The colors of Rajasthan--Fort Madhogarh (Day 4)

Friday January 17—Day 4 (Fort Madhogarh)

This morning we checked out of our hotel room and left Agra on a local Greyhound kind of bus. We had a 5 hour bus ride ahead of us to Fort Madhogarh, a village in Rajasthan. The bus ride was freezing cold, with the door and windows having air openings—and man was the bus driver horn happy! Indians use their horns how Westerners would use their indicator/turn signals. They even have a Morse Code kind of language (with long and short horns) to indicate if they’re passing on the left or turning or whatever else.

I’ve found that some cultures are more visual while others are more auditory. While India is an explosion of sights, smells and sounds—it’s rare to find peace and quiet with no honking sounds or loud firecracker sounds in the background in India.

When we got to the fort, we were welcomed with a necklace of flowers and ushered into an outdoor kind of living room. 

The fort itself and all the rooms in it were gorgeous, although I soon realized that this would be the perfect place to sleep and be in in the summer, not the winter. When I ventured upstairs to my room, I saw that the windows were in the shape of portholes, with no glass enclosure, only a screen….which in the end, made for a very cold night.

After getting settled in the fort, we ventured out into the village and took a walk around. Since a kite festival had just been a few days ago, we saw so many colorful kites stuck in the trees and even some people still flying them in the sky. On the day of the actual kite festival, apparently there were so many kites up in the sky that you could barely see the sky itself. Pretty cool!

The artsy part of me just loves these doors!

They all just wanted to greet us!

So cute!

Stairway to heaven?

The fort itself was up high on a hill so we had some pretty spectacular views when we were making our way down the hill for our walk into the village. Despite the cold weather, it was still a great day!