Day 271 : Jain festival and Ghandi ashram

Up early to check out of our room at 0830. Most Indian hotels operate a 24-hour checkout policy which means that your checkout time is the same time you check-in. Nice if you check-in late because you get a full day in the hotel room at the end but not so good if you arrived early like us!

Our train tonight was not until 2300 so we left our bags at the hotel and headed off for our regular jam roll and chai breakfast at “Lucky”. We bumped into a couple of American tourists who we’d seen in the days previously and they tipped us off about a Jain festival at the city museum so we decided to start our day there.
We arrived at the festival seemingly early – there were lots of people in elaborate costumes and an amazingly decorated marquee, but not much going on. There were maybe two thousand or so people sat on the floor, divided into men and women, so we sat at the back and waited for things to start. As usual we seemed to be the only westerners and it wasn’t long before an official-looking photographer barged through and demanded to take a photo of us. We reluctantly agreed to his promise of one photo but then he dragged us to the front of the crowd and wanted us to pose in prayer positions in front of the shrine. We obliged but then escaped when we tried to get us onto the alter with handkerchiefs tied around our faces(!) and got into an argument with some of the priests about whether we were allowed. He never even told us what it was for – maybe we’ll be featuring in some tourist brochure or newspaper article!

After looking around the small city museum we headed to a local dining hall and then up the river to the Ghandi Ashram. This is where Ghandi spent 15 years when he arrived back in India form South Africa. There was a nice exhibition and you can walk around the basic houses where Ghandi and his disciples lived.
The rest of the day we spent in House of MG – a four star hotel around the corner from ours with a comfortable cafe. I guess it is expensive by Indian standards but still only a couple of pounds for drinks and a snack (highlights were the Saffron Lassi and some kind of Rose milkshake) and it was a nice place to spend a few hours.

We’re now on the overnight train to Udaipur – a bit different to other trains we’ve had in that all the beds are in private compartments (4 beds to a compartment).