Lakes in a desert!

So Rajasthan is not all desert. About 270 km from Jodhpur is the famous lake city, Udaipur. Udaipur is considered the Venice of the East. It is built on the coast of a couple of lakes and is surrounded by mountains. We first arrived at City Palace in Udaipur. Now a museum, City Palace hold a spectacular view of the lakes and the surrounding city. Once we finished touring the museum, we took a boat ride in the lake to get a closer look at the Lake palace (convert into Taj hotel) as well as Jag Mandir (temple in the middle of the lake). After spending some time relaxing in the garden of Jag Mandir we decided to take a boat back inland.

Thanks to Malini's connections we checked ourselves into Royal Retreat Resort. The resort was unbelievable with a couple of pools, a spa, gym, horses, and various art exhibits. It was great to get away from the crowd and relax at the resort. We spend the whole afternoon there. In the evening we went back in town to lake Pichola. We enjoyed some iced coffee and got to see the city lights across the lake.

After having, arguably the best sleep of the entire trip, we headed for monsoon palace where we were once again greeted by winding mountainous roads and lots of wildlife. Monsoon Palace had a great view of the whole city of Udaipur. We then headed to Gulab Bag (rose garden) which also had a small built-in zoo with tigers, bears, peacocks, deer and many more. Next, we travelled to celebration mall. It reminded me of Eaton Centre in downtown toronto. It was a very westernized mall with tons of branded stores. We enjoyed some ice cream as well as some cricket batting practice at the nets outside the mall. Around mid-day we decided to head back to Jodhpur.

Note to self: Do not travel between 12 and 3. Its way to hot!

Ranakpur & Area

Hey guys,
so we continued our journey through Rajasthan by making a day-trip to Ranakpur, which was host to a beautiful Jain temple, Kumbalgarh Fort and various other historical site seeing locations. Ritesh, the research assistant in our lab decided to join us as well (which was great cause I was able to retire my duties for the weekend as the designated translator between locals and Jon, Allen and Malini - yeay). We started our journey with the main attraction, the Jain Temple (Adinath temple - I believe, but don't quote me on it). As usual, its beauty blew our minds!!! I won't even bother describing it... just look at the pictures. Allen unfortunately wore shorts and was almost not allowed to enter the temple when our driver offered him spare pants (hence the white on white fashion statement). After spending several peaceful hours at the temple we continued onwards to Kumbalgarh which was built between 1443-1458 (thats pretty freaking old). The hike up to the fort was pretty tiring in the blazing sun but it was well worth it when we got to the top (cool air). Anyways, thats our Ranakpur trip in a nutshell. Here are some photos.

Hikes, Temples & Flat Tires

Weekend number four here in India was a great success! Our first trip outside of Jodhpur....woooo! We sacrificed our beauty sleep saturday morning by heading out early to Mount Abu. About 270km away, it is Rajasthan's highest peak and holds some of the oldest temples in India.

Haha but it wasn't all smooth sailing. About 150 km in, the Indian roads got the better of us...flat tire. No big deal tho, our driver casually got out of the vehicle, put the spare on and we were on our way (although a thorn bush did get the better of Allen). It was a great drive up to the town where the temperatures rapidly decreased from 40 to 25 degrees Celsius...finally haha! On the first day we went hiking up to a couple of viewpoints called Honeymoon Point and Sunset Point. We also had a very relaxing boat ride in Nakki Lake as well as got to dress up in the local Rajathani attire. This was sooooo much fun! After that we retired back to our hotel and ate supper in the hotel restaurant.

Next morning we got up early once again to avoid the morning rush and headed towards Jain Temple. It was a bit of a hike but extremely worth it. It was one of the many temples made completely out of white marble. After a peaceful couple of hours we decided to continue to our next destination. Yet another hike up to Toad Rock. From this point we had a beautiful view of the town below and Nakki Lake. We concluded our sightseeing with Dilwara Temple which is in the core town. Photos were not permitted here so you are just going to have to take my word for it. Absolutely breathtaking architecture! Every inch of the temple held intricate carvings in white marble. It took a bit to recover from what we had just seen but once we did we knew our time in Mount Abu had come to an end. We made our way back down the winding mountain-side roads (which by the way made for extremely scary driving conditions - not for the weak hearted) back to Jodhpur.

A built in thrill of India...driving!

So if the food, language and mass amounts of people isn't enough to give you a culture shock in India...the driving sure as hell will. Being a vehicle driver may just be the most skilled profession in India. If the mass amount of vehicles and pedestrians aren't enough, throw animals such as stray dogs, cows, water buffaloes, monkeys, donkeys, sheep, goats, camels and horses into the mix and you have a complete package. Vehicles of all shapes and sizes are welcome! Oh and stuffing 16 people in an SUV, or trucks packed to the point which quadruples the size of it, is ordinary... Also rule of thumb, sharing is caring even when it comes to the opposite lane into oncoming traffic and the shoulder of the road. Here is a quick example: