Blogs from Udaipur, Rajasthan, India, Asia - page 44

Hello all, we have now reached Udaipur which is the last stop on our chauffer driven tour, and we have waved off our driver back to Delhi. HOwever, before we arrived here we made another stop in a place called Ranakpur which is home to the most beautiful Jain temple. (Jainism is a form of Hinduism that split off rejecting the rigid caste system of india) The temple was incredibe - the most beautiful thing I have seen in India to date. It was full of carved pillars- over one thousand, no two alike (well, so I am told - I have to admit I didnt bother to check them all!) THe light and space were incredible but confusingly although Jainism is meant to have no priests, there were several guys in saffron robes claiming to ... read more

Hello everyone. Well the last few days have been just grand. Our stay with the Maheshwari's was wonderful, and after getting a firm grasp on the (partially skewed) rules of cricket from eight year old Akosh, and having our palms read by his father Alok in Jaipur, we headed on to Pushkar. First, our palms: Apparently I (Keif) will have a long life, become a great scientist and inventor, and will only have one wife and one child. Blythe will be the money maker with a very good job and will only have one husband and also only one child. However (here's the disclaimer) only 7% of these predictions come true, the rest relies on environmental factors, so who knows what's to come. In Pushkar we enjoyed the beautiful holy lake from our hotel perched on ... read more

So, we left Jodhpur for our longest drive to Udaipur. However, we noticed a couple of places of interest on the way. Boy were they worth the stop. Firstly was the Jain temple at Ranakpur. Wow what a place. Built in the 14th century, it was a temple built entirely of marble, and not a square centimeter was not covered with the most amazing carvings. 144 columns - all totally different. We all said it was the best temple yet. Then we drove across the most fabulous Rajasthan high country, through tranquil fields and amazing little villages - and colour colour colour everywhere. Spot Steve on the 1000 year old yak driven water pump. This road got us to Kumbhalgarh Fort which is the second most important citadel after Chittorgarh. The fort also offers a superb ... read more

Although I’ve already written two entries on Udaipur, there were additional items I had wanted to share. Any entry written from India was necessarily shorter, because we had limited time on the internet. We arrived in Udaipur on January 3rd and stayed through the 5th. The city is delightful, everything that it was advertised to be, a paradise for travelers. The well-worn tourist trail can feel so good to the travellers’ feet. The so-called White city really does gleam, reflected in two man-made lakes. Every other storefront has a rooftop restaurant, with three or four flights of narrow stairways leading up to a glorious view over the city. Our first hotel, the Raj Palace, was a bit disgusting and rundown. The lights did not work and there were stains on the walls. I had originally asked ... read more

Hello On the way to Udaipur we stopped at this HUGE Jain Temple. It was truly amazing. There are 1444 columns in this temple. Every column is carved differently and they are just amazing, the detail is fantastic and the ceilings of the domes were so high and all carved ornately as well. The Temple is in a mountainous ( hills ) area and when you looked out from the inside the scenery was just spectacular. The whole drive to Udaipur was amazing. Parts of it reminded me of driving through the Fraser Canyon, it was beautiful. We took a tour of the city palace which was amazing. It was huge and the rooms were specatular. Some of the hallways were so narrow and the doorways were really low, although I still didn't have to duck.. ... read more