Roopangarh Fort, Kishangarh

This morning we were up again early at around 7 to pack and travel over to Kishangarh. We took Auto's to the bus station and again took a local state bus for about 1.5hours south of Jaipur where we got off the bus and awaited jeeps. The main highways are in general good (during the day!) although the imposition of a contraflow section did not stop the bus driver from cutting through the cones to overtake a line of trucks, against the flow of oncoming vehicles, hmm.
The landscape is very flat and dusty with scrub and fields disappearing to the horizon. The place where we caught the jeeps from is also the heart of the marble trading area and along the roads there were hundreds of marble wholesalers. If it wasn't for the fact they all only sold marble it was like being in a huge Travis Perkins. Many of the men out here wear bright colourful turbans and these are worn with pride by the men here. The jeeps that took us out to the fort were reminiscent of American ones although they are made by Mahindra, the rear seats are higher than the front two and they bounce along at a fair pace on the dusty roads. Suddenly out of the haze I spotted the fort above a small town. As we drove in the roads got smaller and narrower with the usual chaotic Indian life going on. Men sat out side stalls selling chai, women and small children buying provisions and pigs roaming free in the alleys. After a couple of three point turns in the tight lanes we entered to fort gates and climbed out. Porters appeared from nowhere to carry our bags and we walked up the slope to a small courtyard where we were presented with garlands of flowers and rose petals were thrown over us. We entered into the main building and Ruby went to collect the keys and sort our rooms and we sat on splendid couches and drank cool drinks. The fort is the home of the local Maharajah and like many of their palaces it has now been converted to a hotel. There are 23 rooms each with its own style and design, some are small and have only a single bed others are huge rooms maybe 30ft square. climbing the outside stairs we were taken to our room passing through a grand main hall beautifully adorned with pictures of the Maharajah, his family and ancestors. high around the walls was a ladies gallery where previously the women would have watched the proceedings of the day. Passing though here we went out onto a huge veranda complete with a full size tennis court and steps leading up to the ruins of the original Fort. eventually we entered our room which was huge, the two single beds and couch seemed lost with in it. Leaving our bags we returned to the main area to find the others and see their rooms, only to find Greg and Michelle had an even bigger room complete with a window seat over looking the town. Jo and Jackie had a room on a lower level but was equally as big complete with a large rocking crib and massive balcony. One of the staff then took us to see 'The Queen's Room' which apparently Sting had used in the past, this was amazing, a large open room complete with side rooms and a gallery to go out onto a private balcony and the longest bathroom ever, the toilet was nearly 40ft from the bath! We took lunch on the veranda in the shade of pakhoras, fries, toasted sandwiches and chai tea and then took a tour of the whole Fort including the secret passage entrances, underground water chambers and many of the bedrooms each with its own style of decoration. This truly is the most memorable hotel/palace/place I have stayed in.
After a short rest we ventured out into the local village with a local guide. He took us down what he referred to as 'The High Street'; a long narrow lane with the usual shops selling every thing from corrugated sheet to foodstuffs to silverware and barber shops. Amongst the shops we were shown ladies making the bangles found throughout India from a form of clay they coloured and heated over a charcoal fire then rolled and formed into bangles with simple wooden rollers.
The children were starting to come home from school and we started to get mobbed by them everywhere we went “hello how are you, one photo!” they would all call and pester. This continued throughout the walk around the village and they were lovely and cheeky with it but it was nice not to pestered like you get in the cities where all they do is demand money.
Moving on down we say the local cooperative oil mills where the villagers can bring their mustard and sesame seeds to crush for the oils. We then left the High Street and turned onto a small dusty lane to see how the rest of the village lived, every where we went people came out to greet us and they were genuinely please to meet us and asked us to come into their homes and yards. We say ladies sewing fabrics, men making clay pots, a lady making beedies (the traditional cigarettes here that are formed from tobacco rolled into a single leaf and tied with a small piece of cotton – for the record I had to try one (when in Rome...) and they weren't too bad – from there we walked to a small drinks stall and this is where we really got mobbed by the kids. arranging them into a group for a photo took ages and more kept jumping in. Then when I bent down to show them the picture they were all over me fighting to see it. The lovely thing is they were genuinely happy and you did not feel wary of them. Our guide then walked us around to a small cottage factory where they were making braids and necklaces. One lady was using a tiny drill bit mounted in a huge upright drill to make holes in tiny stones by hand using her finger to feel when the drill bit had passed through the stone. In another room a woman was tending to 4 powered weaving looms producing braiding with silver and gold and black coloured cottons. This strangely reminded me of a time at school when we did a project on the weaving industry of Lancashire. After this we walked on further and were taken to an artists house. This artist painted beautiful intricate pictures of Hindu gods, and scenes from ancient festivals and parades, the art work was extremely intricate and detailed, however what was unbelievable was the materials he used to paint on; old postcards & court documents from the 18 and 1900's. He also used silks and newer papers but he claimed that most people preferred them done on the old documents. He took us into a back windowless room which was stacked with piles of old court documents, locks, medical books, Vedic scripts, stamps and swords. Some of the scrolls and papers he claimed were over 300 years old. It was an incredible mini-museum to the written word in India. The court documents were mostly affidavits of land transfers and had ornate 'stamps' in green or blue at the top detailing the issuing court and the price; Three Anna's. Anna's were are an old monetary value with 1 Anna =6.25 Paise, 100 Paise= 1Rupee; a bit like Pounds ,Shillings and Pence but they are not now in circulation and rarely are the Paise seen, and considering one Pound is now worth about 67 Rupees worth very little!
Finally we returned to the Fort and took some pictures of the sunset over the town, the Tennis court had been laid out with chairs around huge wok like burners with log fires sat in them and we sipped a few cold beers and chatted to other guest there. ruby our guide had arranged for us to 'be dressed for dinner' and we took it in turns to go to our rooms to be dressed up in typical Rajasthani Coultar, Pyjamas and turban whilst the ladies were fitted out in Saree's. Dinner was served in the main hall of the Palace, I felt rather odd with our table all dressed up and the rest of the other 30 or so hotel guests in western clothes looking on at us.