Udaipur and Ranakpur

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We spent the first half of today wandering around Udaipur and looking at a few palaces. The first one we looked at had a crystal gallery where everything was made of crystal, including massive dining tables and lounge sets. Although they were very beautiful, we got a bit bored after the first three. Also had a look at apparently one of the better attractions in Udaipur - the Durbar hall. Sadly it was just a big dusty hall with lots of pictures and old furniture. Looked very British.

Next was a tour of the City Palace. This allowed us to wander around the main palace that the King of Udaipur used to live in. Unfortunately a lot of it was in disrepair or rather just very old and gross looking. The architecture was very interesting, and they had lots of stuff relating to the history of Udaipur. However, it just took sooooo long to get through the whole thing!!! Perhaps the best part of the City Palace was the view from one of the towers.

We then browsed through the many shops in Udaipur. Melenie managed to buy something in every shop (as a result, our suitcases are now ready to explode). She also managed to step in some cow dung, which always is interesting when you're wearing open toed shoes.

That afternoon, we hired a driver to drive us to Jodhpur (6 hours away). On the way, we stopped at Ranakpur. This was an old Jain temple which was simply stunning. The whole building was made of white marble or some other really nice looking white stone. Every inch of the walls, ceiling and doors had intricate carvings that were in immaculate condition. I don't think we had ever seen such an impressive loooking temple.

While wandering through, we were approached by the head priest of the temple. Before we knew it, had dabbed his finger in some bag and put some yellow stuff our forhead and then gave us a Jain blessing. The yellow stuff stank (I think the stuff is made from Cow dung).

After that we drove straight to Jodhpur and hopped on an overnight train to Jaisalmer.

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Photos

Beautiful wall paintings
And they were everywhere in this palace. But we got a little bit sick of them after the 1000th one!

The city view
Notice how the buildings are all blue. Pretty snazzy!

Write the Gods a letter?
Ganesh is the elephant God - I'm sure you've all seen him in the Simpsons.

Puppets made locally
These puppets were amazing. They could wiggle their hips, shake their heads in the Indian head shaking style, and do all kinds of other tricks. The shopkeeper even made one dance for us to music - it looked so cool that we had to buy one.

Cloth-covered books
These were so beautiful and colourful. Bought a big stash to take back as gifts.

Comments

[Prateek]

Knowledge Add-on
Well the yellow stuff that has been mentioned above isnt really made of cow dung or something like that. It is actually made from the paste of Sandal wood. Our traveler would have been really unlucky if he got pasted with something otherwise. And thanks for considering the temple beautiful, it really is :-)