Umaid Bhawan Palace

The Umaid Bhawan Palace in Jodhpur, Rajasthan is among the best kept palaces in India. Part of the palace is now run by the Taj Group of Hotels.

Umaid Bhawan Palace, Jodhpur

The red sandstone palace is located on Chittar Hill which is the highest location in the city giving it an imposing view. The palace is clearly visible from the Mehrangarh Fort and vice-versa.

Arms in sandstone

It is said that as the region was going through drought and famine the then ruler commissioned this project to provide employment to people. The construction of this palace started in 1929 and completed in 1943. The red sandstone building is designed by the renowned architect Henry Lanchester. Henry Lanchester was at that time an understudy of Edwin Lutyens who designed New Delhi. An interesting feature is that the chiseled sandstone of the palace have been put together in a system of interlocking without using any mortar.

Coat of Arms of The Royal Family at the Entrance

The palace is surrounded by well maintained lawns and gardens spread over 26 acres. On the premises is also a museum containing the vintage cars owned by the royal family. The vintage car area is in glass enclosures facing west. But the problem is that if you go there in the evening then the reflection and glare makes it a bit frustrating to view the details of the cars. The main museum inside the main building houses antique weapons, clocks, watches and crockery etc.

The Palace with Lawn

A visit to the palace also provides one opportunity to see the city from higher up. The view one gets of the floodlit palace from almost any part of the city below is magnificent.

View of Umaid Bhawan Palace at Night from Jodhpur City

The handing over of part of the palace to a hotel chain has its pluses and minuses. The palace renovation, which is an expensive preposition, is taken care of and also it ensures a steady income to the current Maharaja of Jodhpur. However, only a very small portion of this beautiful 347 room palace remains open for the tourist to look and admire.

Interested to know more about places of interest in Jodhpur? Do read my earlier posts -

Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur
Guda Bishnoi
Umaid Heritage:Water Conservation with Beauty
Ratanada Palace

Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur

Among the largest forts in India, the Mehrangarh Fort towers 400 feet above the city of Jodhpur in the state of Rajasthan. Jodhpur is the second largest city of Rajasthan after Jaipur.

The Towering Mehrangarh Fort

The thick outer walls of the fort are made of red sandstone. The fort was built by the ruler Rao Jodha when he decided to shift his capital from Mandore to a safer location. The work started in 1459 and has been built in various stages over 500 years

Mehrangarh Fort with a lake in front

The fort has seven gates or 'Pols' as they are called locally in Rajasthan commemorating  victories by various rulers.

Mehrangarh Fort

The fort is well maintained. Entry ticket to the fort for Indians is Rs 50 and Rs 300 for the foreigners. Audio guides are also available at a cost. For people who do not want to climb the steep ramp the lift facility is available at a charge of Rs 20.

Musicians inside the Fort

When you walk from the outer to the inner gates up the steep ramp there are musicians playing and singing Rajasthani folk music to give a feel of the local customs and music. The fort reverberates with the sound of drums and shehnai transporting you to another world.

Sheesh Mahal

The  fort also has several period rooms like the Sheesh Mahal or the Mirror Palace (see the photo above) where the place is full of mirrors. Other rooms like Moti Mahal (Pearl Palace) and  Phool Mahal (Palace of Flowers) are equally interesting.

Lattice Work

Inside the fort walls one can see lots of stone lattice work on the windows. The lattice work not only keeps the insides cool in a hot place like Jodhpur but also gives privacy to the residents inside.

Krishna as a motif

Several of the walls are adorned with motifs from the Mahabharata and other Indian epics.

Stained Glass 

Several rooms inside have stained glasses giving the room a look of peace and tranquility. The play of colours inside the rooms due the the stained glasses is very interesting.

Jodhpur City from the ramparts of Mehrangarh Fort

The part of the city near the fort appears indigo blue from the fort as most of the houses use blue colour to paint their houses.

Inside the turban Gallery

There are several galleries inside the fort including a turban gallery which showcases different types of turbans worn in Rajasthan based on region, period and community. In the photo above a staff member poses wearing a turban with various prints for different kinds of turbans displayed in the background.

View of Jaswant Thada & the lake from Mehrangarh Fort

Very close to the fort is Jaswant Thada, a mausoleum built by Sardar Singh in memory of King Jaswant Singh. The entire structure is built in white marble. It is also the cremation grounds of the rulers of Jodhpur.

The Mehrangarh Fort, in my view, is among the best kept forts in India which is kept clean, has a courteous staff and the guides do not harass you constantly. The exit leads you out via the museum/souvenir shop but no one pesters you to buy something. This is among the very few monuments in India where there are clean washrooms as well as cafeterias. They need to address, though, the question of access for persons with disabilities as right now except for the lift at one place this facility is lacking.

To read more about places in and around Jodhpur please see my earlier posts-

Guda Bishnoi
Umaid Heritage:Water Conservation with Beauty
Ratanada Palace

Umaid Heritage:Water Conservation with Beauty

In the earlier times water harvesting and conservation system was used widely and one can still see the examples in the old 'baoli's' in the old towns. Baoli is a stepwell where the water storage may be reached by descending a set of steps. Stepwells were a very common feature in the arid western and north-western part of ancient India.

Umaid Herittage Garden Stepwell

But to see this in the modern age is pleasantly surprising. I saw this at the Umaid Heritage Gardens which is a housing society next to the Umaid Bhawan Palace in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. The area is owned by the Majaraja of Jodhpur who in a business tie up with a private developer have made this housing society and selling individual units to the public.

Water stored in the Stepwell 

The stepwells are made to store water during the rainy monsoon season so that it can be used during the lean season. The Umaid Heritage Gardens has built this beautiful, artistic and aesthetically pleasing modern age baoli.

Artistic stairs in the Stepwell

The baoli has multiple levels and the water is taken out for gardening by placing water pumping motors at the lowest levels.

A modern Stepwell 

The stepwell is able to meet all the water requirement to maintain the beautiful gardens of this residential colony.

Beautiful Garden at Umaid Heritage

It is nice to see some of these water conservation projects coming up in the modern day which are not only good for the conservation of the water but are also pleasant to look at instead of looking like an eyesore like some of the modern structures.

Ratanada Palace

When one goes to Jodhpur one usually sees the Umaid Bhawan Palace and the Mehrangarh Fort. Even if you google Ratanada Palace you will come across the Ratanada Palace Hotel or the Ratanada Polo Palace Hotel both of which have absolutely nothing to do with the actual Ratanada Palace.

Ratanada Palace

So the photos that you see in this post would be the among the rare ones available on the internet. This is so as the palace is located in a restricted area.

Side view of the Ratanada Palace

In fact before the construction of the Umaid Bhawan Palace (also now run as a Taj hotel property) the rulers of the Jodhpur area resided in the Ratanada Palace.

Frontal view of the Ratanada Palace

In fact I got the impression that the architect of this palace must be a European.

A long shot of the Ratanada Palace

Nowadays this palace is not resided by anyone but is used for conferences and meetings. But I must say that it is still in very good condition and the exteriors look impressive.

Guda Bishnoi

Recently I was in Jodhpur on a vacation. Though I knew that around Jodhpur one can see lots of deer and other wildlife I was surprised to see also several water bodies where the migratory birds come in winters from as far as Siberia.

Flamingos

We used the google maps to search for water bodies and saw that a place called Guda Bishnoi has some water bodies. So we headed out to the place.

A flock resting after a long flight

Guda Bishnoi is about 25 kms from Jodhpur and once we crossed the village we saw two lakes visible from the road but since we were carrying the GPS enabled mobile we were also able to detect water bodies which otherwise we would have missed completely. And what a feast these water bodies were to our eyes!

Indian Pond Heron

The second lake (an artificial one in which during summers water is pumped so that the local wildlife as well as cattle of the nearby villages have water to drink) was full of Flamingos, Siberian Cranes - called Khurja in the local language- waterfowls etc. I was also able to spot a solitary Indian Pond Heron and few Shell Ducks as well.

Shell Ducks

The best season to visit Guda Bishnoi is the winter season from October to March as lots of migratory birds from colder climes come to this area.

Indian Gazelle

Around the lake there were several Chinkara or the Indian Gazelle and some of them were in quite a playful mood locking horns and having a mock fight as well!

Chinkaras locking horns

And of course I saw several blackbucks. The area has lots of them as the Bishnoi community protects them with gusto. One may remember a case where one of the Bollywood actors  - Salman Khan - killed blackbucks and was arrested due to pressure from the community.

Blackbucks

A male blackbuck is brown-black with and white underbelly with twisted long horns whereas the female blackbucks are fawn coloured and do not have horns. One of the blackbucks crossed in front of my car just five feet away!

A male & Female Blackbuck

The Bishnoi's also protect Khejri tree (also known as 'Janti' in Hindi) as they worship it and therefore help in preserving the ecosystem of this semi-arid land.

Black Winged Stilt

Though there were several other varieties of birds, I could recognize only a few of them like the Black Winged Stilt in the above photo.

Birds in flight

The third water body which was actually hidden from view and also had lots of weeds in the water was a perfect watering hole for several birds for nesting. A brief glance and you will notice nothing, but wait a few moments and you will see a bird take flight like this Siberian Crane in the photo below.

Siberian Crane

In the fourth water body, I also saw, besides several waterfowls this one huge Purple Pond Heron. It seems that these birds do not stay in flocks like others.

Purple Pond Heron

Overall it was a fantastic tour and in some ways better than my visit to Sambhar Lake as here in Guda Bishnoi I could see the birds and animals from a really close distance. Certainly a very good place for bird watchers. Binoculars are a big help.