When I started this post I wrote, "Yesterday, if my cellphone tells the truth, was Friday 16th." That was November. Our schedule was to drive for a few hours, visit a Jain temple and spend the night at Kumbalgarh. It's good to have a plan.
First we willfully modified it by asking our driver, Satish, to take us to a lake a little way off the highway. "No problem" so off we went. He'd never been there before so he stopped at the turn off to ask directions. The car is not equipped with maps. The detour started by following a highway enjoying major renovations and was essentially one long detour using first one lane, then the other and then bumping us across rubble strewn wilderness.
Once off the main drag we travelled on minor roads with one paved lane. Passing other vehicles involves at least one of them driving onto the soft shoulder. The kilometers mounted up. Satish checked with villagers that we still on the right road. Finally we took a right turn and were faced with locked gates. The lake is in the grounds of a large, posh hotel and the hotel didn't want to know us. No-one from the gate house responded to our approach. So the lake and the waterfowl promised by the guide book were denied to us. :-(
Satish didn't exactly retrace his route, so we saw different villages on the way back to the main highway. Fortuitously (or cunningly) he took us through the town of Pali, which boats a large lake not mentioned in the guidebook. He helpfully stopped 2 or 3 times so that we could give the binoculars a workout and identify comb ducks, egrets, pelicans and spoonbills. We also observed a man in a pink turban and a bareheaded boy up to their waists in the muddy water. They were diligently doing something. Eve thinks they were harvesting lotus roots. Please leave your even better guesses as a comment.
This ornithological detour had used up a fair bit of time. The normal hour for lunch came and went and Satish drove on. His custom, when we lunched on the move, was to stop at a posh hotel, which catered for foreigners at very fancy prices. For example, 2 samosas on the train cost us 20 rupees (50 cents). At these tourist traps 2 samosas cost up to 200 rupees. Admittedly they were better cooked and fresher, but not 10 times better. What is going on in the background is that Satish was getting at least a free lunch and probably a cash commission as well. Today Bill got too hungry to wait until Satish could earn himself a commission. "We'll eat here" he commanded.
The eatery I chose was not a truckstop or village snack-a-teria (I am willing enough to eat at such places, but Eve draws the line). It was a modern building with freshly painted signage. Satish could not refuse, so we pulled up and he accompanied us inside. A conversation entirely in Rajasthani ended with us, but not Satish, being ushered away from the other diners into an air-conditioned area. Is this some kind of apartheid?
As we studied the menu, printed in English and the local script - a valuable legacy of the Raj, an Indian family approached the air-conditioned area, pushed open the door and paused. Luckily Eve spotted this and waved them inside. What is it about Europeans that they should be separated?
The food was very good and about a third the price of the places Satish chose for us. Interestingly, when the bill arrived it included Satish's meal. What the heck? We would be paying for it one way or another.
The major attraction of the day was the Jain temples at Ranakpur. What we first noticed was monkeys in the car park. They were grey langurs, lolling on the tarmac and in the shrubbery and, since we appeared to have no food for them, ignoring us completely. Next we noticed that chucking out time was only 45 minutes away. We would have to hurry.
The first small temple, the custodian advised, had erotic carvings. If there was anything terribly rude we didn't find it.
The main temple, Adinatha, is stunning. The guidebook reckons there are 1,444 pillars. They are all carved and all different. The ceilings and arches are carved in great detail.
Shoes must be removed at all temples, but the rule on socks varies. The Ranakpur temple complex is a very holy site and a popular pilgrimage destination. The priests here require visitors to remove their socks. There is no admission fee, but a small charge is levied for a camera. Quite reasonably, they ask that the central part of the temple be used only for worship, and no photography is allowed there. The Jains eschew violence towards all living things, so no leather may be taken in to a temple. Harder to understand is the refusal to admit menstruating women. But that's the rule at every Jain temple we visited.
Each temple is dedicated to one of Jainism's 24 tirthankars, or teachers. Since they all lived long ago and nobody knows what they looked like, they are all represented with the same bland image. Each has a unique symbol painted below the statue to identify which one you are looking at.
It was a terrible shame to have to rush round. The carvings are superb and very varied. However closing time came and we had to leave.
Our itinerary had us lodging at Kumbhalgarh, which didn't seem very far away on the guidebook's map, but we were using slow, minor roads. Evening became night and Satish apologised that we were missing delightful forest scenery. Time passed. Each time we came upon a village we hoped we had arrived, but Satish kept on driving. Eventually we came to a significant town, but this was Kankroli, not Kumbhalgarh. Weaving through traffic as dense as Delhi's, Satish managed a right turn onto a main road. "Not far now". It was about this time that I remembered there was one place where the car-and-driver company had failed to book a hotel (it was still Diwali, when many Indians travel to be with family) and had offered one that was the nearest they could find. Since it was a premium room at the Labhgarh Palace we accepted happily. This after-dark excursion was the result.
When we finally arrived at Labhgarh Palace, it made a great first impression. It seemed to be a modern building rather than a palace converted to a hotel, but the reception personnel were very friendly. "There's a cultural show with a buffet dinner this evening." Sadly, the room lacked any charm, the cultural show was a couple of children dancing to recorded and excessively amplified music. We sat as far away as we could from the speakers and still get a meal.
The first item on the schedule for 17 November was Kumbhalgarh Fort. Did we want to drive all the way back to Kumbhalgarh? No. We'll go straight to Eklinji Temple, which was only a little way back up the highway.
First we willfully modified it by asking our driver, Satish, to take us to a lake a little way off the highway. "No problem" so off we went. He'd never been there before so he stopped at the turn off to ask directions. The car is not equipped with maps. The detour started by following a highway enjoying major renovations and was essentially one long detour using first one lane, then the other and then bumping us across rubble strewn wilderness.
Once off the main drag we travelled on minor roads with one paved lane. Passing other vehicles involves at least one of them driving onto the soft shoulder. The kilometers mounted up. Satish checked with villagers that we still on the right road. Finally we took a right turn and were faced with locked gates. The lake is in the grounds of a large, posh hotel and the hotel didn't want to know us. No-one from the gate house responded to our approach. So the lake and the waterfowl promised by the guide book were denied to us. :-(
Satish didn't exactly retrace his route, so we saw different villages on the way back to the main highway. Fortuitously (or cunningly) he took us through the town of Pali, which boats a large lake not mentioned in the guidebook. He helpfully stopped 2 or 3 times so that we could give the binoculars a workout and identify comb ducks, egrets, pelicans and spoonbills. We also observed a man in a pink turban and a bareheaded boy up to their waists in the muddy water. They were diligently doing something. Eve thinks they were harvesting lotus roots. Please leave your even better guesses as a comment.
What is this man doing?
The eatery I chose was not a truckstop or village snack-a-teria (I am willing enough to eat at such places, but Eve draws the line). It was a modern building with freshly painted signage. Satish could not refuse, so we pulled up and he accompanied us inside. A conversation entirely in Rajasthani ended with us, but not Satish, being ushered away from the other diners into an air-conditioned area. Is this some kind of apartheid?
As we studied the menu, printed in English and the local script - a valuable legacy of the Raj, an Indian family approached the air-conditioned area, pushed open the door and paused. Luckily Eve spotted this and waved them inside. What is it about Europeans that they should be separated?
The food was very good and about a third the price of the places Satish chose for us. Interestingly, when the bill arrived it included Satish's meal. What the heck? We would be paying for it one way or another.
The major attraction of the day was the Jain temples at Ranakpur. What we first noticed was monkeys in the car park. They were grey langurs, lolling on the tarmac and in the shrubbery and, since we appeared to have no food for them, ignoring us completely. Next we noticed that chucking out time was only 45 minutes away. We would have to hurry.
The first small temple, the custodian advised, had erotic carvings. If there was anything terribly rude we didn't find it.
The main temple, Adinatha, is stunning. The guidebook reckons there are 1,444 pillars. They are all carved and all different. The ceilings and arches are carved in great detail.
The exterior is also a mass of decorations:
Each temple is dedicated to one of Jainism's 24 tirthankars, or teachers. Since they all lived long ago and nobody knows what they looked like, they are all represented with the same bland image. Each has a unique symbol painted below the statue to identify which one you are looking at.
It was a terrible shame to have to rush round. The carvings are superb and very varied. However closing time came and we had to leave.
Our itinerary had us lodging at Kumbhalgarh, which didn't seem very far away on the guidebook's map, but we were using slow, minor roads. Evening became night and Satish apologised that we were missing delightful forest scenery. Time passed. Each time we came upon a village we hoped we had arrived, but Satish kept on driving. Eventually we came to a significant town, but this was Kankroli, not Kumbhalgarh. Weaving through traffic as dense as Delhi's, Satish managed a right turn onto a main road. "Not far now". It was about this time that I remembered there was one place where the car-and-driver company had failed to book a hotel (it was still Diwali, when many Indians travel to be with family) and had offered one that was the nearest they could find. Since it was a premium room at the Labhgarh Palace we accepted happily. This after-dark excursion was the result.
When we finally arrived at Labhgarh Palace, it made a great first impression. It seemed to be a modern building rather than a palace converted to a hotel, but the reception personnel were very friendly. "There's a cultural show with a buffet dinner this evening." Sadly, the room lacked any charm, the cultural show was a couple of children dancing to recorded and excessively amplified music. We sat as far away as we could from the speakers and still get a meal.
The first item on the schedule for 17 November was Kumbhalgarh Fort. Did we want to drive all the way back to Kumbhalgarh? No. We'll go straight to Eklinji Temple, which was only a little way back up the highway.
We saw our first elephant! It was
ambling along the highway with its mahout and stopped in Eklinji to scoff some bananas.
In the same village we met a nice
Parisian couple. Bernard had lost his razor so he was keen to have a shave while we waited for the temple to open.
This is quite a posh barbershop. The chair is indoors.
Tariff for a shave - 50 rupees = $1.25
We got on famously with Bernard and Annie. We have already arranged that they will visit us
next year and we will go to Paris in 2014.
The (hindu) temple is dedicated to Siva, the family deity of the Mewars, who ruled locally until Independence. It had several features in common with the Ranakpur complex, but many differences, including that much of it was open to the sky. Photography was not allowed at all.
Many worshippers piled in when the gates opened. We had to queue with them in segregated lines for a brief security check. The temple's popularity has led to railings that require the visitor to follow a set route. This took us into the central chamber and we were relieved to find no reaction to our presence there.
From Eklinji we headed for Udaipur and the usual maelstrom of Indian city traffic. No, it was an unusual maelstrom, because we had to make our way through narrow, mediaeval streets. There is barely room for two donkeys to pass, so cars have major difficulties. We never saw a one-way system in India and we concluded that no-one would pay any attention even if a local council tried it.
We arrived at our hotel in quite early, but our room was ready and we were made welcome. We decided to explore Udaipur on foot, so Satish was given a day and a half off.
The afternoon was mainly spent shopping
in Udaipur, where we found lovely clothes at reasonable prices.
Even though the hotel had a pleasant rooftop restaurant we decided to try dinner in an eatery recommended by one of our guidebooks. We chose one by the lakeside, which served us huge, tasty meals for tiny prices. As he took our order, the waiter asked if we would like a beer. That was a surprise, since it wasn't mentioned on the menu and restaurants within a certain radius of the city's main temple are not permitted to serve alcohol. But we fancied a beer so we said, "Yes, please."
We had to wait until the beer was delivered by motor bike. It was then served in a teapot! Who's serving alcohol without a licence then?
