Day 3 Mar 2

Today we had to get up at an ungodly hour of 5:45 am. Wake-up coffee served by our steward made it bearable. We boarded jeeps at 6:10 am and drove for about 30 min to Ranthambore National Park. The park is nature preserve for tigers. There are about 70 tigers living in the area and we were hoping to see at least one. After a 90+ minutes of very bumpy and dusty drive through park looking for tigers, we found none. We did see a lot of deer and antelope, monkeys, pheasants, wild pig. Then the jeeps took us to a small hotel for Holi celebration. Holi is called the Festival of Color, and it celebrates the beginning of spring, new life and letting go of old grievances. The celebration starts the night before with lighting bonfires made of bundles of straw to burn the bad stuff. There is even an official bonfire in front of the maharaja’s city palace, which he himself lights. We saw the preparations for it yesterday. The following morning, people go around throwing fistfuls of powdered colors/dyes at each other. Supposedly there is also a lot of drinking going on. It’s all over by 1 pm. Our Holi was fun, with food, music and Indian dancers. Then we got back on the train to take a shower and change from the white (no longer) pajamas provided by POW. Then the train left for Chittaurgarh. At 4 pm, we left for Chittaurgarh fort from the 7th century, which one of the largest forts in India. It is now more popular with tourist than ever because of a controversial recent Indian movie about the 14th century queen Padmini who lived in the fort/castle and committed jauhar (burned herself up) together with her ladies of the court so they don’t fall into the hands of the Muslim invaders. We visited just a fraction of the fort, including its most famous structure – the tower of victory, a temple and Padmini’s summer palace. Then we had to sit through an hour of what was advertised as a “light and sound show” at the ruins of the main palace, but turned out to be a detailed narrated history lesson with occasional lighting here and there.