RAJASTHAN TRIP

15.08.14 – Mandawa:

After breakfast, we drove off from Jaipur to Shekhawat & Mandawa alongwith Aruna  & Usha, who joined us for this trip. It was nearly 3 hours drive from Jaipur.  Mandawa,  not very famous,  is part of Shekhawati region. Mandawa is situated 190 km off Jaipur in the north. Mandawa is old medieval town known for its fort and  with colourful Havelis.. This town has been referred to as the "open art gallery" of Rajasthan because the entire Shekhawati region and not just Mandawa is dotted with fascinating mansions (havelis) that have lavishly painted walls and lattices windows and carvings. Thakur Nawal Singh, the Rajput ruler of Nawalgarh and Mandawa, built a fort in 1755 to protect this outpost.  Mandawa was a trading outpost for the ancient caravan routes that stopped here from China and the Middle East. It is now a broken down, nearly dead town with ruined places, now surving on tourist crowd.

Additional Phtotos 

We stayed in Hotel Shekhawati,  within the narrow  bylanes of houses and havelis, but this hotel  was beautiful and colourful with painted walls in a haveli.  In fact the suite occupied by Ulf & Winnie had nice Kamasutra paintings.  We had our dinner and breakfast on the terrace.  The meals provided was great and the ambience under the sky with candle lit dinner was lovely.