November 30th 2006
Got up early in the morning. Had to request for hot water to bathe, which came in one bucket at a time.
Ordered breakfast in the room again, omelletes and toast etc. While were eating, we talked with both Payal and Sagar. Jaidev was in a mood to talk, and that was more important than eating breakfast. We enjoyed sitting outside the room in the garden and talking to the kids.
Paid Rs 735 total, that included our rooms, dinner and breakfast. Apparently, Saravan had eaten out last night, he said he found a dhaba and enjoyed his food thoroughly. He seemed quite OK too, he normally does not favor RTDC's as they charge the drivers for the room, whereas the private hotels offer a sleeping arrangement and food to Tourist cabs for bringing in the customers. We wanted to pay for his lodge and board here so it worked out fine.
10.00 am - We reached the Sun Temple. This temple is stunning. Although, it was crowded on the outside with street vendors and not much open space around the temple, once you go inside, it is very peaceful and quiet. I saw a panditji quietly praying and something made me also kneel and place Rs 10 on the shrine. He softly suggested that I could go up and take pictures (after he saw my camera). I took my shoes off and went up a few steps. It was a beautiful, red stone temple. Another priest on the way up told me I could go all the way up. I did not see any more steps right away, but on going around a column, saw more steps and climbed higher and kept going up till I reached the roof. All this time, I kept taking pictures of each nook and corner. I must have been gone for more than 15 minutes, and realized Pavan may be looking for me, when I saw him down behind the temple, looking for me. I called him, and he also came up to the roof. We have a tremendous collection of some amazing photos of this great, 1000 years old temple, again, what a treasure we have in India. The greatest thing about this temple was, no one was trying to coax us to shell out any money. On returning dowm, I took some photos of the panditji whom I had first met (with his permission) and he gave me info about the age etc of this temple. It was time for the morning prayer, and some local ladies had started to unroll dhurries/rugs on the floor for the devotees to sit on.
We spent about 1/2 an hour in the temple and then went to visit Gagron Ka Quila.
11.53 am - Left Gagron Ka Quila for Kota, not only collect our jackets, but also stay the night there before heading for Chittorgarh.
We were looking for some non vegetarian food and asked Saravan Singh to stop at a good restaurant in Kota.
2.15 pm - Ate at Firdous Restaurant, we were sent upstairs ( to the nicer seating) and had some meat dish with rotis and mineral water. The menu had omellette spelt as AMLET :-)
3.03 pm - Left Firdous for the City Palace in Kota.
4.00 pm - Left City Palace for SukhDham.
4.10 pm - Reached SukhDham again. Felt like we were coming home!!
We were welcomed warmly. They were little confused that we were going to stay there. I may not have clarified that we were going to stay after picking our jackets. Mr HarshVardhan was not there, but the manager at the desk offered us the only room they had # 12 (they were completely full). But the room had just gotten cleaned after painting and required some finishing touches. We accepted, and within 10 minutes, the room was ready, with the bathroom and room floor still wet. We requested for some laundry service to be ready by next morning. Rested in the room for a while, ordered our dinner in the room (soup and sandwiches). We got a call from Mr HarshVardhan to socialize with them downstairs. We went down around 7 pm and met with him and his wife, who was not there 2 nights back as she had gone to Jaipur. A very nice couple, Pavan had a drink, I settled for a lemonade. We had some real interesting conversations on Kota Saris with his wife. She is a very pleasant and knowledgeable person. They are also related to the people who own Samod in Jaipur. After some time, we all split, as HarshVardhan had to drive out very early to Ajmer, he graduated from Mayo College and a group of Alumni were driving together for some elections.
Returned to the room, had our dinner, uploaded pictures, this room was smaller than Room # 10, but a bit cheaper (Rs 800), which we found out next day, while paying the bill.
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