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Our first bus journey took us 7 hours along a bumpy road to Mt.Abu, the only hill station in Rajasthan. It's very popular with Indian tourists especially families and newlyweds. At an elevation of 1220m, Mt.Abu provides cool temperatures, abundant greenery and a lake allowing for a great place to relax before heading to the scorching heat in the Thar Desert. The locals here are very friendly and there are virtually no touts. Our hotel, the Shri Ganesh is packed with foreigners from all over the world making it a pleasant place to interact with other travelers.
Every day, Chumpak takes a group of us from the hotel on a 4 hour hike off the beaten track around the mountain. I have seen so many spectacular sights and panoramas on these hikes including a crocodile! On one of the hikes, we hiked to a cave in the mountains that we could go into. However, I didn't realize that we had to crawl through it. With only about 2ft of crawling space, I wiggled my way in the dark for about 10 meters until I could see a small opening to crawl out of the cave from. It was both exciting and scary as bats were flying past my head in the pitch dark. We also went to a Hindu temple called Gaumukh that had 750 steps leading down to it. Once we arrived at the bottom, a couple of us jumped into the spring-fed fountain for a swim and to cool off before climbing back up.
Our next hike was just Heather and I. Chumpak took us to the famous Dilwara Jain Temples. The temples are famed for their intricate details of white-marble carvings. All 5 temples in the complex were made of beautiful white-marble. And no two figures or carvings on the pillars or ceilings reliefs were identical. Too bad cameras were not allowed inside. Jainism evolved as an alternative to the high authority of the Brahmin rule. The Jains are strict vegetarians and believe every living thing has a soul. There are many Hindu and Buddhist elements incorporated into Jainism.
Next, we hiked through a forest to a high rock mountain face for some spectacular views of the farmlands at the bottom of the mountain. We watched the sunset from "Honeymoon Point" near the Ganesh Temple. It was probably the most beautiful sunset I have seen thus far. It's funny, I have seen more sunrises and sunsets on this trip than I have in my entire life!
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