Mount Abu
Travel Location: Mount-Abu,India
I got a private bus from Udaipur to Mount Abu. It arrived in the early afternoon, in time for me to look around the lake and town the same day.
Since arriving in Udaipur the weather has been noticeably cooler, especially at night. Mount Abu is a former British hill station, at altitude: the mornings were brisk and a second layer of clothing was required in the evening. (It’s going to be too cold now for me to travel to Ladakh, the very most northern part of India. It might have been better if I’d started in the North and headed south. Nevermind, next time.)
Undoubtedly people are poor here, and they’ll make a little money anyway they can.
The Lonely Planet gives very firm advice against visiting Mount Abu in the two weeks after Diwali as room rates would be through the roof and it would be impossible to move for the number of people there. I didn’t notice this advice until I was on the bus on the way to Mt Abu, but actually, it was fine. My room rate may have had a slight seasonal increase (I paid Rs 200, where I might have paid 150); there were lots of Indian tourists (mostly from Gujarat) in Mt Abu, but rooms were readily available.
It was actually quite nice for there to be so many Indian tourists around: it meant that being white was no longer an exclusive marker for my status as a tourist, and also that I could be sure that the commercial activity around me was targeted as much at Indians as it was at foreigners. As it happens, this commercial activity wasn’t much different from what I was used to. There were more ice-creams and toys for children on sale, and fewer mini plastic sculptures of Ganesh and six-piece coaster sets.
On the way to the incredible Jain Delwara temples, I visited a Hindu temple that was housed by a natural rock formation. This is one of the things I like about Hindu temples: they can take any form.
But I noticed for the first time that at this Hindu temple, as at all of the several other Hindu temples I’ve visited, there are a number of shops within the temple grounds, along the path leading up to the temple and right outside the temple entrance. They sell ice-creams, drinks, snacks and souvenirs. I remember being immediately shocked to find a souvenir shop inside York Minster, but the commerce accompanying worship here had not struck me until now – probably because the whole experience of visiting a temple has been so new.
It’s often possible to purchase flowers on the way to the temple but this is a different case: the flowers are an offering to God, left at an altar, just as money itself is left at altars. I don’t think it’s possible to regard an ice-cream bought and eaten during a temple visit as an offering to God. I wonder though if there is a different relationship between commerce and worship in the Hindu religion than in Christianity. Undoubtedly people are poor here, and they’ll make a little money anyway they can.
The Delwara Temples are columns, ceilings, and domes built from beautiful white marble. As at other temples, the marble is decorated with carvings, but at Delwara these carvings are incredibly fine, intricate, beautiful. The marble in some places has been carved so finely that it’s a wonder that it’s made out of stone at all, and, given that it is, that any artisan managed to create such huge works without breaking them and having continually to start over.
I stayed two nights at Mount Abu before catching a private bus at eight thirty in the morning for Jodphur.
