Tuesday, November 15, 2022

Temperature 13 – 28 C ( 57 – 82 F ) , No Smog Index

We had breakfast between 7 am and left for Ranthambore at 8:30 am. It would take about 6 hours to drive straight to our destination, however, there was a stop planned that would take us out of our way. We spend most of the day travelling to our next destination but the stop made it very interesting.

As we drove to our destination, Shail pointed out too many interesting places and things for me to remember them all.

We had lunch along along the way and our first stop was at Chand Baori. Before we entered the site, he asked us if we could guess what it was but no-one guessed correctly.

The attraction was called Chand Baori  and it is a stepwell situated in the village of Abhaneri in the Indian state of Rahasthan.  It extends approximately 30m (100ft) into the ground, making it one of the deepest and largest stepwells in India. Stepwells are large wells or ponds with a long corridor of steps that go down to the water level. They are examples of the many types of storage and and irrigation tanks that were developed in India, mainly to cope with seasonal fluctuations in water availability. It consists of 3,500 narrow steps over 13 stories.

Originally there was only the well. The upper structures with the columns and palace were added much later. It was quite impressive.

We decided to take a group photo with the well in the background.

Back Row ( from Left to Right ): Kirk, Bijaya, Prat, Shailendra (Shail ), myself, Carol, Paul, Karen, Maurice, Mardi Front Row ( from Left to Right ); Mihkel, Danny, Malcolm, Lonnie, Jean

From Chand Baori we drove to the Tigress Hotel in Ranthambore. This is a beautiful 5-star hotel and, as with the previous hotel, we were each given a guava drink and a flower Lei.

We unpacked our bags, freshened up and had dinner on the top floor of the hotel. During dessert we had some local entertainment and the dancer convinced several members of our group to join her.

We were tired from the long drive, so we did not stay up very late, especially since Shail had arranged for the hotel to give us wake-up calls at 5:30 the following morning,