India Memories, Part Five.

Western Rajasthan – Jodhpur and Jaisalmer

10. Magnificent Fort and Museum

Sprawled across the ridge above the blue city of Jodhpur, the mighty Merangarh Fort imposes itself upon the city from almost every tangled street or alley. We have a great view from the rooftop of our guest house and in the early morning our view includes people sleeping on their flat roof tops to escape the stifling heat and watching an early riser completing her morning exercises.

The fort appears to grow out of the basalt rock it was chiselled from and its 10 kilometre long wall includes battlements up to 36 metres high. We try to beat the heat by climbing the side of the hill as early as possible. Unfortunately we can’t enter even the outer walls until the official opening time so we have plenty of time to admire the fort towering above us before we can escape to the shade created by the thick walls. There are several sharp turns along the entrance route, obviously designed to slow attackers and provide plenty of opportunities for defence.

While entrance to the fort is free there is an entry fee for admittance to the fort museum and it includes an audio guide which helps bring alive the history of the place and tells stories about the people who inhabited it. Splendidly outfitted guards direct us through the rooms adorned with art works, weapons and household items as well as rooms filled with mirrors and luxurious fittings.

It is the buildings themselves though which provide the finest details of the workmanship with stone-lattice work so finely carved that it often looks more like sandalwood than sandstone.

The city sprawls below the fort and many of the buildings in the old city are painted Brahmin-blue. The colour used to be restricted to those of the Brahmin caste but can be used by anybody now. It reputedly helps deter insects. After several hours of wandering through the fort we descend to the city, the descent is much easier than the climb up, in search of a good cup of coffee.

We find it in a pleasant coffee shop beside a magnificent step well. unusually, the water is quite clear and consequently it is popular with the young lads for swimming and even supports a decent number of fish.

11. Living Fort Experience

Surrounded by desert in the far west of Rajasthan, not far from the border with Pakistan, the golden fort of Jaisalmer rises from the sandy plains. Unlike most other forts, Jaisalmer is a living urban centre with about 3,000 people living within its walls along with a palace, temples, numerous shops and other businesses. In the cooler season it attracts plenty of tourists who come to visit the city and to ride camels into the desert. In the middle of summer we see very few other tourists, in fact once the one other western couple, who caught the same train with us from Jodphur, depart to find their hotel we see no other tourists at all.

We stayed in a small luxury hotel within the walls of the fort which offered cheap rates for the off season. We had booked a standard room but the manager offered us our choice of rooms and we upgrade to an enchanting room which has a window and window seat built into the side of the fort. Up one level of stairs is an open area with fantastic views across the city and along the walls and we enjoy our breakfasts and evening sundowners there as well as a light dinner on two evenings. Its far too hot during the day but it is a wonderful place to watch the sunset and to enjoy a meal.

We had thought of taking a camel ride in the desert one afternoon and possibly camping out overnight but the 40 degree plus heat lingers well into the night so we spend our time relaxing in our air-conditioned room or exploring the fort and the surrounding old city in the early morning and evening. 99 bastions encircle the fort and there are four massive gates to pass through on the zig-zagging route to the upper section. The Fort Palace is elegant and well worth the hour or two it takes to explore.

The old city surrounding the fort has narrow winding streets and as well as the colourful displays of fruit and vegetables, fabrics and embroideries, there are some magnificent havelis. Some of these are enjoying a new lease of life being renovated for use as luxury apartments. Its good to know the old skills of hand-carving of sandstone into the intricate filigree patterns is continuing.

India Memories, Part Four.

Southern Rajasthan – Udaipur and Mount Abu

8. Most Romantic City.

From Bundi we travelled south to Udaipur. The city sits beside the picturesque Lake Pichola with the wooded Arayalli Hills stretching away in every direction. The old town has countless narrow and crooked streets with beautiful old havelis or hotels, ancient bazaars and a grand City Palace which is the largest in Rajasthan.

While we loved wandering up and down the streets and exploring everything we came across from the palace to the spice market, our favourite spot was sitting in the restaurant of a grand old haveli, which is now an upmarket hotel, as the day drew to an end and the sun set behind the hills opposite. Our view included the shimmering lake, a grand palace on an island in front of us, the illuminated City Palace behind us and numerous other buildings displaying the Rajput architecture around us and on the opposite shore. A crisp beer with complimentary pappadums helped ease the heat out of the day.

Mornings were just as beautiful by the lake side.

The City Palace is a massive 244m long and is a conglomeration of structures including 11 smaller palaces all topped by balconies, towers and cupolas towering over the lake. The main part is open as the City Palace Museum, with rooms extravagantly decorated with mirrors, tiles and paintings, and housing a large and varied collection of artefacts. Liveried guards usher you through a defined route to ensure you visit all of the rooms and courtyards.  

As usual we thoroughly enjoyed just wandering through the streets past colourful shop displays and friendly people until we eventually made our way to the spice market.

And then of course it was back to our favourite hotel for sunset drinks and this time we stayed for dinner as well.

9. Colourful Rural Festival.

On the plane trip from Bengaluru to Goa the airline magazine listed the Mount Abu Summer Festival in the upcoming events. The dates were during our time in Rajasthan so we decided to include it in our itinerary. Mount Abu is Rajasthan’s only hill station and is not far from the border with Gujarat, the state just south of Rajasthan. As an added bonus for us the temperatures there are considerably cooler than the scorching temperatures in most of Rajasthan.

The festival is a celebration of tribal life and culture and is attended by many people from small communities dressed in traditional costumes as well as tourists from Indian cities and towns who come to enjoy the festival and the cooler weather.

Tribal costumes were mainly worn by the women and there were marked differences in garments between tribes. 

The guys scrubbed up well and were quite happy to be in our photos.

And some of the turbans were particularly impressive.

We took plenty of photos but there were probably just as many taken of us. So many people wanted to take selfies with us and it seemed unreasonable to say no but it sure became tiresome for people like us who normally try to avoid being in photos. When we wanted a break we found an upstairs bar where we could rest with a cool drink and avoid the selfies and photos taken of us, well most of them anyway.

India Memories, Part Three.

Bundi

After the grandeur of the city of Jaipur and the surrounding forts our next stop was the far more humble town of Bundi which is a five hour bus trip to the south.

6. Friendliest Town

Bundi attracts far fewer tourists than anywhere else we visited, especially during the summer season. Possibly for this reason, or just because it is a small rural town, the welcome we received from the locals was invariably warm and friendly. We stayed in a small guest house, really a private home with a couple of rooms made available for guests and we were the only visitors. In fact we saw only one other western couple during our time in Bundi. There are a few attractions in town which we visited including a crumbling palace on the hillside above the town which was described by Rudyard Kipling as ‘the work of goblins rather than of men’. It provided great views over the town and although large sections of the palace are closed up and left to the bats. The rooms that are open hold a series of fabulous, although fading turquoise-and-gold murals that are the palace’s chief treasure.

Bundi has a number of step wells, most having very little water due to declining ground water levels and unfortunately plenty of rubbish, but one worth visiting is the Queen’s step well which is 46m deep. We also visited a pretty lake 2 km north of town which has a small summer palace where Rudyard Kipling once stayed and wrote part of Kim.

The most enjoyable part of our stay however was just wandering around the streets and narrow alleys in the old town. Many of the buildings are painted Brahmin-blue and we saw many old temples. Numerous cows are to be seen scattered through the streets and lanes enjoying their privileged status. We received many welcoming smiles and greetings and often people were keen to have a chat and share a chai. Children were particularly keen to have their photos taken and to then see themselves on the screen.

7. Most authentic Indian meal

The one western couple we saw while we were in Bundi had already spent a week in the town and gave us some tips on places to visit. They highly recommended a small restaurant near the fort, Jays cafe. We called into Jays mid-morning after several hours exploring the fort. It was too hot to eat but we needed a cool drink. The cafe is run by Jay and his sister Rinku, both in their early 20’s, with their Mum working in the kitchen with Rinku. They welcomed us warmly and ushered us up some steep stairs, past their mother who was sitting in the kitchen and nodded to us as we went by. The sitting area at the top of the house was sheltered and caught a little breeze which was helped along by an air cooler directed toward us. We were brought a traditional lassi each which included cardamom pods, saffron and other unidentified flavours, yum, our new favourite. We chatted with Jay and Rinku while we were enjoying our drink and promised to come back in the evening for a thali, a set meal which includes a number of dishes on a round platter. When we tried to pay our bill for our lassi we were told to wait and it would be included in the evening account.

We returned late afternoon and although they are not licenced they had bought and cooled some beers which we had requested and we enjoyed them with some pappadams before the feast began. When we were ready for our meal dish after dish came out to the table. If we finished more than half of a dish it was replenished until finally we had to ask them to stop. We were served a wide variety of vegetarian dishes and they were all absolutely delightful with everything very fresh and cooked especially for us. We were so busy enjoying the food we didn’t take any photos but finally remembered to take one at the end with Rinku.

India Memories, Part Two

Jaipur

Hawa Mahal, Jaipur

After our time in Southern India we farewelled Sean and Vandana and the other guests in Goa and took a plane back to the north of India to the state of Rajasthan, the Land of the Kings – a realm of maharajas, majestic forts and lavish palaces. By now we were in the Indian summer period and we knew the temperatures throughout the state would be very high, especially in the desert regions in the east, but there was lots to see so whenever possible we took advantage of accommodation with air-conditioned rooms and swimming pools and headed out to sightsee in the mornings and late afternoons with siestas in the middle of the day. Our first destination in Rajasthan was the capital, Jaipur. Our guest house there ticked every requirement, in fact it was probably the nicest of our whole time in India.

The image at the top of this post is Hawa Mahal (the Wind Palace) which was constructed so that the Maharanis could watch the parade of returning armies from positions behind the intricately carved screens.

4. Grandest city and most colourful markets.

The Old City (often referred to as the Pink City) is partially encircled by a grand wall punctuated at intervals by large gateways. Wide avenues divide the city into neat rectangles, each specialising in certain crafts and there are small and large bazaars and markets scattered throughout, both along the avenues and down the maze of narrow alleys. It would take days to explore the city properly. The wall and all the buildings lining the broad avenues are built of pink sandstone with intricate carvings adorning many of the grand buildings.

We love markets and visit them any opportunity we find even if we have no intention of buying anything. We wandered through local vegetable markets down side streets in the old pink city and admired the freshness and colour of the produce.

The best colour of all though was to be found at the early morning wholesale flower market.

5. A Tale of Two Forts

There are three forts surrounding Jaipur and we visited two of these. Amber Fort is honey-hued and is situated in the rocky hills 11 km north of Jaipur. It is huge and sprawls along a ridge with a grand entry wide enough for elephants. It is built of pale yellow and pink sandstone and white marble with four sections, each with a large courtyard.

The entry is into the Main Courtyard where returning armies would display their war booty to the populace. The second courtyard contains the Diwan-i-Am (Hall of Public Audience), which has a double row of columns, each topped by a capital in the shape of an elephant, and latticed galleries above. The maharaja’s apartments are located around the third courtyard, entered through the fabulous Ganesh Pol, decorated with beautiful frescoed arches. The Jai Mandir (Hall of Victory) is noted for its inlaid panels and multi-mirrored ceiling. Opposite the Jai Mandir is the Sukh Niwas (Hall of Pleasure). The zenana (secluded women’s quarters) surrounds the fourth courtyard. The rooms were designed so that the maharaja could embark on his nocturnal visits to his wives’ and concubines’ respective chambers without the others knowing, as the chambers are independent but open onto a common corridor.

The second fort we visited was Nahargarh, (Tiger Fort). It overlooks the city from the end of a ridge but the direct route includes walking up a steep winding 2km path so we opted to drive via a circuitous route which commenced from the Amber Fort area. The views from Nahargarh fort are glorious and while not as grand as the Amber Fort there are some great design features and ornamentation.