Wow, another long car ride was in store today to get us from Udaipur to Kumbalgarh. We left Udaipur at around 10:00 and arrived at 6:30. Our hotel, the Aodhi, was very rustic. Apparently, it was the place where the Maharajah used to stay when he wanted to go hunting. The rooms were small, but that is of no import beause we hardly spend any time in our rooms.
The day before, at this hotel, there was such flooding rains that the walkways were more like waterways, reaching up to one’s knees. Luckily, we arrived the day after, and didn’t have to take a boat to visit the Kumbalgarh fort instead of a car. The hotel is in the middle of the jungle, where the Maharajah used to hunt for panther. I’m glad we didn’t meet up with a panther, although seeing one from far away would be cool. We saw other wildlife, however. The monkeys here are different than the monkeys we have been seeing up until now. They are whitish, with black faces. They are really cute. You just have to remember that they can rip your face off if they want to. And the bats! They are huge! Their wing span is as big as a raven. It was really neat to see them flying around above our heads.
At 7:30, it was almost dark and we wante to see the Kumbalgarh Fort at night when it is it up. For such an out-of-the-way hotel and fort, there were a lot of people there! Can there possibly be that many tourists? I don’t know where they came from. Our hotel had only 27 rooms, and the”Guest House” down the street only had a few. We stood on a platform which had a great view of the fort. If you were to venture off the platform, you would go plummeting down to the earth below – around 1000 metres of hill and rocks. Of course there was no barrier to prevent you from taking a flying leap. I believe that, in India, they follow this law: If you are foolish enough to go teetering at the edge, then you deserve to fall off. Maybe North America could learn something from that: Don’t protect and reward the stupid people by allowing them to sue a company because they themselves don’t have any common sense; give them, instead, a chance to take their stupidity to the maximum height (or depth, in this case).
After a mediocre dinner and some time for chatting, we headed off to bed, ready for the next adventure on Sunday.
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- The view of part of the kingdom that Kumbalgarh fort surrounds
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- One-armed, no-tailed monkey. I wonder if Edi would try to look under his fur to see if he was hiding his other arm in there. :)
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- Dancing at school in honour of Independence Day. The poor kids, who already go to school six days a week, went for a 7th because of Independence Day.
