Now this is a 'wow' kind of place. The kind that you walk into and feel like, "I haven't seen anything like this before". In fact you don't just 'see' it, you 'feel' it.
...but first a story on getting there. Ranakpur is all by itself in hill country in the middle of nowhere and it is recommended to hire a car and driver to get there...so we did. On the way we start snaking through this narrow 1 - lane (but in good newly paved condition) road through the hills. Shortly we come across a row of stones piled across the road
.... and a horde of kids and young teens covered in colour and waving bottles of coloured water.
Being a Sunday I guess there was no school. Well they wanted 5 rupees to pass... They're still in celebration mode from the festival of 'holi', the one in which we got splashed with dye back in the town of Bundi. It's a bit like halloween trick or treat. 5 rupees to pass or a splash of dye on your car. Well it all seemed kind of fun and most of the kids are so cute and so enamoured with these 'whiteys' in the car. There were about 10-20 of them at the 'roadblock'. So we pay the fee, the stones are moved, and then around the next corner...another horde of kids and another roadblock.
Now we're really out in the middle of nowhere...where are they all coming from? So this easily repeatedly itself 20-30 times and by then, it just isn't very much fun anymore...especially since it's keeping us from getting to Ranakpur before closing time! Eventually our driver had had enough too and tried to 'boss' the kids into moving the road block stones. In some cases this works...and in some it results in a splash of dyed water across the car...other times our driver got out and moved the rocks himself.
.... and a horde of kids and young teens covered in colour and waving bottles of coloured water.
Being a Sunday I guess there was no school. Well they wanted 5 rupees to pass... They're still in celebration mode from the festival of 'holi', the one in which we got splashed with dye back in the town of Bundi. It's a bit like halloween trick or treat. 5 rupees to pass or a splash of dye on your car. Well it all seemed kind of fun and most of the kids are so cute and so enamoured with these 'whiteys' in the car. There were about 10-20 of them at the 'roadblock'. So we pay the fee, the stones are moved, and then around the next corner...another horde of kids and another roadblock.
Now we're really out in the middle of nowhere...where are they all coming from? So this easily repeatedly itself 20-30 times and by then, it just isn't very much fun anymore...especially since it's keeping us from getting to Ranakpur before closing time! Eventually our driver had had enough too and tried to 'boss' the kids into moving the road block stones. In some cases this works...and in some it results in a splash of dyed water across the car...other times our driver got out and moved the rocks himself.
Well, eventually we do arrive Ranakpur too late for the visit and stay at a motel-like place a couple kms down the road.....in large part due to a quick visit of the fort in Kumbalgarh. ...this one also said to have the reputation of never having been taken. Sigh....another day...another fort. They say the fort wall snakes for 36km in circumference around the hill on which the fort is situated.
Enough with the delay, so you want to know what Ranakpur is? It's a Jain temple from the 1400s, constructed of white marble, located amongst 1000 foot high hills, with 1444 intricately carved pillars holding up a series of domes. Each pillar is alleged to be carved uniquely... and when one steps inside ...
... there is this feeling of 'wow', with the interplay of light, carving, and colour. The pictures below will hardly do it justice. We both felt like it has been the most impressive structure we have seen in India...it kind of has a similar wow feeling as the Cathedral of Sienna in Tuscany.
Enough with the delay, so you want to know what Ranakpur is? It's a Jain temple from the 1400s, constructed of white marble, located amongst 1000 foot high hills, with 1444 intricately carved pillars holding up a series of domes. Each pillar is alleged to be carved uniquely... and when one steps inside ...
... there is this feeling of 'wow', with the interplay of light, carving, and colour. The pictures below will hardly do it justice. We both felt like it has been the most impressive structure we have seen in India...it kind of has a similar wow feeling as the Cathedral of Sienna in Tuscany.
Just a few words about our 'motel' arrangement the night before seeing Ranakpur. It was a nice contrast to the city experiences of the last weeks. We're out in the middle of nowhere, bright starry night, an artificial lake on the side of the property with an alleged a pair of crocodiles, and definite troops of monkeys going about their lives in the trees nearby. To sit and watch them, they are so human-like in so many of the things they do...especially when you seen the young baby and toddler types among them interacting with each other and their mothers.
So we finished our tour of Ranakpur about mid-afternoon and picked up another one of the rattletrap bone jarring milk run government buses from the side of the road and made the 4 hour journey to Jodhpur......
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