Bundi

We stopped in Bundi for 3 nights to break up the trip from Ranthambore to Udaipur and I’m really glad we did! I didn’t know anything about Bundi before we went, but there were actually lots of tourists here. Turns out Rudyard Kipling stayed in the palace here in the 1800s and it was the inspiration for his book “Kim” (I haven’t read it, but maybe now I will).

We stayed in a hostel that had great food (and reasonably priced) and had a wonderful view of the castle from its rooftop restaurant. (Notice the monkey jumping on the roof next door in the first photo below).

Local Farm

The hotel manager was a really nice guy who spoke great English. He invited us to come and see his family farm the next evening and have dinner with his family. His extended family, 25 of them, work on the farm and live in the same house – although they have different allocated portions of the house.

Their farm grew mostly wheat, but also had mango trees, some papayas, guavas, okra and other fruits and vegetables. The wheat, fruits and veg were for the family consumption but they made some money off selling milk from their cows.

His wife made us a very nice dinner consisting of a dense bread roll and some dahl.

Old Town

The next day, we got up early to head out to the palace and fort. However, we discovered that it was going to cost us $50 AUD to visit! Definitely not in our budget… So, we decided to just wander around the old town and markets instead. Actually, we found that everything in Bundi cost a lot to see so we ended up viewing many things from the street instead. Otherwise, we would have easily spent $100 just to see some of the sites there. There was nothing really spectacular, but there were about 3-4 stepwells, the 84 pillar cenotaph, some old gates and buildings and of course the castle. Here are some scenes from around Bundi.

The Road to Udaipur

Next stop Udaipur. We had a really high ‘Cow count’ on this trip. There were several groups of cows walking down the road and this trip was a little bit longer 4.5 hours instead of 3. ‘Cow Count’ came in at: 756 cows!! The scenery on this trip was really nice – tons of wide open space and barren land (who says that India is overcrowded!?).

When we arrived in Udaipur, we realized that the Airbnb apartment we booked is smack in the middle of the bazaar and old town. The car barely fit down the roads and caused quite a traffic jam!