We hired our Uber driver from the airport for the next three days to take us to all the places he told us about on our first day.
We started with Kumbalgarh, (Great Wall of India) it’s the largest fort wall in India (38km) and the second largest in the world (after Great Wall of China). It had 360 temples but now, 87 are functioning. The fort divides the Mewar and Marwar lands. We shared a guide with another family who had 3 boys one of them was Savik’s age and they bonded quite easily.
It was interesting listening to the story of how the fort kept collapsing and to rectify this, a priest sacrificed himself and how his headless body kept moving on horseback.
The views from the top were amazing and we all got to walk on the wall (Hopefully we get to do this in China).
Next stop was Ranakpur, to visit the Jain temple. This is one of the largest Jain temples in the world and wow how beautiful it was. The white marble building with the intricate carvings, and the single marble statues were so intriguing. Above all the serene, quiet and peaceful background makes you slow down and admire the place.
Back in the car again to get to Jawai. We are doing a home stay and they hire out jeeps to go out and explore the village.
Whoa what an experience that was, they drive you up and down rocky mountains with you holding on to your dear life. The kids were screaming and laughing at the same time as were the adults. Before the ride they guarantee you, that you will see a leopard 99% of the time. We were initially all excited to see peacocks, monkeys, and crocodiles and as the light started fading, were feeling anxious that we might be the unlucky 1%. By then we saw so many peacocks that when we saw another peacock we were hoping to see one being eaten by a leopard.
The views were breathtaking, and everybody agreed, this was the best sunset they had seen so far on this holiday.
As dusk settled in we were all feeling a bit low and then there was a surge of activity with all the jeeps scampering to get to a place. When we got there we were shown a leopard far away in the distance which was quite hard to visualise even with a pair of binoculars. Hoping they didn’t count that as a sighting. Our driver Vinod was feeling a bit glum as well and was determined to find some leopards. After roaming around a few places we were lucky to spot a pack of leopards. 6!!! in total. 2 adults and the cubs walking along the top of a rocky mountain, clearly visible through the binoculars. We were all overjoyed by this sighting. Then the cherry on top was when we came down the hill and the pack just passed next to us and were visible to our naked eyes.
Wow what an end to the day. We all agreed that this was one of our best days we’ve had in our travels. It was hard to believe that we didn’t even know about these places 3 days ago. Going to bed happy wondering what would be in store tomorrow.
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