Help me break my Jodhpur/Udaipur/Jaisalmer fixation!

Lindsay

Hi all,

Every time I'm in India and friends visit, I lead them on the same path: Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Udaipur. I think these are magical places for a first-time tourist to land up after a week of culture shock in Delhi! But now my fiance is coming to visit me in December. It's his first time to India, and I find myself wanting to visit new places in Rajasthan with him.

Udaipur, he definitely wants to see -- a friend spoke highly of the place to him (poor Jodhpur, never gets any love) -- but other than that, it's up to me. I should admit, I am tempted, still, to take him to Jaisalmer -- because I find it very relaxing! But I also know I am doing myself a disservice by ignoring all the other fabulous places in Rajasthan!

Can anyone give me any recommendations on cities they just can't believe I haven't seen yet?

Important notes:
* I'm not a fan of Jaipur.
* Nor do I enjoy, um, hippie culture, so I have avoided Pushkar to date. (Is that a mistake?)
* I love forts -- historic buildings -- but am not so keen on visiting a place just to see a temple, as we will be doing much "temple-hopping" in January down south. (I know the architecture is very different in the north vs south, of course.)
* Also, if it's relevant, I speak Hindi (though can't think why it would be relevant, actually -- probably don't want to pull him TOO off the beaten path since it's his first time here).

Thanks for your advice!

delhiwala

Some Recommendations:

1. Mandwa
2. Bikaner
3. Osian
4. Chittorgarh
5. Kumbhalgarh
6. Ranakpur
7. Deeg
8. Bundi

__________________
Travel only with thy equals or thy betters; if there are none, travel alone. - The Dhammapada

Aishah

My favourites would be Ranakpur, Mandawa, and Bundi from your list Delhiwala. I also like a little village called Bhenswara - there's a wonderful place to stay the night there called Rawla Bhenswara - it's about 130km south of Jodhpur, not far from Jalore. It can be a nice stop on your way to Ranakpur.

__________________
"Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards."

Aupmanyav

Udaipur (Chittorgarh?), Ranakpur, Kumbalgarh, even Abu (Abu was the seat of Paramar kings prior to the attack of Mahmood of Ghur, and controlled a large part of Gujarat. Has a fort, Achalgarh, and the extremely beautiful Delwara Jain temples) on that side. Deeg, Bundi on this side. Why miss Pushkar if you visit India so freqently. Jaisalmer with its magical fort takes time (and you have to cross Jodhpur, my city).

Aishah

Mount Abu and Pushkar - yes! I love them both. Pushkar has a few detractors here on this forum, but I have always enjoyed my visits there (about six times in all I think).

delhiwala

I too loved Mt. Abu, Dilwara temples are unbelievable..... so sophisticated from inside so ordinary from outside.....

Sorry Aishah but my pushkar experience was also not that good as the lake was very dirty, I couldn't even dip my hands in it to offer water to the sun....and the atmosphere was so hippie....

And in my opinion Mehrangarh fort is the best maintained fort in Rajasthan..

Lindsay

Thanks for all the suggestions! I know Mehrangarh Fort well, as I lived inside the fort for half a year back in the 90s (strange but true story!). Ranakpur, Kumbalgarh, and the Dilwara Jain temples at Mt. Abu are all lovely, but I've seen them before... I think I've been to Deeg, too, although I can't quite remember -- was there some contraption in that palace for reproducing the sound that the thunder makes during the monsoon? My memory is fuzzy but I do recall a giant stone that was rolled across the floor to make the sound of thunder... would that be Deeg?

Anyway, your answers have led me to make a short-list of a few stand-out options! Namely, Bundi, Mandawa, Bikaner and Pushkar. I will research them all and make a decision. Thank you so much for helping me to build a list / narrow down the options!

delhiwala

Once you go past the fort museum towards the temple at the other end of fort, there are some houses on left side, I saw many families staying there. did you stay with them ?

Barkha

No one has mentioned Abhaneri n Bhangarh..m surprised.and What abt sili sher lake palace

Lindsay

Nope, when I say I was living inside the fort, I mean I was living inside what used to be the zenana! It was such a wild experience -- we would get into rooms that hadn't been opened in years if not decades. Totally glorious experience, and probably most of it was utterly wasted on my eighteen year old self.

Anyway, I'll tell you exactly where we were staying -- if you're walking up the ramp, once you're past the gate with the sati handprints, you'll see a set of archways on your right, within which is a restaurant. You keep walking past it, but go up a flight of stairs on your right -- this used to be the main entrance into the museum, not sure if it still is. You go around a corner, past a couple little shops, and then, if you go left/straight-ish instead of right (as the tours used to do), you find yourself in a courtyard with some gorgeous screened windows directly in front and above you. This used to be the very last courtyard that the tours arrived at, before they exited the interior. To your left is a space, almost stage-like, with open arches or pillars (there used to be an amazing flautist who would sit and play all day in this space). The space is/was roped off. We would walk through those arches, around the corner to the right -- and voila, there's a "hostel" back there, not open to the public, designed back during WWII for...well, reasons that everybody publicly disagreed on, shall we say. And those beautiful windows you saw when you were back in the courtyard? Those were the windows from our bathrooms!

I'm not sure how the space got remodeled after I lived there, but I know it was used to shoot a historical (Hindi) film -- Taj Mahal, I think? So it might have gotten a revamp during that process.

(EDIT to the below: I just realized you're talking about the houses near the Chamunda Devi temple, yes? I thought the people who made the puppets, etc., lived there, but I was never sure. Anyway, I'll leave the below text just because it gave me an excuse to reminisce about the Pleasure Palace, which always fascinated me!)

I think you're talking about the houses that are on the downhill slope past the Pleasure Palace, when you're heading toward the back entrance to the fort, which lets you out in the old city. In the late 90s, the fort staff lived there.

(BTW, I wonder if they ever opened the Pleasure Palace to tourists. There's a secret passage inside it that we were all eager to test out, until we realized it probably hadn't been cleaned in decades if not centuries! Also, the guy in charge of the fort at the time really freaked us out by sharing a disturbing story about a group of musicians who got buried alive in the Pleasure Palace's garden back in the day. Apparently it's still haunted! Two European women who were there at the same time, doing interior restorations of the artwork, actually seemed all too willing to believe it was haunted, which was what freaked us out the most!)

delhiwala

Are you talking about these windows ?

Attached Thumbnails

 

OceanTragic

Behind these doors?

Anyway, how about breaking the fort/palace thing and doing a safari or two. Keoladeo, Sariska and Ranthambhore are all within reach and well worth a visit.

Attached Thumbnails

 

__________________
.

KABAARY

Aah ! The pretty little lass. How is she doing OT ?

vonkla

If you visit Bundi think then also of Jhalawar/Jalarapatan

__________________
.
See our travel journals Mumbai-Dehli in three months; From Kochi to Delhi

Aupmanyav

If you have been there, done that, probably it is time to go to Devgarh Madaria (Mandsaur - Pratapgarh - at the southern most tip of Rajasthan), an abandoned fort built for some god-forsaken reason in a god-forsaken forest. Or go to Gogunda, Kotda, or Khed Brahma in Gujarat (Dangs) for some authentic bhil life.