Hi Hivers,
In last stretch of my Rajasthan trip we left Mount Abu next day for Ranakpur Jain Temple.
30KM Downhill from Mount Abu and then a highway and after around 50 KM we left the highway to some normal road, the road initially passed by some villages little ups and downs, and then some mountain terrain started. After some time we found ourselves on decent hills moving through narrow roads with one side deep valley. Such mountain roads were least expected here. Road condition was not so good and we kept moving with slow pace. At one point we thought if we would have known this kind of roads we would have surely avoided this route (or Ranakpur itself).
Ranakpur is nestled between hills of Aravali. There is also Kumbhalgarh Fort which is known for 2nd Largest wall (after China) in world and largest wall in India.
Our drive to Ranakpur was full of adventures and little scary too. We reached our destination after a tiring drive through the hills at around 5:00 PM, entered the temple premise and let ourselves soak in the achievement (of finally reaching here). The temple premise is huge there is a main temple and some other temples. The temple is in midst of a forest and there are no shops, restaurants, houses etc.
After some refreshment we looked for our stay for night and there was a Govt Guest House just 1 KM ahead. Checked in there and it was the perfect place to stay this close to temple.
The guest house was on a small hill and the temple backside was visible from here. There was forest and mountain on back of the guest house and road on front. A small dry canal was also there along the road which guest house manager told us gets flooded during monsoon. Even the guest house manager told us that wild animals come close to road due to canal in monsoon season.
We visited the temple in evening during Aarti time and spent good time in temple premise for around 2-3 hours. Next day morning we again visited temple for darshan and worshiped idols there. The place and its positive energy, its aura is very pleasant and the mind gets relaxed here.
The main temple here is an architectural master piece and one of largest Jain temple in India. It is said to be built around 15th Century. Built with white marble it has 1444 pillars to support the structure. The exquisite stone carving is visible everywhere. This temple is dedicated to Tirthankar Aadinath.
Kumbhalgar was close to this place but it was not in our itenary and we were already afraid of the road to fort as the fort was on a hill and road to fort was narrow. We were thinking of the road conditions for our journey ahead but thankfully the roads from here were comparatively better. We left the temple around 11:00 am in the morning already checked out from the guest house and now the destination was set to home around 680 KM.
The morning sunrise captured from guest house.
Thanks a lot for reading all through it.
Keep reading, keep posting :)
