Bizarre Udaipur Love Triangle

I don't know what to write about Udaipur. Like so many places that I visit there are so many strange things that happened that I can't possibly include them all in my blog. Let's just say that Udaipur had a lot of fun and weirdness going on.

In Udaipur...

There was the nicest hotel I have stayed in on this entire trip - Haveli Jaiwana - with clean, cheap rooms, nice staff and a rooftop restaurant overlooking the lake and the lake palace. There was a four day festival with fireworks over the lake every night. There was a cooking class where I learned to cook my favourite Indian foods. There was a strange, overly intimate massage that involved a woman rubbing my ass, armpit and boob (yes, boob). There was a palm reading that predicted that I will live a long healthy life, will always have lots of money, will start my own business at age 37, will meet my husband (a Canadian Taurus or Sagittarius - so specific) "sometime around September when I think you finish your trip" and that I will have three children, my first at age 33.

And there was an insane wedding proposal...actually several proposals...from the same guy.

Monty. Poor Monty. Monty should never have asked me to go for a drive around the lake. I would never have accepted if I knew what was in store. I fear that I made Monty's life miserable.

Monty was a nice 25-year-old from Udaipur who worked at the front desk of the hotel. I agreed to go for a motorcycle drive with Monty on my second day. This was probably a mistake. After about 15 minutes of driving along the gorgeous lake, Monty wanted to know if I thought that anyone at the hotel was "special". I said no. He quizzed me on my views of marrying foreign men. I told him that I don't plan on dating or marrying anyone from India. He asked if I was a "nice girl", which I told him I was (whatever that means). He finally told me that he had decided that he liked me a lot and that he wanted to marry me. Apparently 15 minutes with one person is long enough for an Indian to decide that he wants to marry her. I, of course, said no.

Monty didn't seem phased by my initial rejection. It seemed to only spur him on to pull out all the stops. He took me on a romantic drive around the lake. He took me for sugar cane juice at his favourite shop. He took me for lunch at his friend's garden restaurant. Every two seconds he told me he liked me and asked why I didn't like him back. I tried to change the subejct but he was damn persistent. After being rejected over and over and over again, Monty was on the verge of tears by the end of the afternoon.

Dejected, Monty lamented to his friend at the restaurant that I didn't want to marry him. There were many dramatic sighs, hand gestures and tossing of his head onto the table. His friend too was depressed because he was getting married to a woman he had only met for two minutes (an arranged marriage) and could not marry his true love, his secret girlfriend from another caste. All over India I meet men who are destined to break it off with their "true love" marry someone they have met for about 5 minutes. So I guess that spending an afternoon with a relative stranger is more than enough time for an Indian man to decide he wants to spend his life with her.

Dropping me off at the hotel, Monty made a last plea for my hand in marriage. Rebuffed, he tried his last ditch effort of, "Ok fine. No marriage. Just kiss. One kiss." After a solid "no" in response to Monty's request for a kiss, he literally looked like he was going to burst into tears. For the next three days he moped around the hotel and refused to talk to me. The staff tormented him further by persistently teasing him, and asking me "What did you do to poor Monty?", which didn't help. Every time I entered the room he would turn away from me and stalk out of the room in the most dramatic fashion.

My last day he insisted on taking me out for dinner to make it up to me with promises of no more talk of weddings. Once we were out it was obvious that he was trying a new tactic, which involved trying to get me drunk (like I haven't learned that one yet!). In the end, he only succeeded in getting himself drunk, which, in turn, lead to further torment, drama and sloppy wedding proposals.

So to all my single female friends - of which there are only a handful that now remain - I have a nice Indian boy that I would like to set you up with. His name is Monty and I think that you two would be perfect for each other. Any takers?