Beyond Boundaries have been busy!

This weekend saw our Beyond Boundaries group participant embark on a full day excursion to some of the most famous sites in Rajasthan.

The trip included visits to Kumbhalgarh Fort and Ranakpur Temple.

The day began with breakfast at the volunteer house and departure at 8:30am. Nineteen of us bundled into three cars, excited to see what more Rajasthan can offer.

Kumbhalgarh Fort is a fortress just north of Udaipur, built during the 15^th century for Maharaja (King) Rana Kumbha. It is a world heritage site, standing over 3000 feet tall and its wall perimeters add up to just over 36 kilometres. Within the fort can be found 360 temples, and from the top, sand dunes of the Thar Desert and the Aravalli range can be admired. After the Great Wall of China, Kumbhalgarh fort poses the second largest wall in the world.

The group at the bottom of Kumbhalghar Fort

Climbing up

Beyond Boundaries in the clouds

Our young people were lucky enough to have the opportunity to visit and climb to the top of the fort. The walk to the top and back down took around 45 minutes, however, the views well and truly made up for the tiredness, trekking uphill (and for some of us, in flip flops!) Enjoying the views from each stage up, and at even one point right in the clouds, our group were exceptionally well behaved and embraced the experience. Following on from this, we enjoyed a well-deserved packed lunch made by Meena Ji of Chapatti and curried potatoes.

Our picturesque view at lunch

Fed and watered, we got back into our cars and travelled an hour and a half to Ranakpur Temple

Between Jodhpur and Udaipur, Ranakpur temple is located on the western side of the Aravalli range - Built entirely out of marble; it was a truly spectacular sight. The temple stands at 45 feet tall and boasts 24-pillared halls; each hand carved pillar is unique and no two pillars are the same.

We enjoyed an audio-guided tour of the Temple and even got to see a prayer session taking place.

Ranakpur Temple

Outside Ranakpur Temple

Overall, the day was a very interesting and informative day. We had a lovely brief history lesson about the fort from a local tourist, as well as driving through some of the most beautiful mountain roads.

Monkeys en route to Ranakpur Temple

On Monday, our young people impressed us with their first-ever teaching experience. Travelling to our local linked Government school, their hard work during lesson planning evidently showed; all staff were incredibly impressed and proud of the way they performed.

Lesson planning

After enjoying a delicious lunch prepared by Meena Ji, we departed for the destitute boys’ home. Here, we all enjoyed some friendly (but competitive) games of cricket, dodge ball, as well as duck, duck, goose. The children at the boys’ home have already formed such an attachment with our young people, which is beautiful to see.

The group have had the opportunity at the start of the week to enjoy some Hindi lessons and have some Henna tattoos done on them. They have been excellent at picking up basic words and phrases in Hindi and have even been asking for more informal lessons from our grounds staff. Meena Jis talents do not stop at her cooking – she has been tattooing henna on our young people, writing their names in Hindi, traditional Indian patterns, as well as cobras and scorpions (for the boys!)

Beautiful henna done by Meena Ji

Meena Ji demonstrating how to make her famous chai

Our young people getting to grips with chapatti making

Check back soon for more updates on how teaching is going.

I hope you enjoyed reading!

Sumeet Dhamu

Deputy Project Leader (Beyond Boundaries)