Saturday 16 October Bundi

Up at 7.30am for breakfast. Our room goes onto a walkway which has mesh all along and a gate which has to be kept shut to keep the monkeys out of the house. We look onto an old wall with a couple of monkeys popping in and out of openings. Had breakfast downstairs,beside the courtyard which is in the centre of the haveli with a large tree growing up through and past the roof. Met a Dutch couple who were leaving today. The elderly owner was sitting at a table and when his young daughter-in-law came in, she approached him then knelt in front and put her forehead to the ground - I was very surprised. We chatted to the son and got directions to the town and Garh palace.



We were in an excellent location. What a lovely place this is, as we strolled along everyone greeted us with smiles and namaste. We gazed up at the fort and the palace which glowed white and looked beautiful, the approach to the palace was up a very steep walk over stones and cobbles, entry via the superb elephant gate. It was a lovely place, with beautiful architecture although it is in a bad state of neglect.




Once inside we wandered around interesting rooms, much seemed to have been vandalised and damaged and reeked of bats, one room had dozens of them hanging from the ceiling. Many rooms had murals again in a bad state, most depicted Krishna, one small room had fairly well preserved paintings all around, some with angels, that was a surprise and many still retained vibrant colours mostly a brilliant turquoise. We spent ages here enjoying the views and wandering, it was really made up of a number of small palaces.




We then went to the Chitrasala a small palace lower down the hill and built around a pavillion courtyard where the Maharani could go, a lovely cool area open to the front. The walls are covered in beautiful murals and paintings depicting Krishna, and the maharani who with her lady companions seemed to spend their days having fun drinking and smoking opium. On three sides are a number of locked rooms only opened by the guardian, we were the only visitors at that time and enjoyed walking with him as he explained each painting, some of the stories were very amusing, he opened the locked rooms one was covered with inlaid glass.



By now it was well past lunchtime so we walked back and found the Lake View restaurant, where we sat in the shade with one eye on a couple of large monkeys and a rather beautiful cat who seemed to be in charge, there were a lot of butterflies too. The lunch was very good, the beer took ages coming as they don't have a licence and he had to go to the beer shop.

After a good rest we went to the Maharao Raja Bahadur Singh museum, the place was stuffed with animals shot by the prolific killer of wildlife Maharao, his friends such as the Mountbattens and wealthy American 'personalities' their photos abounded on the walls with their trophies at their feet, mainly tigers. There was one display of a tiger with her pair of cubs on either side - beautifully preserved - and photo showing the proud 'hunter' taken in 1953, the American inventor of the ball point pen. There were other buildings containg memorabilia.



We left this place and wandered into the town which was interesting, the open fronted shops with many crafts being carried out together with goods being sold, it was teeming with friendly good natured people - so many namastes - as well as children, cows, dogs and pigs and young boy racers speeding around on motorbikes. There seemed also to be many temples. There was a procession and music going on with many men only, they processed to each temple along the road, very colourful. We passed a lady whose very small boy was misbehaving - with a laugh she handed him to me and seemed to tell him that we were going to take him, I think he nearly died of fright, but he went silent, she gave us a large smile.

When we walked under the city gate I was pooped upon from a great height, by a great big pigeon - all over my hair, face and clothes. We had just bought some nice shampoo so back we trotted to the Haveli for a hot shower and shampoo.

That evening we decided to eat at the Haveli then went out for a walk, everywhere was very quiet. We took a look at the lake and gazed at the illuminated castle, on our way back we heard music and people in a side road it was quite noisy - women dancing in wonderful colourful clothes, many wearing head dresses and carrying silver sticks with which they hit each other (a bit like morris dancers leaping), some children insisted we come to meet their mother and sit on the doorstep to watch. We were told it was 'temple dancing' to the Goddess we thought her name was Dandiya but found later that is what the sticks are called. This is a lovely place and feels village like, maybe because not so many tourists come here.