Ruins of Bhangarh and Ajabgarh

Last week we made an unplanned trip to Rajasthan. I had wanted to visit this place called Bhangarh which is a ruined city. I read about this place on the internet. It is supposed to be one of the most haunted places in India. I am skeptical about ghosts but this place has a very interesting history. The entire city was deserted centuries ago due to the curse of a tantri. You can read the story behind it here. So I was telling my husband about this place and last week when Friday was a holiday here we packed and left. The journey was not an easy one and this place is not a very popular tourist destination. We reached Rajgarh by train and hired a vehicle from Rajgarh. This person didn't know Bhangarh and he took us to Ajabgarh instead. That's another story and I will talk about it in my next post. I liked Ajabgarh better than Bhangarh.

Anyway we managed to find our way to Bhangarh and I must admit that I was disappointed. I had read a lot about this entire town being deserted even now with only a handful of visitors visiting the ruins. So I had gone there with lot of expectations. Though I was skeptical about any ghostly encounters I had expected to at least feel eerie and scared, but there was nothing, absolutely nothing even remotely unnatural. Friday being a holiday here as I said earlier the place was crowded, almost half the population of the surrounding villages must have been there. So even if there had been any ghosts there previously they all would have packed their baggages now and left for a better place.

  This had once been a market place.

Can you spot the structure on top of the hill? That is supposed to be the place where the tantrik lived.

A closer look....

I wonder if anyone goes up there now!

There is a main fort and some temples but there are no deities inside the temples. I went inside only one temple because I was too tired after so much of walking. 

 This is the fort.

This is the Gopinath temple.

This is a secret passage going down from the top of the fort.

Spiral stairs inside the passage.

Local women carrying water.

We went during the best time of the year. It was green everywhere and it was drizzling. The way to Bhangarh was excellent. We went through mountains and forests and even saw deers crossing the road. I had never seen so many peacocks on a single day in my life. The whole place is full of monkeys and peacocks. Actually Bhangarh is on the edge of the Sariska tiger sanctuary. Thankfully we didn't come across any tigers.

In my next post I will tell you about Ajabgarh. As I said, I liked Ajabgarh more than Bhangarh. 

Oh! I forgot to show you the Rajgarh railway station. We took a train from Delhi to here and from here we hired a vehicle.

It looks ancient right?