The other highlight of the wait at the station was the conversation we had with an army man waiting for the same train. He was traveling with his family back to his village for the holidays (Diwali). He is with an engineering unit that is responsible for the smooth functioning of army hardware - ranging from artillery guns to trucks. He recounted his experience at Siachen. He mentioned that at Siachen jawans wait for weeks to get letters and supplies via helicopter drops. If the weather is bad the heli will leave without making a drop returning only a week later. Our wait compared soldiers wasn't so bad.

Eventually Marudhar Express chugged into Agra Fort station, about 5 hours late. We clambered aboard hungry and tired and reached Jaipur at 3:45 PM. We were too exhausted to do anything that day and just stayed at the hotel the rest of the evening. Hotel and local taxi arrangements were made by Ramakrishna peripa. We started out the next morning to see the sights at Jaipur. Our first stop was at the Nahargarh Fort. This fort was built by Raja Jai Singh, who also founded the city of Jaipur. The top of the fort give some pretty good views of the city. The palace within the fort is quite small but definitely worth a visit.

After Nahargarh we visited Jaigarh fort and the Amber fort. Jaigarh is a much bigger fort than Nahargarh and we got some real cool views from atop the fort. This fort was renowned for forging cannons. It houses one of the largest cannons in the world. Called the Jai Ban, this canon has a 20 foot long barrel and used 100Kg of gunpowder to fire a shot. This guy is capable of shooting a shot over several kilometers. However the cannon has not been used in an actual battle.

We returned to the hotel for dinner and then took a night train to Udaipur.

We arrived at Udaipur in the morning and checked into the hotel. Based on brochure recommendations our agenda was to visit places close to Udaipur - Nagada, Jagat, and Chittorgarh.  Since we had a little time (2 days) we also decided to visit a couple of local sites in Udaipur. The first place we went to was a small park called Saheliyon Ki Bari -  not at all worth the time. If you happen to be in the area skip this place. We then visited the Bharath Kala Mandir for a puppet show. What I thought was going to be a only a 20 min event turned into a 1 hour "cultural show". We sat through a bunch of folk dances before the puppets finally made an appearance.  Time well spent? Err..hard to say. The puppets were fun but the rest of the show was the kind of stuff we used to get on Doordarshan Sat afternoons (back in the days when we had just 1 or 2 channels). Anyway, here is a clip of the puppets in action.

We then drove to Nagada, about 20 Kms from Udaipur. Our taxi driver was a jolly fellow and shared a wealth of information about the place. Dharmender was from Madhya Pradesh but had spent a lot of time working in Rajasthan. Our conversations ranged from local turban types to how liquor is brewed from mhauva. We finally reached the temple at Nagada. This is an old temple (Saas-Bahu temple) that is now under the care of the architectural survey of India. The main complex housed Saraswathi and Lakshmi at some point. Now of course there are no idols or actual puja. The entire temple is build out of marble. This is a beautiful temple with a number of excellent sculptures.

The next day we drove to Jagat en route to Chittorgarh. The brochure describes Jagat as the Khajuraho of Rajasthan but it turned out to be a huge disappointment. First, this is way of in the boonies. The roads we used to get here were very poor and at the end of a bumpy drive was a small temple complex with a large board that informed us that photography is not allowed. The temple is beautiful - probably better than what we saw at Nagada. But it is really small and certainly not worth the drive from Udaipur. After a very short stop at Jagat we headed to Chittorgarh.

Chittaur was the capital of the old Rajasthani kingdom of Mewar. The kings of Chittaur withstood several mughal invasions , refusing to bow to even Akbar. After two unsuccessful conquests Akbar finally captured Chittor on his third attempt. This fort was home (at different points in time) to Rani Padmini, Rana Sangha, Maharana Pratap - if you don't recognize these names you haven't read enough Amar Chitra Katha as a kid. The fort complex houses several palaces (that are now run down) and temples. The Jain temple is easily the coolest building within the fort.