Gol Gumbaz of Bijapur

A couple of months back I visited the Gol Gumbaz at Bijapur in Karnataka. I was at Solapur, visiting my relatives when this plan of going to Bijapur took shape. We started early in the morning. In about 3 hours or so we entered the Bijapur town. The Gol Gumbaz is visible right from the city entrance. It is very impressive structure built by Sultan Muhammad Adil Shah (AD 1627 –57). Sultan’s tomb lay beneath the floors of this structure. And he started its construction as soon as he came to throne. I was amazed by the sheer size of this monument wondering how in those old days they managed to construct it!

Though it looks like one building, the front cubical block is actually a museum and Gol Gumbaz is behind it. The monument itself is a huge cuboid with a dome on top. And this dome is one of the biggest in world.

The experience at the whispering gallery was awesome. One clap, one shout and 10+ echoes. It is simply amazing. Once again I could not help but think how could the engineers in those days conceptualized, designed and constructed this monument with such acoustic properties. It clearly indicates the advancement of architecture in those days.

At present the Gol Gumbaz is protected by Archaeological Society on India. The tickets worth just Rs. 5 per person help them to protect this site of historical importance.

Agra – The city of Taj Mahal

 

I had a chance to spend one day at Agra and I jumped at the thought of visiting one of the 7 wonders of the world! I reached Agra Cantonment at around 10am. Straight away I headed to the Pre-paid rickshaws booth outside the railway station. It is manned by a police man so no worries. I choose the option of 4 hours rickshaw and 3 places to visit… The Taj, Agra fort and market. It was about Rs. 200 which I felt is very good deal.

Our Rick headed directly to the Taj Mahal. On reaching at the entrance gate and buying the entrance ticket (~ Rs.25/- for Indian nationals) we were surrounded by many guides. Finally we decided to hire one for 100 bucks. Later we came to conclusion that it was worth having a guide.

Our guide showed us multiple optical illusions and provided a lot of interesting information about Taj. I would love to share them with you :)

As soon as you enter the main gate you will get the first glimpse of Taj. I was overwhelmed by it, to say the least. In this entrance dome, stand at the centre, I think there is some kind of mark there. From this point look at Taj and move towards it, as you move the Taj seems to grow in size and as you move back to original position it shrinks back. This is the first illusion that our guide showed us! Check out the photo below.

Taj was designed as per the description of heaven in holy Koran. Made of various rare kinds of marbles and precious stones it must have been one of the greatest monument of its time. It is symmetric in every aspect, from all sides it is exactly same.

It has 16 gardens 8 on each side, 53 fountains.. our guide told us that it indicates the year of Taj’s construction – 1653 (16 gardens and 53 fountains). On the entrance door there are 22 smaller domes signifying 22 years that took to build this enormous monument.

Each door has inscription of holy words from Koran. These words are not painted but carved in white marble and then exactly same shaped black marble is fitted in it. As a matter of fact this is true for all designs. The size of the words increases gradually from bottom to the top in such a way that it appears to be same sized from below and hence easy to read. Another example of well thought craftsmanship and optical illusion!

From the back side of Taj one can see the flowing Yamuna river. We were informed that emperor Shahajahan had marked a site right across the river to build exactly the same Taj mahal but with black marble! I cannot imagine the magnitude of wonder it would have been if these twin Taj were in existence today. You can see the site marked even today (pic above)

Our guide helped us in clicking this excellent reflection of Taj.

When to visit 
September - March

What to shop
Petha – a sweet made up of White Pumpkin or Ash Gourd. (Panchhi (bird in hindi) Petha is apparently famous in Agra). You can find many flavours, must try.

Jaipur – The pink city

If you have read my wish list of the places to visit, Jaipur was one of it. And I managed to plan a trip in the month of September. It was a four days tour and I also visited the Agra for a day. More about Agra in another post.

In Jaipur I stayed at The Palms Hotel. The hotel is located in good area of the city very close to the Raj Mandir – A well known cinema theatre. The hotel was not exactly the best one. The service was not as expected. You may want to check the review at this site.

I reached Jaipur at around noon and after a brief nap was as good as new. Soon I was out to explore the place. After a brief walk I was in front of the much talked about theatre – The Raj Mandir.  I was advised by a good friend to check out this theatre and so I went ahead and booked tickets for Dabangg. Once inside I was impressed by the Raj Mandir, one has to consider the fact that this theatre was built much before the concept of multiplexes was introduced in India. The chandeliers, the decorative pieces, the lightings… all of this really made it worth the view.

Next day we proceeded for site seeing and for that purpose booked a cab for the day. I think it was good deal at 1.2k for an AC indica. Our first stop was at the Hawa Mahal. The structure is right on the main road. Though our driver said there is nothing inside, we went in and climbed till the top floor. One can see the Jantar-Mantar from Hawa Mahal.

The next stop was at Jantar-Mantar. This huge astronomy observatory was built under the regime of Maharaja Jai Singh II between 1727 and 1734. One of the Yantra (Instrument), Brihat Samrat Yantra, here works on the principle of sundial and can give time to the accuracy of 2 seconds! You may want to know more about it please check the Wikipedia link.

Amer or Amber fort is about 12 km from Jaipur. Out of that 3-4 km stretch of road is not very good but at the time the repair work is in progress so it should be ok in another 3 months or so. Apart from that the drive was quite good.

I can only wonder what they might be cooking in this huge vessel.

  

On our way back we stopped at the Jal Mahal. I am told that till some days back the visitors could go inside by boats however now that service is no more available. The view of Jal Mahal at the dusk was awesome.

As the day was coming to end we decided to do some shopping. Please bear in mind that many shops here will declare that they are the government shops. However I have learnt (the hard way) that apparently government gives the contracts to the shops to sell the local articles but they are not 100% govt. shops. The prices are on higher sides. For example the shop right in front of Jal Mahal, it is a huge establishment which sells gift articles, jewellery, sarees, dress materials etc. But the prices are quite high. I guess the travel agents prefer it for the commission they get from the owners. Anyway I found that the better way to shop is to check at least 3-4 shops before deciding the right place.

The following day we went to the city all by ourselves by the autorikshaws which are very easily available. We enjoyed the shopping and also viewed a show at the Birla Planetarium. We did some experiment with food and tried our hands at the daal-baati-churma. Must tell you that it is such a wholesome meal that even after 4 hours I was feeling full :)

However I think I would visit Jaipur one more time to check out the places after studying them in more details. Also I have missed out some sites like the Nahargarh fort, Jaigarh fort and Gaitore. They certainly call for another trip.

Things to consider
Study about the place and its custom. At Albert hall museum one can buy tickets for 5 other places at concessional rate. This not only saves money but also saves time which otherwise would be spent in standing in queues.

I would advise to take a guide at places like Jantar-Mantar. I could not get good guide at Amer fort but if you could get some one, please try it. And fianally check out the links below for more information about the beautiful Jaipur.
http://www.rajasthantourism.gov.in/Destinations/Jaipur/AboutJaipur.aspx
Links courtesy Mr. Shiv (Post about wish list)
http://www.jaipurtravel.com/about_jaipur.htm
http://www.jaipur.org.uk/

What to eat
Daal Baati Churma, Malpova at Rawaat Sweets

When to visit
October - February

What to shop
Bandhani dresses, Traditional Sarees, Laakh jewellery (Bangles) at Chhoti Chopdi and Badi Chopdi, The puppets

Minimum stay duration
3 days