Udaipur in Rajasthan

After killing 2 hours at Victoria station in Mumbai waiting for the 8:25 night train to Ahmedabad, I realized at 8pm that my train was actually leaving from Mumbai Central Station. Ah! Run! I jumped in a taxi and missed my train by 5 minutes. The ticket (low class non-AC sleeper) was only 245 rupees, and they refunded half, but the next train to Ahmedabad departing at 10pm was booked solid except for the 1AC, high class sleeper for 1500 rupees. I decided against chancing it, where you hope to get a seat once on board in lieu of spending the night in-between wagons next to the toilet, so I paid and got the fancy ass sleeper car with AC, sheets, a blanket and an electrical outlet. It was unecessary, and boring compared to the colorful saree ladies' coach, but interesting to see how the other half live. The AC was too cold, then cut out in the middle of the night, then came back on strong. 3 men in the compartment snoring. I got little sleep.
I walked around Ahmedabad when we arrived at 6:30am, before the chaotic traffic started. There was way more garbage and filth in the street than in most Indian cities. I got on a "luxury" bus to Udaipur at 8:30am. Again, the higher class transport option did not deliver anything better. Like the clunky, fun public buses, this one also had no AC. It had half sleeper compartments and half seats, which were bigger but less clean than the public ones. I would have prefered to lay down and stretch out, but I realized quickly that each twin sleeper bunk fits a family of 4 to 5 people. The luxury bus is also a target for water and snack vendors who board the bus at every stop, yelling and waiving bottles of unlabeled, wrinkled, refilled with tap water in your face. People in the uppet deck can spit out the window and the spray get you down below, wheras only the beetle nit chewing men spit from tje public bus, and they just lean over you and spit down tidily.
In Udaipur, I took a tuk tuk to the footbridge and was happy to see that this city was worth the journey. Narrow, meandering streets and hidden walkways, and old white washed masonry houses cobbled together. Pastels of yellow, blue, pink, turquoise and green are a delightful backdrop for the immense Palace, which I'll visit tomorrow on an early walking tour. Udaipur is small, so I'll likely leave tomorrow night for Jodpur, the blue city, where I'll stay put for the Holi color throwing festival on Wednesday.