Ranakpur

We have had a pretty relaxed day today! We left our guest house about 9am and got a rickshaw no problem only a short stroll from the guest house. He was a little crazy too like our driver yesterday so we got there in no time and again he was very excited to ask us if we liked his driving. We hit the road and had a 4 hour drive ahead of us. We stopped on the side of the road in the middle of no where at a rather large shrine, although Sud called it a temple. He explained to us he would be a couple of minutes and he always stops here when he drives that way. So we sat in the car as he had left and we didn’t want to leave the car unlocked. We watched him go and pray and make a money offering. There were young kids chanting on the ground beside it and it was all really quite nice but also bizarre where it was located and it was just all open with a fence around it with lots of flowers everywhere and a motorcycle with flowers hanging off it. When Sud came back he explained that the temple is for a man who was killed there about 65 years ago. Every year on the anniversary of his death the motorcycle drives itself to the mans house, does a circle and comes back and parks in the exact same spot. Rudi scolded me for laughing at this story but I wasn’t really laughing, it was all just a bit strange, ok I was laughing! Anyway we continued on to Ranakpur where somehow I managed to sleep for a fair bit of the way. The road was really bumpy and for some of it was pretty much a single lane width road for two way traffic, so a lot of swerving off road! We made it safe and sound and first stop was the Sheth Anandji Kalyanji, apparently the most beautiful Jain Temples in all of Rajasthan. It did live up to this title as well. We walked into the massive temple and it was honestly breathtaking. Before we could get to far inside we were greeted by an older gentleman in religious clothing who introduced himself and asked us where we were from. He said if we would agree he would like to show us around the temple and pray for us, must have looked like we needed it! He told us he was the high priest and he showed us a quick tour of the temple. He then took us to one of the many idols and said a rather long prayer for us, the only word I understood was Australia so he really could have said anything. We made a donation to him and then continued to look around ourselves! It is hard to explain how beautiful it was. Hundreds of very tall columns all finely carved and not any two are alike. It is all white, we think it was white marble. You will need to see photos to see the real beauty. The priest had also shown us one column in the temple that was purposely built on an angle and this was to show that nothing man creates is ever perfect. It was a really amazing place to see. Rudi got yelled at for trying to take a picture of one of the large idols, he actually didn’t even see it and was just trying to do a wide shot of the temple. Anyway we left there and Sud drove us to have lunch. We braved a pre cooked buffet! It was really nice, Rudi made a pig of himself but that’s nothing new, don’t think we are going to come back any skinnier, the food is all too good! After lunch Sud drove us to our hotel as Ranakpur has no city centre it is just in the ‘jungle’ a bit like being in the Dandenong’s but much more isolated, so there is nothing else to do here except relax! Our drive to the hotel took about 20minutes of winding roads around the mountain edge! A little scary, and very scary when we almost took out a motorbike head on coming around the corner on our side of the road. Sud slammed on the breaks and I honestly do not know how we missed him. Was very frightening! We congratulated Sud on his excellent driving skills and continued on our way as the motorcycle drove off grinning, well not the motorcycle on its own, this one had a driver!! We made it in one piece to our hotel and we were upgraded to our own cottage. We had booked a large tent, not like a camping tent but more a small circus tent but the owner said we would be too cold and he had a cottage free so he would give us that for the same price. The room is nothing special but we have our own balcony where we spent the whole afternoon drinking vodka and whiskey with the most amazing landscape view! It is so green and peaceful, lots of birds and squirrels. Spotted a fox and a wild dog but nothing else too exciting. Apparently there are tigers, leopards, bears, monkeys and deer all spotted in the area but no sightings by us! We did pass lots of cute monkeys on the drive up the hill though! That’s about us for the day. Had a nice dinner in the very large restaurant at our hotel and were the only ones there. It is very cold already so very grateful for the cottage!