Last night we ended up seeing the sunset from the Monsoon Palace. Much like my takeaway from the movie props of the City Palace, I was perhaps most impressed with the place as a filming location for the final showdown in 1983’s Octopussy.
But I suppose, the sunset was pretty impressive too. Plus, ya know, who doesn’t like a good monkey sighting.
And after the sunset, the city lights of Udaipur had me in a reflective mood.
But that’s all in the past.
Today, we hit two major sightseeing points of interest here in Udaipur.
Well, IN Udaipur is probably not accurate.
They’re about two to three hours outside of the city center. The Kumbhalgarh Fort and the massive Jain Temple at Ranakpur are contrasts in points of view – secular and perhaps aspirational.
The fort was built for kings and queens and features sprawling grounds, its walled defenses including rows and rows of cannons. The guide book says it would take 2 days to hike around the 36 kilometer perimeter. I suppose they’re budgeting for photo ops as while that IS a long way, it’s less than the marathon I did in Mumbai a few days ago.
There are various temples built throughout, some 360 in fact, and it all reminded me of my time in Myanmar in Bagan with its small spiral-y buildings dotting the land.
The architecture and buildings are well preserved, “the best in India” I am told by a fellow tourist, because “the fort was never conquered.” There is a massive amount of history involved here, who built what, when. I decide to forego a guide and just wander, taking in the views, and letting the ghosts of the past tell their stories to others. It’s a cheat to tour this way, a superficial Instagram-quest, but I am far from the only one doing this, foreign or domestic. Indeed, one family I helped take a photo for insisted I wear the Dad’s hat… so this happened:
A security guard takes pity on me as even though I paid for an admission ticket they never gave me a paper confirmation as their machine was down. I even asked at the ticket booth if I needed something and the clerk waved me off saying it was no problem. And the guard nodded in understanding when I explained. He asked me the usual – where was I from, how long was in India, was I enjoying it, repeated how long was I in India – and then guided me a bit around the royal chambers. Good thing too as I wouldn’t have figured out where to go – some were dark corridors I would have thought were no entry or dead ends and I thought maybe I was getting a secret tour… only to discover all the other tourists had figured out this was the way to go long before I was guided there. He showed me the secret passageways for the King and Queen to make their appearances in court… or for, ahem, private affairs of the state. And at the top, he was good enough to take some photos. I’m never sure how folks will do snapping photos for me – some people aren’t great and take one press of the shutter and hand it back to me, as if every exposure was precious (and maybe that would help cut down on the clutter of shots clogging my hard drive) but I prefer folks who realize digital means you just keep snapping hoping to get one or two decent shots. So here’s one he shot:
And here are a few taken round and round the place. We only spent 2 hours there and easily could have kept wandering the property to see some more of the temples and different angles of the fort’s buildings but honestly I was a little over-fort-ified.
From the fort we made the hour drive out to Ranakpur to visit the large, and possible largest?, Jain Temple in India. The Jain faith values all life equally, and seeks to be kind to all and protect all. That means they are peaceful figures striving to rid themselves of worldly possessions and attachments to attain nirvana. Respectful of all life, they are vegetarian PLUS in that they also won’t eat root vegetables because to pull a carrot or a potato requires pulling the plant entirely and killing it; fruits of trees or plants are fair game as they can be consumed and the plant can continue to live on. Entering the temple means you forego all leather objects (my wallet was an issue, as was my belt) because that involved killing an animal. As with most temples, shoes were left behind and we walked barefoot amongst the 1442 individually carved columns that dot the main temple. And here’s where Karma gets me. I must have done something wrong because as I was wandering taking photos, my phone slipped out of my hand and landed facedown on the marble floor. The impact shattered my screen protector and the force carried on to shatter the display screen itself. Dead pixels balloon out of the corners, leaving black splotches like spilled ink, a Rorshach test of the digital age. Perhaps this was Shiva or Vishnu telling me I’m too attached to my phone as a worldly possession… but thankfully my phone still worked well enough to order a no doubt overpriced refurbished handset from eBay that’ll be waiting for me when I get home next week. (JANUARY 30, 2020 POST-SCRIPT — turns our I was sold a stolen handset and the phone is locked such that I can’t use it. Invoking eBay’s refund policy in 3… 2… 1…)
Still, it bummed me out and totally messed with my chokra. I snapped photos, squinting trough the spiderweb cracks on my screen hoping the images would come out. It didn’t look like there were cracks on the camera lenses and as I post them here I guess we’ll see if they are any good:
I’m not proud of my broken phone having affected my mood so egregiously. When we returned to our hotel hours later, I was still lamenting my stupidity and regretting the replacement costs and worried I wouldn’t be able to photograph the Taj Mahal. I was even more rude than normal to the Tuck Tuck drivers, hawkers, and touters asking me if I needed a ride, if I wanted a shirt with an elephant on it (which was a shirt literally with a kid’s stuffed plush elephant sewn onto the front… I wanted to ask the guy if ANYONE ever wanted one of those… he did have them in different colors and the blue one WAS nice… but still? You’d wear it to a few elephant parties and then what do you do with it?).
I tried to let the reflected images of Udaipur on the lake water soothe me but the honking Tuk Tuks, the rhythmic bell striking that made me think I was at a railroad crossing, and the barking dogs fighting over territory on a real-life Isle of Dogs made this a soundscape for snippiness. I don’t think I was awful to be around but I was certainly subdued.
That night I packed for a long drive North, from Udaipur to Jaipur, where we would meet up with a local tour guide to take us around the city.
Four more days until the Taj Mahal…