We got up late and did not hurry through the packing, since we planned an extra day’s stay at Udaipur and reaching there late evening was alright. We started riding from Jodhpur to Udaipur at around 8 AM. The plan was to visit Ranakpur and Kumbalgadh fort on the way.

Riding from Jodhpur to Udaipur

Our breakfast stop was at hotel Moon Palace at Pali. I distinctly remember this name since the guy insisted that we taste the specialty of Rajasthan, a halwa made out of milk. He took the pain of going to a nearby shop and get that for us! I do not remember the name, but it tasted and looked like ‘kunda’, for those of you familiar with this north Karnataka sweet 🙂 This, along with poori – sabji and good service, made our breakfast nice and complete.

The road from Jodhpur to Udaipur took us from the the Marwar region to Mewar region of Rajasthan. The two are separated by the Aravalli range. As we got closer to Aravallis, it got greener and cooler. Almost every hill that we passed by had a fort built on it, indicating the rich history of the land. In fact we wished we had a luxury of time to stop at all of these places and explore a bit more 🙁

Ranakpur is 170 kms from Jodhpur in a valley, in the Aravalli range. Tourism is the main source of livelihood for majority of the population in Rajasthan. So, all heritage and historical places are very well maintained and the temple complex of Ranakpur does not disappoint there. After parking the bike at the designated parking lot, we walked towards the main temple complex. The tiled walkway has loads of trees and parks on either side, which meant shade, especially when walking barefoot in Rajasthan. A smaller temple, dedicated to the Sun God riding on a chariot, is what we visited first. Quite impressive carvings. The temple is a big structure, but I say ‘smaller’ because compared to what we saw next, the main temple dedicated to Adinathji, the Sun temple diminished in size. We first had to buy tickets for ourselves and the camera.

The main temple is a massive marble architectural splendour with Aravallis as the backdrop, built during the 15th century under the reign of Rana Kumbha. A long flight of stairs took us to the entrance of the temple and this is was how much of the temple I saw. We were stopped by the security at the entrance and were not allowed to go in unless we left our tripod stand (which we had paid for at the ticket counter and ensured we could carry it inside), right there. We were ready to do that too, provided they assured us that they would keep an eye on it, but the guards dint think too much of it. We even removed the tripod out and fixed the camera on it to show that it was harmless, but all we got was a disinterested shrug. As if we would go to such lengths if we were carrying an automatic! Bah! In fact, what annoyed us even more, was that they were more interested in bowing and saluting ‘namaste’ to a dozen foreigners who were visiting the temple, while all we got was grim faces and “we couldn’t care less if you dint see the temple” attitude. So I decided to stay put at the door and parked myself on the topmost part of the stone barricade with the tripod for company, while Abhi did a quick tour of the temple mainly for some pictures.

(Abhi: It is like an air conditioned hall inside the temple since the marble keeps it cool and of course, quite a lot of sculpting, similar to what is on the outer walls. The temple has 600 pillars and it worth the effort and detour involved in reaching there. One of the best kept temples we’ve seen.)

It was already early afternoon when we started from Ranakpur. Kumbhalgarh fort is about 30 kms from here and the route is absolutely stunning. It took us right through the Aravallis, with the ghat sections touching the fringes of the Kumbalgadh wildlife reserve and the rural Mewar. For the first time on this ride, we could not bring ourselves to believe we were in Rajasthan, since the association has always been with the desert, with no expectations of greenery whatsoever. But here we were! right in the middle of dense jungles, just like the western ghats. Every few kilometres we came about water wheels (of which I had seen only illustrations). We stopped at one and rested there for sometime, just listening to the wheel work on its own. Serene!

There are no sign boards anywhere along the route indicating how close or far we were from the fort. We kept to the only road and used the ever dependable GPS (General Public Service, not the Global Positioning System 😛 ) to ensure we were on the right route.

The cause for concern was that we had ridden about 30 kms and still did not see the fort. And, forts are big structures which are usually visible from far off. Right? Wrong. We were in for a surprise. The fort remains hidden from view till we got to about 500 mtrs from it. And then out of nowhere, we saw the walls of the fort, nothing like the forts that we had ever seen before. Colossal least describes it as we approached the entrance. The structure has a disorienting effect, partly because its mammoth and partly because its unexpected. We couldn’t take our eyes off it, even when we were parking. The parking attendant had to literally jump in front of our bike to get our attention 😛 Nice man though, assured us of complete safety of the bike and the luggage. What a difference from the shoddy attitude of the security at Ranakpur!

Like the Ranakpur temples, Kumbhalgarh fort was also built by Rana Kumbha. The perimeter wall is 36 kms long. There was a board form the Archaeological Society of India that this fort was second longest wall after the Great Wall of China.  The outside of these walls have circular watch towers and we saw quite a bit of maintenance work being carried on, on the ramparts.

The magnitude of the outer wall sunk in only when we stood on it. Three cars could easily park side by side, such was the width!

We walked up the fort, which was quite a climb. As usual, the whole place is well maintained. Badal Mahal, a palace at the highest point of the fort is the birth place of Maharana Pratap. This was the moment where my 7th grade history text came alive! Maharana Pratap, the great Rajput king who defied Akbar’s regime with his Guerrilla warfare tactics. And oh, how could I forget the legend of his horse Chethak, that saved his life, by giving its own in the battle of Haldighati! It gave me goosebumps in spite of the three o’ clock sun!

Standing at one of the terraces of Badal Mahal, we could see all around the fort. There were many many temples (Wikipedia puts the number at 360) and various structures all over inside the fort. Work was being done on a few of those structures. We also could see what looked like excavation sites as well. From that point, we could see miles and miles of fort walls, popping out here and there, all through the Aravalli forest cover. The most astounding fact is that this was all done during 15th century around the same time when Columbus discovered America.  Food for thought, no?

We had a late lunch at one of the small cafes inside the fort.  On this day, we decided that we had to come back to Rajasthan, spend more time at places like these, explore, learn. But, we were also glad that we made it to these places even if it was for a short period of time. Places we did not know existed and made us say ‘India is beautiful!’

We reached Udaipur just as the sun was setting, and got to our so-called “lake front hotel” which was a con-job and a let down. But, the trip to the palace and a ferry ride on the lake the next day made us feel like royalty, a little bit 🙂

Bye for now. Read on…