Last photos from Udaipur...and beyond!

We decided to stay an extra day in Udaipur...it's such a beautiful place! So we spent the day walking around town and then went to a dance performance at night...

Lazy days by the lake...


...while others are hard at work!



The dance performance covered several dances from around Rajasthan and Gujarat, including a puppeteer!

Dance with bells...



...swirling skirts...



...puppets...


...and the water dance - she startd with one pot and they added subsequent pots as she demonstrated different skills: lying on the ground, twirling, running, walking on broken glass!!!! all without tipping the pots off her head. Now that is talent :)


We left Udaipur for Chittor...a huge Rajput fort (28 sq kms?) on top of a hill. Three times the people of Chittor committed jauhar - preferring death to surrender. It means the loss of all life - the women commit suicide on a funeral pyre in the fort while the men fight to the death, charging out and attacking the invaders. It's a big place - apparently one time it was 13,000 women dying by fire! I would assume that there was a similar number of men that died in battle.

Views from the hill...




There are several palaces in the fort....some in better condition that others.






And lots of temples...

This is a Jain temple next to one of the towers of victory (they didn't always fight to the death...sometimes they won :)


The main site here was a Shiva temple. Built in 800 AD and restored in 1450 AD or so. It has the trio of Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu inside.




A small shrine...with eyes :)


A small shrine with...monkeys!


Spring water coming out of a bull's mouth...it's one of the major attractions, too, just down the stairs from the Shiva temple.


And temple monkeys :) There were women there selling nuts to feed to the monkeys...




and the fish in one of the tanks! The feeding frenzy was amazing to watch.


This is one of the tanks. The special thing about this one is the texture of the rock in it's walls.


This is another victory tower...done over in one of my artistic photos :)



Those MP roads were a hoot....this is the 1km of potholes alternated with 1km of nice two-lane.


Some traffic moves a bit slower than other traffic....


Another roadside attraction was the picking of opium poppies...



We then headed to Bhopal...it was a nicer city than we expected.

The Hotel was really nice - a business hotel that also caters to forign tourists (there was a tour group staying, too). These rules had us rolling on the floor with laughter :) It's a very good thing we left the gramaphone behind, wouldn't want it to get confiscated or anything....




The reason for our trip to Bhopal was Sanchi - Ashoka's Buddhist meditation center (300BC - 1200AD). It was well worth the major detour!!!! One of the few places we found amazingly peaceful in a country that is always buzzing.

The thing to see in Sanchi is the stupas. The biggest one - Stupa 1 - was the burial place of one of the relics (a bone fragment) of one of Buddha's disciples. Nearby is the Ashokan Pillar with the edict of Ashoka for the monks and nuns not to force any schism in Buddhism or they would be excommunicated (or the equivalent). It is surrounded by 4 gates and a fence, all added later. The gates are all unique and show scenes from the Jakata tales and Buddha's life and other things.




detail of the fence...


This is a Buddha that is in one of the temples...


This is from another Buddha in one of the big temples...the first image is from the disk behind the head of Buddha and the second is some designs on the skin of the Buddha.



There were also several monasteries built over the years. They were usually wood on top of a brick base, so only the foundations survive.



When we got back to Bhopal from Sanchi we went for a little ride around the outskirts of this fair city (really to find the Union Carbide plant from the 1987 disaster)...

A Bhopal party wagon...the band plays for weddings and other celebrations (we see them in every town - the band usually has it's own shop front...in case it's called to play at a moments notice???? :)


Lots of pots for sale....


This Sinsiter Rickshaw was about to gobble this guy up (I told you A thought they were sinister!!!). We have learned that these are actually called Tempos...