Chittor

Pictures from Chittor

Mike – We spent one day here as a stop-over en route to Udaipur. There’s really not much to say about the town itself, besides the fort, which was hyped by Lonely Planet as “possibly the best in India”. I really didn’t think so.

It was huge, formidable, and nearly impenetrable. I just didn’t find it as interesting and fun to explore as some of the other forts we’ve been to thus far. It was so big that you needed a rickshaw to get from sight to sight, and because of this, you just don’t get the same exposure and feel for the place as you would on your own two feet. The large groups of Indian tourists didn’t improve the situation.

Anyway, there’s really not much else to say about Chittor.

Teg- Ya, Mike hits the nail on the head. Besides the fort there really wasn’t much else to Chittor. If we were to re-do our journey there, I think we would definitely have made it a quick afternoon stop between Bundi and Udaipur. That being said, I must admit the Fort was massive and well worth a pit-stop.

The entire hill-top was covered with sandstone bricks; towers and walls and temples scattered all over a 5km range. Even just getting there, we were zig-zagging through huge brick walls for what seemed like forever until we got to the entrance gate at the top. Definitely wasn’t complaining about the rickshaw then!haha

However,  as Mike said, having our driver take us from one point to the next, giving us time-lines for how long each stop should take, really sucked. We didn’t even listen to him anyways, just spent as much or as little of time in each section as we liked. When we first arrived, the first ‘section’ we browsed was empty, we were the only ones there and it was great!! At this point we kinda believed the rest of the day would be like this. Our next stop quickly changed our minds as we discovered we were amongst a school of boys and Indian tourists. The parade of people asking for our picture would soon begin.

The two high points of this fort for me was the huge tower and the tank. The tower was something like 9 stories high and it was quite the chore to get up. Not so bad for me, but Mike struggled. That’s because the stair well was made for my height, or smaller. At points I was even crawling up the stairs to safe-guard my head from getting smoked. It was pretty funny watching Mike wiggle and crawl his way up the stairs!

Being at the tank was an interesting experience because it was swarming with people at the bottom of the stairs with their feet in, washing their faces with the water.  I attempted to do the same and was greeted with many open-hands and pleas for donations. Their watery blessing was apparently very expensive. I did donate, but not as much as they would’ve liked. Feeling somewhat uncomfortable, I didn’t linger in the tank for very long.

Mike – Teg has this new fascination with taking pictures of me going through tight places. I think she finds it quite entertaining…