RANAKPUR TEMPLE AND KUMBHALGARH FORT

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Day 9: JODHPUR - RANAKPUR - FUERTE DE KUMBALGARH - UDAIPUR

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Today we got up like roses! This has given us a lot of encouragement to start the day in India It seems that we are recovering little by little. After breakfast (toast and bananas ... as always) we set off for the Ranakpur Temple.
The idea of leaving at 9, a little later than normal, is why there is more or less 3 hours of travel and the Ranakpur main temple, Chammukha Mandir, opens at 12 in the morning.
So it is not worth getting up early! And against that we can not say anything 🙂 And less at this moment that we appreciate so much being able to be in the bed of our room at the Hotel Ajit Bawan for a little while.

The landscape of this journey to Ranakpur It is not as arid as the previous ones and it becomes more bearable, it shows that we are moving away from the desert ...
The road of the last hour of road is quite bad and does not let us rest a second. There is not a single centimeter that is saved from a sinkhole. If anything I can say about this trip to india Today, the roads are under construction.
It's a quarter to 12 and Mahendra stops us in town before reaching the Ranakpur Temple so that we can go around the market and take some photos to take advantage of that time frame we have before they open.

Images in Ranakpur

Typical bus in India

At 12 and shortly we go to the Ranakpur Temple and after paying 100 rupees for each camera and 100 rupees deposit for some pants for Roger (who has gone in too short pants, they only wore him a little below the knee).
They tell him that later, on departure, he will be returned 80 rupees from that 100 deposit.
We go to the entrance to leave our shoes and finally admire what we have been told is one of the best Temples in India.
We will not go into historical explanations, mostly because we do not like travel journals too much, for that we have the guide and as here we can not explain too much of the “experience” of the visit, we better put some Photos.
We already anticipate that none do justice to what we have really seen.
It is a truly impressive Temple, with carvings that leave with your mouth open.

Arriving at Chaumukha Mandir. Ranakpur Temple

Chaumukha Mandir.Ranakpur Temple

Chaumukha Mandir details.Ranakpur Temple

Chaumukha Mandir

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Chaumukha Mandir.Ranakpur Temple

Admiring Chaumukha Mandir.Ranakpur Temple

Chaumukha Mandir

Every now and then some monk comes up offering to guide us, we politely say no and do not insist too much.

Chaumukha Mandir.Ranakpur Temple

Chaumukha Mandir

Chaumukha Mandir.Ranakpur Temple

Chaumukha Mandir

Chaumukha Mandir's details

Chaumukha Mandir

Chaumukha Mandir.Ranakpur Temple

Amazing carving in Chaumukha Mandir

Saying goodbye to Chaumukha Mandir

Chaumukha Mandir in full.Ranakpur Temple

Chaumukha Mandir

We left Ranakpur with an open mouth, as has happened in so many places, but especially in this one. Without a doubt one of the best experiences we have had so far.

Ranakpur Awesome.

From here we will visit the other 2 Temples of the enclosure, but it cannot be said that seen the main one, at least for us, these have known us little by little.
Although since we are, you have to visit them.
It's almost 2 in the afternoon, so we tell Mahendra that before we went the Kumbhalgarh Fort, we prefer to stop to eat.
And so we do. We stopped at Aranyawas Restaurant a few kilometers from Ranakpur.
There we eat a fried rice and a sandwich, it shows that we do not want to risk too much today that we are better, a beer and a coke for 800 rupees.
The truth is that it shows in the environment that it is a site dedicated to tourism and also the price has been carrillo for what we have eaten :))
From here to the Kumbhalgarh Fort in the google maps it says that there are 9 km ... lie !!! 🙂 It took us an hour and a half to arrive!
It is an Indian mountain road, which crosses an impressive reserve where 4 × 4 safaris are made to see panthers, bears ... What we do not know is whether they will see each other or not ...
Although at the beginning, once we read about the site, we thought that a visit to the reserve might be fine, in the end we discarded it due to lack of time.
Once in the Kumbhalgarh Fort we have taken the photos of rigor in the viewpoint and then we have gone to the entrance fearing the worst ... the climb we had left to do.
And the heat it is !!!

Kumbhalgarh Fort

We pay 200 rupees both and there we go.

Entrance toKumbhalgarh Fort

Kumbhalgarh Fort

We have finally arrived!!! Kumbhalgarh Fort

Leaving behind Kumbhalgarh Fort

Now it is time to go to Udaipur.
We calculate about 2 hours of travel. Here we are seeing the India more rural, the one that sometimes makes our hearts shrink. The landscape has completely changed.
We go in a car and we see everything happen as in a movie ... it seems something that does not go with us, but at the same time we feel inside the scenes. We are part of them. It is something that also happened to us on our trip to Indonesia last year, something curious that we feel when we are in another country and travel by car.
We see women carrying different things in their heads, girls carrying huge jugs of water ... women working in construction ...
Like this image, we also see the color. Since we have entered this part of India, the colors of saris and turbans have changed, they have more color: bright red, fuchsia, orange ... all this contrasts with the landscape, sometimes bleak.
This is India, pure contrast. You either love it or hate it. But it can't leave you indifferent.
About 20 kilometers from Udaipur we click and have to stop while the sky turns black at times, both why it is getting dark and why it threatens a storm!
We are there for a while, while the occasional villager approaches to invite us for tea or coffee at home ... This is kindness and the rest is nonsense! We reject these invitations, not for lack of desire, if not why we do not want to leave Mahendra alone with this "calico".
In the end between Mahendra and a driver, who has stopped to lend a hand, they manage to change the wheel and we return to the road again.
For Udaipur we had booked a hotel by the lake, but it turns out that it is closed and Mahendra has reserved another one for us, the Ramada Udaipur Resort & Spa.
This time we have a Ramada ... the truth is that the first impression is not too good, not bad, the other way around, it is a hotel complex careful to detail.
But perhaps, precisely because of this, it does not quite convince us.
So we can expect what will come to us… 10 euros for 24-hour Wi-Fi. Have they gone crazy ???
At night they have nothing more than a buffet dinner ... enlivened with live music that does not let us rest until the many ...
Of course, the perfect room and cleanliness ... mmm ... we can give it a 7. All a classification for India!! 🙂
And with these we go to sleep. Tomorrow we have to visit Udaipur!!