Udaipur is always a place worth visiting at least once in a lifetime; it has an unbeatable fusion of ethnic cultural lifestyle and nature.

It has multiple lakes, royal palaces, centuries old temples, plenty of gardens, heritage buildings, vast podium of art and architecture, exclusive collections of handicraft items, museums and the list continues.

We are proud of these assets which are gifted by either nature or our forefathers who kept it for us to be proud of it forever. In fact, it is simply a wrong statement to believe.

Instead of just being proud of all these advantages of City of Lakes we should also take care of it with a feeling of “It’s ours”.

Sadly, nobody ever dare to ask any tourist “What do they dislike about Udaipur?”

But we did and found that there is not one or two but tens of problems tourists face in Udaipur, we asked a few of them and here are the excerpts.

We are quite upset by seeing the conditions of city’s gardens. We were told about Sahliyon ki Bari that it has a fountain which reaches to 4-5 meter of height but we found it false.

The air pollution and traffic condition in the city is just awful; people ride their 2-wheelers like racing competition.

Another biggest dislike is cleanliness in interior areas of the city; we literally covered our nose because of foul smell.

Lastly, we found no road lights at tourist spots, like Gangaur Ghat which turns like a haunted place after 7pm.

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There is no night-life here, forget about food anywhere in Udaipur after 11pm. Secondly, the lack of car parking space outside Moti Magri, they have paid parking that too can’t accommodate more than 10 or so cars at one time. People park their vehicle anywhere at Fateh Sagar.

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I am simply disappointed by those tourist guides who followed me constantly even after I said “NO”. I can understand their need of earning but they should not harass a tourist who comes to see the beauty of their city.

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I disliked the local transportation facility in Udaipur, auto rickshaw wallah’s can charge anything they like, those 12 seater autos are just pathetic and there are no local buses for short distance nor is there any point specifically made for buses to stop ( if there are any).

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Udaipur is beautiful and this is our second visit in the last 18 years, but one thing which we wanted to disclose is the attitude of people here which upset us, people here are not at all friendly with tourists, other than tour guides and those who have business depended on tourists.

We don’t want help of any kind but a smiling gesture is what we expect as a tourist.

These are some of the (not to be happy) points we gathered from people who came from faraway places with an expectation to see the beauty, culture and pride of the city which we are so proud of.

Alas! The authorities are always busy excusing or blaming each other while we the locals are hardly bothered about the tourists when we ourselves are struggling to get a better life in Udaipur once listed as one of the most beautiful cities of the world.

Report by Sayeed Ahmed

Special Thanks to Police Officer S.S Ratnao for his assistance and owner of Cafe Edelweiss for all help.