Birla Mandir, Jaipur

The second day of our trip began with a wonderful breakfast from the resort. We soon checked out from the resort and our next day of journey officially started. Our last location in Jaipur was Birla Mandir. Birla Mandir is a white wonder, made entirely of white marble. It is actually a Lakshmi-Narayan temple built by the Birla Foundation in 1988. We had to leave our chappals out before entering the temple premises. And special security guards were present inside and outside.

Birla Mandir

Sculpture of Jesus Christ on outer wall

There was a short walk to the temple after leaving behind our footwears. We enjoyed the walk taking in the beauty of blossoms and nature itself. Soon we reached the main temple premise. The feeling of walking barefoot on the cool marble floor enjoying the morning sun, was really an incredible feeling. Photography was strictly prohibited inside, so we took as many pics as possible from the outside. The carvings and sculptures of the outer temple walls were really unique. There were sculptors of Jesus Christ, Virgin Mary, St.Peter , Buddha, Confucius etc on the outer walls. To be honest, I had not noticed these. Later on reviewing the photos for the blog, I noticed them.

The inside of the temple contained the main idol and various sculptures of Hindu mythological figures. We spent some time taking pics outside and soon left.

There was a Hanuman temple and Moti Dungri Ganesh temple few steps way. We saw both from outside and completed the tour for the day. Following this, we had a long travel in our cab to our next destination Udaipur. We bid our farewell to the Pink City and continued our trip.

I read some short stories, slept in between, had some indigenous fruit given by driver bhaiyya, all the while listening to the loud DJ Rajasthani songs... We had lunch and tea on the way. By evening, we could play some songs of our choice. Driverji was complaining that we were not talking much to him. One reason was the language barrier and our introvert nature was the second thing. We could only smile at his comments.

I got upper respiratory infection by this time and was wearing mask and taking was also taking medicines in between. The roadside scenery changed from city to village and forest area. The vegetation on the roadside was also mainly thorny plants. Again many cattle were encountered on the road. On the way we saw the Shiva statue of Nathdwara temple from the road. We reached Udaipur by night at our next hotel.