Day 231: Chittorgarh and Pushkar
We had a whopping 6hr drive ahead of us today, so we departed Udaipur just as the sun was peaking over the horizon. We reached our first destination, Chittorgarh, by mid-morning. Chittorgarh, or “Chittor Fort,” is a huge 7th century compound – one of the biggest and oldest forts in India. While there is a ticket collector at the entrance to the fort, the rest of the complex is pretty unregulated – no museums, no guides, no guards and no crowds – which meant we were free to roam around the ancient ruins at our leisure. The freedom to “play archaeologist” was especially appealing to Igor (just by coincidence, we caught Raiders of the Lost Ark on TV the night before)! We spent a couple of hours exploring the Rana Khumba Palace, the Hindu temple & Victory Tower, and the watery Padmini Palace, before heading back on the road.
After a spectacular supermoon the night before, Udaipur sends us off with an equally gorgeous sunrise over Swaroop Sagar Lake
The Chittor Fort is a huge, crumbling stone playground, which Igor gleefully explores (I think he was imagining himself to be Indiana Jones)
The Chittor Fort was abandoned in 1567 when the Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great attacked, forcing the relocation of the Mewar capital to Udaipur. It was returned to the Rajput kingdom in the 1600s, but was never resettled, so it has been slowly crumbling ever since
View from the Chittor Fort – the Meera Temple and Victory Tower can be seen in the distance
Lindsay peeks through the balcony windows
The ruins of the Rana Khumba Palace – the oldest structure in the Chittor Fort complex
The Chittor Fort was built on the top of a hill, 180m above the city below
A statue of Ganesha sits inside the walls of the Meera Temple – a Hindu temple built in the ornate Indo-Aryan style with tall, beehive-shaped sikharas on the roof
Shoes are not allowed in temples, so Lindsay walks inside wearing socks – she keeps her visit short to spare other visitors the smell!
A large troop of gray langurs live on the temples grounds. The monkeys are big and a little aggressive as tourists keep feeding them in order to take pictures (people, stop it!)
The Vijay Stambha (AKA “Victory Tower”) – a huge 120’+ monument built by the Mewar king in the mid-1400s to celebrate his victory over the invading armies of two Muslim empires who united in an attempt to take Chittor
The Padmini Palace – a small, pretty building surrounded by a huge moat – it’s not the most impressive palace we’ve seen, but turns out it has a great story…
…the UNESCO World Heritage Chittor Fort was the scene of the Indian version of “Helen of Troy.” In the 1300s the sutlan of Delhi was visiting the Mewar king and requested an audience with the Queen Padmini, who was rumored to be “divinely beautiful.” The king and queen were suspicious of their vistor’s intentions, so they only consented to let him look at the queen’s reflection in a mirror. That glimpse was enough to drive the sultan mad with lust – he declared war on the Mewar kingdom in an attempt to steal the queen and make her a part of his harem. Unfortunately, the Chittor Fort could not withstand the siege, and fell to the Muslim invaders. However, the sultan did *not* win his prize as the queen and the other royal women committed jauhar, preferring suicide to captivity. In commemoration of the story, an old mirror still hangs in the empty palace.
Since we didn’t have a set time when we needed to arrive in Pushkar, we finally made time for a much needed errand – braving the exorbitantly long lines to exchange our voided 500 Rs. notes for new, valid currency. Everyday when we passed by banks and ATMs, the lines seemed to be getting longer, not shorter, as the country is in *dire need* of more bills to replace the invalid 500 and 1,000 Rs. notes. To help with the overload, government-run post offices were helping banks exchange bills – for our purposes this was the better option as we had no need to deposit cash to an account.
Our hearts sank when we saw the long line spilling out of the building, but we needn’t have worried. In an attempt to mitigate the damage on the tourism industry, foriegners were allowed to cut the que when exchanging old bills – thank goodness! Surprisingly, the locals waiting in line didn’t give us too many nasty looks as we edged by. It still took us a good half an hour to fill out the necessary paperwork and the 4,000 Rs. limit per passport meant we would still had one old bill leftover, but we could take all that in stride. What REALLY pissed us off was that the post office manager rejected one of our 500 Rs. notes because it had a centimeter-long tear in the middle. SERIOUSLY?!? This bill has been demonitized – your government is going to DESTROY it anyways! Why does it matter if there is a tear? We tried to argue that it’s not our fault that the ATM dispensed it that way (although Igor started to suspect that the torn bill was actually one of Avinash’s). Finally we just pocketed the torn bill and exchanged a different one instead. Whatever, we finally had REAL money that monuments, hotels and restaurants would HAVE to accept! We were still short on change, but we were confident we would break the 2,000 notes eventually. With our cash worry finally off our backs, we jumped back in the car and continued our journey to Pushkar.
Cutting in front of about 200 locals who are desperately trying to exchange their cash – sorry, guys!
Each foreign passport holder can exchange a maximum of 4,000 Rs. at a time (about USD $30). We were down to 4,500 Rs at this point, so Igor exchanged our cash while Lindsay exchanged some of Avinash’s. The process was incredibly inane – we each had to provide a scanned copy of our passports (Avinash ran to a copier while we filled out paperwork), and write down the full serial number of each bill on an official form before they would exchange our money
The Post Office has been inundated with customers trying to exchange notes – they have a huge pile of empty government cash bags that were used to deliver the shiny new pink 2,000 notes. Once we got our valid cash, we carefully tucked the valuable paper away and crept out of the building as discreetly as possible
On the road again, we pass a tuk tuk that is packed like a clown car with so many passengers, two guys are riding on the roof!
Avinash believes in justice – not matter how small! When a toll collector claims he doesn’t have change for the 60 Rs. fee, Avinash spends a good 10min arguing with the guy. When that doesn’t work, he pulls over 2KM down the road when he finds the local law enforcement (chillin’ under a tree) and complains, resulting in the official radioing back to the toll guy, telling him to give Avinash change or a free pass. We then *doubleback* to the toll guy and get Avinash’s money back – hey! 40₵ is 40₵.
It was late in the afternoon by the time we reached Pushkar, and to be honest, we were pretty exhausted. We didn’t have a local guide arranged for today – Avinash dropped us off at our hotel and told us that the main street in Pushkar was within walking distance so we could self-explore. Lindsay looked longingly at the quiet hotel pool, but Igor reminded her, “We came all the way to India to see INDIA,” so we gathered our strength and headed out into the bazaar.
Pushkar is particularly famous for its ghats (religious bathing pools), the Brahama Temple (one of the few Hindu temples dedicated to Brahama – most are dedicated to Shiva or Krishna), and the annual Camel Festival which we missed by mere *days*! (Too bad – it’s supposed to be quite a spectical with snake charmers, acrobatics, and THOUSANDS of camels) We made it to the ghats – the scenery was beautiful…from a distance. Up close? Look, all due respect for other cultures and religions, but the water in Lake Pushkar is not exactly clean, and not only did we see people bathing in it, many were drinking it too! Hope it works out for them…but that is *so* not for us.
We finally found the Brahama Temple after wandering around the hot, dusty and noisy market streets. Don’t tell Avinash, but we got all the way to the temple stairwell, took one look at the huge crowds of pilgrims pushing their way in and out of the entrance, and turned back to the hotel. Without a guide, we decided it wasn’t worth the time or aggrivation to push our way through dozens of tourists just to look at religious icons we wouldn’t understand. But when Avinash asked us what we thought the next day, we told him it was great!
Navigating the crowded mayhem of the Pushkar marketplace to find the Braham Temple and ghats
The waters of Lake Pushkar are sacred to Hindus – a bath in the holy waters is believed to wash away sins and even cure diseases
The sun setting over the ghats (holy bathing pools) in Pushkar – while the photos make it look beautiful and peaceful, the city was a loud and crazy sensory overload!