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Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Palakkad, Keral
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| 2nd Part of story, Ranakpur.
Hai,
Could work on the Aug 15th story yesterday night, uploading with some photos.
15-08-2008: The alarm bleats, silenced with a touch @ 7am, no sign of The Gang waking up, I lounge in the balcony staring at the waking lake-life of humanity. I nod off, must have been 30 minutes and wake up with a start, a small bird was sitting on the table at arms length, inspecting what fate has brought in front of it for the breakfast. I stir and it takes a hop-skip-and-a-jump to the balcony rails thinking perhaps this is more than it can chew-off in the morning.I put on the TV and wake up the gang; we troop down for breakfast, shoot some more pictures from the lawn and make a plan. Head out towards Nadhwara, on the way visit Eaklingji Temple and then take it from there.
At 11am we roll towards NH 8 with the help of the GPS, my son has already marked the postition of the nearest road to our Hotel on my points so we can navigate our way back. Light traffic, first 5-6 kms of the NH8 is a little bumpy, but it improves as it near the ghats, up and down the ghats and round the bend we're at Eaklingji, parking there is a pain, we somehow find a spot to squeeze in the truck. Surprisingly, there's a thin crowd, we could actually sit in front of the Diety, there was a wonderful Bhajan gorup singing, sat ther for 20 minutes, a soothing calm wafts down, time for the Aarthi, up, catch a parting darshan and back to the
parking lot, time 1150.
We drive down towards Nadhdwara, some 25 kms away, and stop for a concrete plan, stop at a point where a good looking road foarked towards left. Take out the maps, outlook Traveller-Rajastan book & check with the GPS where this would go, confusions, no conclusive information except that in about 40-50 kms if you go left it should hit the main road going to Kumbalgarh/ Ranakpur. The locals there said, there's no connection to Ranakpur or Kumbalgarh through this route, but it would take us to Losing, the GPS showed Losing and then a small road to Gogunta which is the point from where we can turn to Ranakpur. We tried to test out, afterall it's only 12 noon, we have all day to explore, take a left turn into the
single track, secondary country road of interior Rajastan, having no idea what to expect.
The road runs for about 6-10 kms, hits a small village, meanders thro. hillocks, medows, flocks of sheeps / cows / buffallows and people walking on the road. All around us was shades of green, booming green, green and green; the sky was overcast, caught a couple of drizzles, but no serious rain. We could see the real India in its truest spirit on Aug 15th, villagers walking, grazing their cattle, children walking back from school (after the celebrations of Ind. Day?), women in bright colours traveling enmass towards Losing for the village fair, the hum-drum of typical interior village.
We hit Losing intersection, a big village, pretty crowded and asked around for Gogunta, they point straight. The road becomes pretty crowded, people in their best cloths are walking forward, many of the Chakadas agog with people, there's a village fair on. Soon the road becomes difficult, small pavement shops are ON THE ROAD and there's a van coming at us, I lean on the horn, put on my hazard lights and gun the engine, people scamper away, the shops are moved from the road side, another 1 km we're clear from the treacle-thick humanity. We coast till Gogunta and catch the big road, its 4 track for some distance, this road will untimately go from Udaipur to Mt. Abu. So our experiment did work out, we hit
the road to Ranakput at last.
The road is better but with lots of unmarked humps and ugly / bumps turns, some of them quiet surprising. We hit Sayra about 215 pm and take the fork towards Ranakpur, the one on the right goes to Kumbalgarh, 32 kms from here.Thick forest from here, its actually the WLS of Kumbalgarh, the road climbs and twists, but the surface mercifully smooth. We cross and pass many qualis, innova taxis with Firangi tourists with plates from as far away as Haryana, Delhi and UP and of cours, lots with RJ plates. The gates to the Ranakpur Jain Temple catches you by surprise, if you don't watch out for it, you'd pass it by, a non-discreet gateway with a chowkidar which leads into a cavernous parking lot. The chowkidar stops you, enters your details and lets you pass.
We park @ 245 pm and walk out to find the sun peeping out of the clouds, looks like it's not decided what to do for the day!!! Anyway, we decide to go inside the temple first, complete it and then look out for lunch later. We surrender mobiles, the movie camera @ the counter, take a Rs.50/- ticket for the still camera and move in, people exposing below the knees cannot enter or will have to hirie a robe, so be forewarned. Last time we were @ this place, our camera could not do justic to this marble wonder; we were better prepared this time.
Rana Kumbha of Mewar built this 1444 pillared temple for Lord Adinatha in the 14th / 15th century; 400+ years old and still well preserved. It has 24 halls, 80 domes and sprawls over 48,000 sq. feets, the domes are carved in concentric bands and brackets. Each exquisitely carved pillar is different, the carving done with extreme care and devotion; they resemble the carvings of Khajuraho. This was voted to the 77th position in a popular global poll for 7 wonders of the world, also one of the 5 most important holy shrines of the Jains. The setting of the temple itself is breath-taking, thick jungle and the Aravalis mountains, strangely
quiet, green and calming.
We spent an hour ( many tourists spend days inside ), the hungar pangs are tolling now, we scout for a place to eat. The chowkidhar says there are many hotels on the right, towards Pali, we discover to our horrer that most of the so called resorts have 2/3 dishes and charge about Rs.300/- + per person for food!!! We pull over to this decent Ranakpur Hill top hotel and they fleece us for Rs.350/- per head for basic food; you can't reason out with a hungry family.
At 5 pm, dark clouds gather and it starts to drizzle, we want to clear the ghats before it starts raining and gets dark, reach Sayra in 30 mts.and settle down for the next 70 kms. Wife and kids are nodding off after a full stomach, the A/C blowing, daylight ebbing, the Scorp droning and a soft song from the ICE flowing.
I must have been doing 60 when I take a sharp turn near a village; a brand new Indica full of people was coasting in front of me, his indicator to the left comes on, the trjectory was well to the left, I thought he was wanting go to the edge of the road and stop when he suddenly brakes in the middle of the road!!!! My front fenders would not have cleared him, if I had not braked hard, I jam on the pedals, somehow manage to down shift to 2nd and we come to a rubber burning rocking halt, my front fender hardly 1 inch from his rear!!!!! Fortunately my wife in front was strapped on and my two sons sleeping on the seats fall into the gaps in between, there was no point in picking an argument with an idiot, so I accelerte
off after an angry blast on my horn. All are awake now, break into peals of
laughter at my younger son trying to get up into the seat. Again stressing the need to strap on, never know when you have to brake hard with so many maniacs on the road.
First time, I had braked the truck rubber-burning hard; it was reassuring to know the Scorp does stop in an energency, it does not topple as many maliciously throw mud at its reputation. It rocks hard, its scary because you feel the rear wheels will skid out any time but stops all right, though not with the predictable accuracy which my earlier Ford Fusion did. Fusion was so dead on track, even under hard braking, I could close my eyes and brake hard knowing it would not skid. We navigate back with the GPS to the hotel @ 7 pm, take a shower and go out to Sukhadia Circle for a Fast Food dinner. We hit the sack around 10, a great day, all around.
The 16th and 17th story to follow tomorrow when I get time....
--Ramky
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20th August 2008, 18:18
Good, we are waiting for those.
