Full Day Ranakpur Jain Temple, Kumbhalgarh Fort & Giant catfish

Your day starts at 8am being picked up at your centrally located hotel in Udaipur in an air conditioned car. I will accompany you along with the driver. Our drive takes about 2 hours before we arrive at Ranakpur Jain Temple, one of the largest and most important temples in Jain culture. It is considered as one of the 5 most sacred places for Jains.

Construction of this temple started in the 15th century by Darna Shah a local Jain business person. This temple honours Adinath and is famous for its intricate carvings & unique architecture

The main temple Chaturmukha was built using white marble spread over 48,000 square feet with 1444 marble pillars, 29 halls, 80 domes & 426 columns. Please note if you want to count them all, to see if the facts are right, you may miss your car back!!!! Only joking. Time allowed inside temple is 2 hours.

You can also walk around the outside where exposed natural beehives hang from the temples walls and many monkeys enjoy eating from the trees and bushes before we have lunch at a nearby restaurant.

After lunch a 1½ hour drive brings us to Kumbhalgarh Fort, a Unesco World Heritage Site, also known as Great Wall of India, due to its 36km perimeter wall. This fort has seven fortified gateways and over 360 temples within the fort both Jain & Hindu. It was built in the 15th century by Rana Kumbha, the second largest fort in the Mewar region after Chittorgarh. Built on a hilltop 1,100m above sea level, from the top of the fort, it is possible to see many kilometres across the Aravalli range, home to Leopards, Puma, Tiger and many other mammals, birds & reptiles. Time allowed at fort is 2 hours. I will accompany you around the fort or if you wish to have your own time that’s fine, I will stay at a discreet distance, just in case you need me.

Leaving Kumbhalgargh we drive to Hamer Pal Lake home to thousands of African catfish, for about 30Rs we can buy some food to feed these giant catfish, amazing sight to see them feeding. The story that the local people have about these giant catfish is that one fish contractor developed this breed in the lake for commercial fish farming. The villagers were concerned about the impact of this on their village so stopped his venture, however the catfish kept increasing in size and breeding hence what you see today.

A 2 hour journey brings us back to Udaipur