Udaipur - The making of "Octopussy"

That's right, Octopussy was filmed in in the wondrous city of Udaipur. That is, the James Bond movie Octopussy. If you thought it was any other kind of film, maybe you should consider a little more diversity in your movie collection. Anyway, we have yet to see the film, but much of Udaipur is featured, with the Lake Palace pictured in the previous post playing a central role. But enough of that, let's go for a little tour!

The queen entering her palace. Note the "no trumpet" sign. Which actually means no car horn. But the "more cowbell" sign is just beyond the gate.

Inside the City Palace, there are walls. Like this one. The palace was actually built by three different maharajas. Because of this, there are noticable differences in the various stages of the palace, although they are all constructed in a style typical of other Rajasthani palaces.

Near the City Palace was a temple with detailed carving similar to what we had seen earlier in our trip at the Jain temples at the Ellora Caves. The Jagdish Temple is an Indo-Aryan temple built in 1651 and contains a black stone image of Vishnu.

Next, we took a quick hike up the Great Wall of China! Wait, that's not right. It's actually the Not-So-Great-Wall-of-India. And we didn't hike it; we took a cable car ride up to the summit.

This is the view from the top. As you can see, Udaipur is a small town. Its population is about a half million people.

We can't believe the lengths people will go to get cable TV these days.

A serene sunset over Lake Pichola. The maharaja who founded Udaipur actually flooded one of the nearby villages to expand the lake. It often dries up, however, and while we were visiting the water level was extremely low. We considered "Jesus-ing" it to the Lake Palace. But we figured we already get enough attention as foreigners.

While walking back through the palace grounds after sunset, we came across a sound and light show that is held there every evening and explains the city's history. The romantic sights and sounds of Udaipur marked the end to our tour of Rajasthan.