Nimaj and Ranakpur

Our drive from Jodhpur to Nimaj was very interesting. We passed trucks piled high with goods and tractors pulling trailers so big they took up more than their lane of traffic. In the countryside there were many farms with their crops tied in bundles that were drying in the fields.We also passed many stone mills with their huge saw blades for cutting the stone from surrounding quarries. There were also many goods trucks and army trucks on the road.

Once in Nimaj we had difficulty locating the property we were staying in as there were 3 properties all owned by the same family and we visited all 3 of them. We were welcomed at the door by two elderly ladies who were singing and one painted a red dot on our foreheads.

We were then given a drink of cola while we waited to be allocated or rooms. The property has lovely grounds and our room was very large. We had lunch at their restaurant and then set off on a walk through the village. The walk started out to be pleasant but along the way Catriona was constantly harassed by young children asking for "one pen" or money. They had obviously been given pens by tourists in the past so now expected all tourists to give them pens. It made us think that in the past when we have given pencils to kids in South America that maybe we did the wrong thing. David managed to buy 2 inner tubes and 4 brake pads for his Chinese bike so he was very happy with the walk. We retreated back to the hotel where we relaxed until 4pm then headed out in a couple of jeeps for a ride through the countryside. We visited a Jain temple which was over 1000 years old, it had been destroyed by the invading Mughal army in the 15th century and some of it had been restored. It was full of intricate carvings.

We stopped in a village and were shown how they spin their wool which they use to weave their rugs. We also were shown through someone's house and shown where they keep their animals. One pen had a smal number of lambs and kids which were very cute. We then drove out to a lake where we had a cup of chai while watching the birds. It was dark as we drove back to the hotel. David had a drink with the rest of the group on the lawn while Catriona had a massage. Then it was dinner and off to bed.

We set off after breakfast in the minivan we had taken to get to Nimaj. We passed a colourful Jain temple on our way out of Nimaj and further down the road saw a large procession of people heading in our direction. The group were Jain devotees and among them were a group of about a dozen naked monks. We ended up on a very busy highway 14, which is a major road from Delhi to a port city and so had many large trucks on it. As the trucks can only do 40km/hr our driver was passing many trucks and having to dodge other cars, busses, cows, goats and dogs. We had other trucks coming towards us that were passing each other. It was quite a nerve racking experience. The bus in this picture coming towards us just made it into the gap in time which was a thing that happened many times on our journey. We were stuck in a traffic jam because of an overturned truck. It was unbelievable the way cars would not wait in line but drive right up to the front. A police officer had to try to get the cars out of the way to allow a truck coming in the opposite direction to get through.

We finally made it to Ranakpur to visit the Jain temple dedicated to Adinath. It has 1444 columns and is made of marble.  It was a lovely temple with thousands of carvings of animals and humans.

 

After the temple visit it was on to our hotel up a steep winding road. The hotel is near a wildlife park and our room again was huge. We met at 4pm for a walk and were advised it would cost us 100 rupee each. This put a bit of a dampener on our mood as we were not advised of a cost previously. The walk was not anything special and our guide could not speak English! It is something we will be mentioning in our feedback to intrepid.