Mount Abu

My next couple of days were spent traveling and looking around Mount Abu which is a hill station known as a cool get away from the heat of the lower valleys. There is a great link on WikiPedia which gets into some details on elevation, climate and history. For example,  the highest peak is 1722 meters (5500 feet). It's called the "oasis in the desert" because of the waterfalls, lakes and cool temps. Also of note is that Mount Abu is the only hill station in Rajasthan.

Read more about Mount Abu

Here is a panoramic shot of the town.

 

There is a large lake with rowing, and a nice sidewalk around it. Here are some of the pics around the lake.

 

There was a rower heading to what looks like a small temple built in the middle of the lake. The other pic is of the type of plants that were growing along the hill sides.

 

 

There were some small parks along the way with fountains. This looks like 4 small dragons, but the water was not turned on - sadly for me. There were houses built up some steep cliff sides. I don't think garages are very practical when building on the side of a cliff.

 

I ran across a temple area with some very old dwellings which were built inside the rock. My description here would be 3 bed and 1 bath with patio build out of a large boulder. Motivated seller. Will take all offers.

 

Once I walked around the lake, I headed for the overlook. There is a large lake below at the foot of the mountain where Raja's would hold up for the night before traveling up to higher elevation points.

The couple you see in the picture were just married, and a photographer was following them around taking their pictures. This gives newlyweds more time to spend posing for pics rather than asking other people to take pics of them.

 

The room was good. There was a view over a small valley area, and a large patio out front to drink coffee or tea while relaxing in the cool breezes.

 

I think the only interesting pic I took was a water shot which has some reflection around some green mossy growth.

 

I also visited one of the best Jain temples I've ever seen which was carved out of marble. It was incredible. Unfortunately, they didn't allow any pictures to be taken. Tomorrow, I will be stopping at another Jain temple, and I will get pics there.

There are a number of monkeys around. The best pics came while heading down the mountain as the sun was in a better position. So, my next post will have dancing women carvings in Jain temples and black faced monkeys with all white hair - dancing women and monkeys - it really doesn't get any better than that.