Rajasthan — aka “Fortlandia”
Rajasthan is on the “golden triangle” loop, meaning it is a part of India people frequently tour, especially when here on a two-week holiday (triangle is formed by Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur).
I visited five cities in Rajasthan — Bikaner, Jaipur, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, and Udaipur. Also, I had friends with me! Deepika and Sandeep (from San Diego) were also visiting India. A year earlier Deepika and I were talking about “how cool would it be to travel India together?”, and now, it was happening!
1) Bikaner
Bikaner is the less-touristy part of Rajasthan. Here I had my first experience staying in a haveli, which is a mansion that was owned by someone of royalty, and had now been converted to a hotel. Here we stayed at Harasar Haveli.
Bikaner does have a fort (Junagarh), and you can see a few shots in the collage below. It was my first taste of seeing the wealth of Rajasthani royalty.
However, the highlight of this region is Karni Mata temple, aka “The Temple of Rats”. We took a 45-minute ride on a local bus to get here. We took off our shoes and then walked in…
The first thing you notice is the odor. It’s strong. Then you’ll notice rats along the walls, many of them. Apparently, there are 25,000 black rats that live here. Amongst them, there are a few white rats, who are especially holy. We didn’t see any, and were told they are sometimes kept somewhere else.
Why rats? The son of Karni Mata drowned in a pond, and then Karni Mata prayed to Yama (the god of death) to bring him back. Yama initially refused, but then relented and allowed all of Karni Mata’s male children to be reincarnated as rats. The the rats are treated well, as worshippers perceive them to be their ancestors.
It was a surreal moment of being here after I remember watching this in a National Geographic documentary from my childhood. Definitely one of the most exotic places I’ve visited in India!
2) Jaipur — “The Pink City”
After Bikaner, we took a 6.5 hour train ride to Jaipur, aka “the pink city”. Jaipur is big and busy city, so there’s lots of traffic here (and smog).
There are three forts here that you can visit, but we spent time in one (Amber fort).
There’s also Hawa Mahal, a giant wall with 953 windows, designed for women of the royal family at the time, so they could observe street festivals without being seen themselves (this is called “purdah”, a strict requirement of covering the face and body). Across Rajasthan, you’ll notice that many buildings from the time have this architectural feature for the female members of royalty.
I think the main architectural piece in Jaipur is Jantar Mantar (fun name!), which translated from Sanskrit would mean “calculating instrument”. King Sawai Jai Singh II built five of these structures across India, as he was fascinated with astronomy. While he had learned about the lighter metal instruments used by Europeans for astronomy, he built these structures out of stone and marble because they are immune to loss of precision because of hot/cold weather.
These structures are almost 300 years old, being completed in 1734 A.D. Tip: get the audio guide, otherwise you’ll be staring at all these fancy structures and not knowing what they are (like you are now looking at the photos below).
3) Jaisalmer
From Jaipur, we took a 12-hour train ride to Jaisalmer. I left Jaipur with a sore throat from all of the pollution in traffic there.
Jaisalmer is noted for being the only “living” fort, where people are still living inside to this day. However, Lonely Planet discourages from actually staying at a hotel inside the fort, since the city’s ancient plumbing system isn’t able to handle the load. A piece of the wall even fell a few years ago!
My take is, pass on Jaisalmer. The fort is all touristy inside, so there’s no “local” life to observe. Second, everyone is aggressive about selling camel safaris to the desert. I wasn’t interested in riding a camel for hours in the desert, so this didn’t appeal to. And I’m weary of any animal tourism in general, since animals tend to be mistreated.
If you do decide to go to Jaisalmer anyway, I can recommend Tokyo Palace as a great place to stay (no idea why it is named after a Japanese city!). I was able to bargain for a nice room for Rs. 400 ($6.26, no A/C). Despite how hot it was in Jaisalmer in August, the hotel was cool enough and I didn’t need A/C.
4) Jodhpur — “The Blue City”
We then took a 5-hour train ride from Jaisalmer to Jodhpur. Jodhpur is known as “the blue city”. This is apparent when you visit the Mehranagarh fort, and you see all the blue homes below.
I feel this fort has a more majestic view from town than the one in Jaisalmer. When booking a guest house or hotel here, make sure you have one with a rooftop view of the fort.
Here are some photos from palace inside the fort.
There was one room in the fort that had an interesting story about a princess. Apparently the princess somehow got into a situation where her hand was accepted for marriage from two different princes, at the same time! Both princes then arrived to Jodhpur to accept the hand of the princess. The king couldn’t reject either prince, as that would be dishonorable. So the solution? The princess would commit suicide to preserve the family honor.
One night, the princess drank some poisonous concoction. She survived, and it was celebrated that god had somehow protected her! The story doesn’t end here! Because they tried again. So for the next attempt, they made a stronger, opium-based concoction, and well, she did die.
In her memory, her father made her this blue-colored room (see below). It’s unfortunate that this was deemed the only way to resolve the situation, and the princess had to take her life through no error of her own. But it also tells us how important honor was to the people at the time.
There’s also Ahmer Palace, on the other end of town. This place turned out to be a let down, since you can only visit a small portion of the palace, as some of it the Raj still lives in, and another major part is a very expensive hotel. Apparently it’s about Rs. 6000 (~$94) to go inside and have some tea.
Another hidden gem in Jodhpur is a stepwell, Toorji Ka Jharla. You’ll find the local boys and men swimming here, and leaping from the top and plunging into the pool below.
Also, there’s a clock tower in the middle of Jodhpur, and forms its center. Near here you’ll find Cafe Royale, and you’ll find a nice Indian family running the place. We came here everyday to have some chai or cold drinks and chat with the owners.
5) Udaipur
From Jodhpur, we took a 4-hour bus ride to Udaipur. My initial observation upon arriving to Udaipur is that it is definitely the most tourist-friendly of the other cities in Rajasthan, with air-conditioned cafes, fancy shops for clothing, clean streets.
The main attraction here is the palace. There’s also a lake, which has a fancy hotel in the middle on its own island, and temples on their own islands. The nearby ghats make for good sunset spots.
Like Bikaner though, I feel the real attraction here is outside the city. You’ll have to rent a taxi, but a 1.5 hour drive will get you to Ranakpur, where you’ll find an exquisite Jain Temple. Constructed in 1458 A.D., this temple consists of over 1,444 intricately carved pillars. One of the most gorgeous temples I’ve visited in India! There’s an audio guide you can rent, which I recommend so you can learn about Jainism in addition to the history behind the temple.
Summary
So the must visit places of Rajasthan are:
- Bikaner — Karni Mata Temple, aka “The Rat Temple”
- Jaipur — the Hawa Mahal, and Jantar Mantar (astronomical instruments)
- Jaisalmer — skip
- Jodhpur — the Mehranagarh Fort
- Udaipur — go to Ranakpur nearby to visit the Jain Temple.
In all of the above cities, I assume you’ll be visiting the main forts each one has. You can skip some if you’re tight on time, seeing the Mehranagarh Fort in Jodhpur will do.
