I woke up early to trek through the Kumbhalgarh Wildlife Sanctuary with my guide, Geedan. The sanctuary is located in the Aravelli Hills in Ranakpur.
We started off here....
We stopped by Geedan's home for a quick cup of chai.
His sister and niece were very welcoming.
We ended up trekking up to here.
I ran into a Belgium couple who were also trekking with a guide. Neither of our two guides spoke English and we didn't exactly know where we were headed. We just went with the flow and followed our guides into the hills. It turns out we were headed to the Parshuram Shiva temple located in a small cave atop one of the large hills.
The locals believe Shiva visited inside this cave. They regard it as a very holy place. The stairs, which wind their way up a large hill, seem to indicate how highly they regard this location. There wasn't much else around, but there were at least a good mile of stairs leading to this cave.
I was sucking wind by the time I climbed to the top. My guide waited for me at the bottom of the stairs.
In we went.
We gave our blessings and then received another bracelet.
The orange cloth marks the location where Shiva visited.
Water from inside the cave constantly drips onto this location.
There was a small, mostly uninhabited town nearby.
This friendly couple was baking bread in an old wood-burning oven.
He was quiet the chai barista.
It felt like a ghost town.
The monkeys liked to congregate around the temple. They would come flying out of the forest, screeching like someone was stealing their baby. They scared me on multiple occasions.
I tried to sneak up on a sleeping samber....
But it didn't work out too well. He heard me and took off in a split second.
A really cool looking grasshopper.
I made it back to the hotel, chugged my third liter of water, then headed off to see the Jain temples.
Chaumukha Mandir, a Jain temple in Ranakpur, is very impressive. It was built in the 15th century and has 29 halls.
It also has 80 domes.
And 1444 individually engraved pillars. No two pillars are the same.
There is also an impressive looking drum inside. FYI, they don't like it when you test it out. I found out the hard way.
From here, we drove about three hours to Udaipur.
It was a very scenic drive through the Aravelli Hills.
We passed a Muslim goat market. A Muslim holiday is approaching where they sacrifice a goat as part of the religious holiday. These goats will be meeting their maker in the next few days.
I liked Udaipur from the moment I laid eyes on Lake Pichola. It is a very clean city.
I dined at Jagat Niwas, which has views of the Lake Palace. There was a short fireworks display over the palace and live music playing in the restaurant. I quickly grasped why Udaipur is called the most romantic city in India.
The paneer do pyaja was excellent. It is cottage cheese hunks, peppers, onions, and tomatoes in a spicy cream sauce. I also polished off an order of roti and an order of garlic naan.
This was even better. Being deprived of ice (or really anything very cold) while traveling in India makes a find like this a moment to savor. It had vanilla ice cream, caramel crunch topping, coconut flakes and chocolate sauce. I suppose it is a good thing I went trekking this morning.
I will be in Udaipur tomorrow as well.
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Location:Ranakpur, India
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