Another long bus day today – but we will have a lunch stop today, so no little take away boxes at breakfast. We get all loaded up and settled in our seats when, just outside the gate of the hotel, Suneel stops the bus. Uh oh. Flat tire. And of course, not one of the outside tires, but an inside one. Yikes. These poor guys! Off the bus they go to get their equipment and change the tire. Half of us get off the bus to stand around and watch, the other half are happy to sit on the bus (remaining in our seats and staying still as I am chastised when I got up to talk to Gretchen) and chat while the work is completed.
Half an hour later, and we are on our way. The going is slow again, basically because we have to again retrace steps through the shifting lane construction and even the finished “highways” aren’t necessarily the quality needed to speed along. So, per usual, we listen to Bhanu’s banter, watch the street life pour past us from the windows as people cook their morning meal on charcoal pits outside their homes, sell any number of things from fruit to meat to flowers and transport items on scooters, carts and the top of their heads (one woman had some monstrously huge bag of what could have been root vegetables or something balanced on her head). We watch tractors chug by, their engines, as Bhanu explains, created from old water pumps that are no longer in use in the fields. It’s like Cuba in a sense, where car bodies are maybe American or even Russian, but the parts within are Japanese or Korean or anything that can be cobbled together from whatever parts and materials can be found on hand.
Four hours after the tire incident, we pass through a village where work on a bridge has us off- roading again – this time through dirt and rocks with humorous hand written signs saying “Byepass” with an arrow. Shortly thereafter we arrive at our luncheon spot, the beautiful Maharani Bagh Orchard Retreat. The gardens were laid out in the 19th Century were used as a retreat for the Royal Family. It is now a hotel resort, popular not only for the gardens and prodigious bird watching (a poster details about 150 species that have been sighted in the Orchard), but also for the proximity to the Jain temple at Ranakpur which we will be visiting after lunch.
The setting is definitely a green oasis in the middle of dry and arid land. Trees, bushes, flowers and definitely the promised birds all make this a lovely spot to have lunch (and probably stay for a day or two). We take tables set up under a large pagoda and have the option of a buffet or ala carte menu. None of the 4 of us feel up to a buffet, so we each order ala carte, Ed, Richard and I sticking with Western food (a large club sandwich for Richard, and fried chicken for Ed and myself) while Maggi goes with her Spinach Paneer, which ends up as a huge, quite lemony portion (not her favorite from this trip).
It is all too much for us to eat, even just ala carte, so as others start to drift away to walk along the various garden paths, we hang out watching Bhanu, animal lover that he is, feed our uneaten remains to the dog and the birds that are here on the grounds. He had also paid the ladies making the Naan 500 rupees to give him all the left over bread so he could feed the monkeys from the bus as we make our way to Udaipur.
Lunch complete, we head up the road a few minutes to visit the Ranakpur Jain temple, one of the largest and most important Jain temples in the world. (Interestingly enough, there is a huge Jain temple in Pittsburgh, the largest in North America, that we drive by every time we visit, but never really thought about until today as we tour this 14th century edifice.) We all get audio guides here as well, and ascend the steep staircase up to the entry. The temple is massive, with 1444 marble pillars, none of which have the same design. covering. The temple is dedicated to the first Tirthankar Shri Adinathji (the first of 24 Jain religion leaders, who lived millions of years ago, and taught the dharma), took 50 years to build with over 2500 people volunteering their time and skills to erect it. Definitely a study in beliefs and dedication!
The audio guide drones on and on about the religion and the construction, and frankly it is overwhelming to me. I can look up the tenets of Jainism later (non-violence, truth, non-stealing, celibacy/chastity and non-attachment/non-possession), for now I’m much happier just wandering around, looking at the vast amount of intricately carved marble, and snapping photos of the different carvings throughout the temple. Everything is stunning, from the heads and figures on the columns, to the huge elephant statues throughout the temple interior. We have free reign of the place, except the main temple in the center of the interior, where, when I try to go up the stairs to enter, a guard shoos me back saying something – which Ed translated as “only for pilgrims.” Oops, sorry!
So, we circle the “pilgrims” area, marveling at the main shrine, which is a series of graduated marble carving bands – animals on the bottom, human figures on the top bands, surrounding by more carved pillars. This may be the half completed pillar, which collapsed every time it rose over a certain height, so the builder left it half complete because he felt the Gods didn’t want it finished.
To the rear of the temple is a balcony overlooking the forest where there are great views out to the Sun Temple. Then immediately to the side of the balcony is a fenced off area with statues of the Tirthankars – more than likely all 24 of them, but I didn’t count them at the time, just took some cool pictures (that you will hopefully see here one day). . Continuing around, we arrive at the amazing carving of Shri Parshwanathjee, which is carved from one single sheet of marble and contains the deity Parshwanathjee along with the heads of 1008 snakes. The carving is so intricate and detailed, you can trace the snakes bodies, but you cannot find the end of the tails anywhere. There are quite a few signs around the Parshwanathjee stature forbidding photography with the statue (because, as it is carved into the marble at the bottom the deity is very Pious and Holy. We, being polite tourists, of course snap photos of only the statue, but all around us people (Asians) are walking up and posing next the carving, completely ignoring the warnings posted. And they say we are the Ugly Americans!
We stop for pictures at the Jambudvipa, a carving signifying the terrestrial world where the ordinary human beings reside, then onto the alcove where there is a Hindu statue with footprints, on a plinth. I’m totally drawn to this statue for some reason, and thus have to find my inner Zen – and patience – waiting for the posing Asians to get out of the way so I can snap a good picture of it. Sigh. Inner Zen connected, we follow our circular pattern to the end of the tour, and some wonderful carvings covered in gold and flowers in the main sanctuary area (of which we snap quick pictures before the guards can catch us!).
As we are leaving the guards ask us for our tickets again. Huh? We are pretty sure they are just trying to scam us though, and we just brush past them telling them they already took our tickets. Everybody has a side hustle or their hands out in this country, there is even an admonishment on the inside of the little Jain Temple guide that says “No Tips to Staff.” Sheesh.
Safely (or relatively so) outside the temple, we collect our shoes, Ed and Richard dare to go to the bathroom (which Bhanu has dubbed not clean – thus Maggi and I stay back waiting for them), then we hit the bus again. This time, instead of retracing our route, we head up into the mountains to cross over to Udaipur – which is why it will take us longer to get to Udaipur – but again, none of us really care because there is so much to keep our attention during our rides. And in this case, we start with the monkeys! Bhanu and Sanjay have collected food from the buffet and bananas from somewhere to feed to the monkeys on the side of the road. These guys live here and are now almost trained by the buses and cars who slow down to feed them. You can see them in packs on the side of the road, watching the bus to see if we will slow down. And when we do – here they come. They are fascinating to watch, and we all get a great kick out of them coming for the food. After the last banana is thrown out of the door to the monkeys, they start chasing the bus! They are amazingly fast! And one actually jumps on the bus and is riding along with us for a few meters before Sanjay successfully dislodges him (without harm to the monkey, I might add).
After that excitement, we settle down to watch street life – or I should really say country life - again. We are driving through very rural areas of valleys and mountains, passing colorfully clad women, hauling wood on their backs, followed by water buffalo. When we do pass small villages, the women are congregating in the streets for a chat, carrying water in silver bowls on their heads, in the fields, manning their stores. And of course men - working, chatting, walking alongside the road. As I said, it’s fascinating and captivating, making the hours fly by on our journey.
Farmers walk the road in vibrantly colored turbans. One farmer is indelible in our minds, in stark white clothing with a blaze orange turban, leaning against a dark grey stone wall with women working behind him in the courtyard.
We arrive fairly late at the Trident Udaipur, so once we have found our rooms, our luggage and freshened up, we hoof it down to the bar for a before dinner drink. A lot of the group is already there, celebrating Gretchen’s birthday, adding us to the mix of the merriment. It is also happy hour, so of course we are all “happy” about that! While the rest of the crew stay for more drinks (and we assume pizza from the bar), the four of us retire to the dining room for a more traditional meal – Jodhpuri Tikka chicken app for me, crispy spinach paneer for Maggi, Murgh (chicken) tikka Makhani for Ed and Chicken stir fried rice for Richard. It’s yummy and we are wishing we had more monkeys and dogs to feed our leftovers tonight.
We end our evening, as usual, with nightcaps in the bar. Maggi is still debating another martini, but the consensus is to stick with wine until possibly Mumbai where there is a better chance of getting a truly well made martini. We order our normal round, sitting, chatting, snacking on the great salty, spicy little tidbits that come with every drink, when suddenly the waiter comes over with the lovely little chocolate lava type brownie cake, a candle and a big happy birthday wish for me! So sweet – so early – but so sweet! We think they must have thought the birthday celebration earlier was for me – not Gretchen, so they brought this over. We didn’t have the heart to tell them their mistake, so we graciously thanked him and all shared a delicious dessert. This is just one incidence of the type of service and care we received throughout the entire trip. We will all be thoroughly spoiled by the time we end this tour – we were so thoroughly and totally cared for every minute of every day.
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