Day 12 – Mt. Abu
Day 12 – Thursday, 7th Nov 2013.
First of all, sorry about the delay in posting this article. Khyati and I are in Jaisalmer and we had limited internet access.
It’s Thursday morning 7 am and the bright sun rays fall on our eyes. We are too lazy to pull the curtains down but wake up soon after a snooze. Khyati and I get ready to check out of the hotel. No, we are not leaving Mt. Abu but are checking out of this hotel and checking into the Jain Dharamshala. Two reasons – It is more economical and we get Jain food 3 times a day at the Bhojnalay. The hotel manager tries to cut us a deal and agrees to drop the room rent to Rs 1500/- (last night we paid 2700). I was taken aback and I immediately asked for a refund of the previous night. The hotel manager politely declined but insisted on us staying for one more night. The Dharamshala was more economical (Rs 600) for the night and so we decided to check out.
It’s 10 am and we are at the reception counter of the Jain Dharamshala. We see a flurry of tourists trying to get a room and the manager scrambling around trying to appease all tourists. We get a small 1 room with attached toilet and we settle our stuff in the room and leave to do the touristy stuff.
The very famous Delwara temples were bang opposite our Dharamshala and we decided to pay it a visit. At the gate entrance, it was clearly written in bold letters that entry to the temple is only between 12 pm to 6 pm. I was a bit surprised as Jain temples open early morning for people to do Puja and prayers.
Delwara Jain temples
It was 11:30 am and the guard said that we will have to wait another half hour. I couldn’t understand the logic and asked why is it so? His quick reply was that Jains are praying inside, all other foreigners and other caste will be allowed only in this time. I immediately retorted that we are a Jain and we should be allowed inside. The guard chuckled and said that I should have told him that first. This is done to preserve the sanctity of the temple as tourists in non Puja clothes are not allowed to touch the idol.
Once inside the temple, we noticed that it’s made of 4 different Jain temples built during different periods by different people. The art work and carvings were amazing and we spent time learning about the history from the Pujaris (helpers at the temple).
It’s 1 pm and we head back to our Dharamshala for lunch. Post lunch, we left to tour the remaining city. Jeeps are plenty in Mt. Abu and you can do a shared jeep for Rs 10 each and it dropped us to the market area. The market area was crowded, cars honking blatantly, cattle walking in the middle of the road and normal people like you and me trying to navigate through this madness. We find CCD (Cafe Coffee Day) – an upscale coffee shop, it’s a chain restaurant with shops all across India. We order some cold coffee and ice cream and soothe ourselves in this hot weather.
It’s 4 pm and we walk towards Nakki Lake. There were vendors selling lot of stuff, boating options available but queues were huge. We just decide to take a stroll around the lake. It was a nice 2-3 km walk around the circumference of the lake.
@ Nakki Lake
@ Nakki Lake
It’s 5 pm and we head back to our Dharamshala and have got a few errands to manage and a few bookings to make. We make ourselves comfortable in the verandah with our laptop and phones. Our next stop was Jodhpur and I make a few phone calls to check availability for the next few days and I get no positive response. This makes us a bit nervous and Khyati and I both agree to book a hotel for the next 3 nights so we have some peace of mind when we arrive in Jodhpur. Cleartrip is an amazing resource and tool for bookings in India and so far, we have been very happy with the service.
I have a lot of writing to catch up on and that filled our evening.
Tomorrow, we have a 3:30 pm train to catch from Mt. Abu for Jodhpur and we plan our itinerary, etc.
It’s 9 pm but never too late for a game of cards between the two of us. We play . It was good fun beating Khyati (err! the truth is that she won by a margin of 50 points. The game ends when one of the players reaches 500 and we were cutting each other quite close but eventually, someone had to win…
It’s 10:30 pm and we call it a night.
Thank you everyone for reading and your comments.
Best,
Paras