Land of Kings
Although Rajasthan is not home to the Taj Mahal, it does contain the Pink City, the Blue City, and numerous palaces and temples. We opted for a ten day private car tour of the area. Fittingly our driver’s name was Raj!
The first stop was Agra. We didn’t head to the main attraction right away but instead went to Agra Fort. From the outside it looked like we’d be there all day, it is massive. However, once inside we learned that it is still used by the military so we could only explore about twenty-five percent of it. It offers great views of the river and Taj Mahal, and is more palace-like than fort-like. To keep us in suspense even longer, next we visited Itmad-ud-Daula’s Tomb, normally called the “Baby Taj”. We were very impressed with all of the detailed inlay and carved screens. We both ended up liking this one better than the real thing! For even more suspense, we drove to the back side of the Taj Mahal to view it unobstructed from across the river. The driver suggested that we visit the next morning at sunrise. We decided we could wait the night and see it in the morning with less crowds and less heat. For the first time in a long time, we were up before sunrise and snapping pictures before 6am. It was quite peaceful there early in the morning and it was a welcome escape from the other billion people in the country.
Jaipur, the Pink City, was where we spent the evening after wrapping up in Agra. We were now officially in Rajasthan. With only one full day in the city we sure packed a lot into it. First stop was the Amber Fort. Again, this was more palatial than a fort, but we twisted and turned through many passage ways and tried to reach the top of a hill and Jaigarh Fort on foot, but we were whistled at by the guard who couldn’t be bothered to do much else during their nap. We found our way back out and asked Raj to take us to the top of the hill instead. From there we could see that we could have easily walked, I think they wanted to charge us twice for parking. The other big attraction is up there is the world’s largest canon on wheels. Apparently it’s only been fired once and we’re not quite sure what makes it the largest, weight? length? caliber? The afternoon was spent trying to figure how the ancient observatory worked and taking the “included” audio guide at the city palace. I use quotes because at least this time the foreigners got something out of paying 10 to 25 times more than the Indians. Isn’t it enough that we had to get a visa? All of the places that we visited had an Indian price, usually 10 rupees (25 cents) and a foreigner price, 100 to 250 rupees ($2.50 to $6.25) and if you wanted to bring your camera that was extra too. This time our 300 rupees included the camera (which you couldn’t actually use inside) and the audio tour. I know it’s still really cheap, but it only encourages more “special prices” elsewhere.
The Blue City, Jodhpur was the next stop. Here we visited the last palace built in India (in 1944). It has a small museum with royal belongings and has been turned into quite a swanky hotel. The only other attraction that we saw here was the Mehrangarh Fort. By now we had learned that fort actually means royal residence combined with some high walls and we weren’t disappointed. It is set high above the city and you can see how the city gets the nickname, Blue City. We thought we were settling in for an early evening, but Heather started getting sick around dinner time and Mike joined in the middle of the night. We think that it may have been the yogurt we had for breakfast that morning at the hotel because we could hear someone else vomiting in the early morning hours as well.
Thank goodness the next day was a short and quiet day in Ranakpur. We barely made it through the 1200 year old Jain Temple before sleeping through the rest of the afternoon. Heather’s make-shift Gatorade of fresh squeezed lime juice and salt and some rice and soup for dinner helped us recover. Raj was nice enough to request some bananas for us as well. We did manage to go on a quick crocodile safari at the local reservoir. We didn’t have any close encounters, but did see them swimming and saw the remains of a poor water buffalo.
Udaipur, or the Lake City has the most royal sights of any of the cities we visited so far. There are multiple water palaces built in the lake for natural cooling, a regular palace, royal collections, and museums. We visited the City Palace (yes another one) and it was the best of them all. We thought it was the best maintained and/or restored and they even have weddings in the courtyard. It turns out that the water palaces have been converted to hotels, so we skipped the boat ride around the lake. Jagdish Temple was only a block down the hill and one of the few non-royal places in town. It’s impressive how it is sandwiched in the downtown area yet walking up the staircase removed a lot of the commotion of the city.
The last stop before returning to Delhi was Pushkar. In the center of town is a lake entirely surrounded by ghats. It didn’t look too appealing to us, but there were plenty of pilgrims enjoying themselves. Since the lake is considered very holy, no pictures are allowed (at least that’s what they tell the tourists). We didn’t have our camera out much anyway since we were caught in a monsoon downpour and had to wade back to our hotel in at least ankle deep water.