\u00a0 <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n