Jagat Palace, Pushkar

By the time we reached Pushkar it was dark and surprisingly cold, but then this town is on the edge of the Thar desert and ringed by the Snake Mountains.

  But despite that there were rose garlands to welcome us and what turns out to be the most amazing, 

and eccentric place to stay. Come and explore it with me!

A former Marahaja's Palace (so we believe, but he could equally have been a Prince, merchant...) each floor is built around an open landing which acted as a light well for the lower floor.  This is ours and our room is just to the left.

And this is our door...yes, that is a padlock and the key was huge, not a piece of flimsy plastic.

Each floor had a minimum of 10 working clocks, thankfully they didn't all chim and the ones that did were out of sync, which depending on how you looked at it, was a good thing.  This one is the one outside our room.  It chimed every quarter hour.

The room was large, but cold, and the bedsteads were for all the world like the ones from school.  Think they must have been origional, like most of the furniture.  It was like going to stay with your Granny.

These are the room controls, love the light switches, never worked out the silver box and can you spy our padlock and key at the very top?

A large bathroom, as quaint as the bedroom

The view from our balcony is splendid 

with both a garden and mountain view.

We went down for dinner to a rather splendid dining room, just look at the doors

And the bank of light switches

The ceiling is beautifully decorated

But no one light our candles, I think unfortunately we were the only ones there!

The following morning the hand written signs made me smile

and we're still not sure what Terry ate

The gardens are lush and green, if you go down here and turn right you will find your way to our room

Despite its tranquil and inviting appearances the water was COLD.....

I managed quarter of a mile but then quit because my ears were getting really sore.

These are the growth rings of the tree, but it does look as though someone has wrapped it in gilded ribbons.

All the furniture looks origional, on our wandering around the garden we came across a building stacked full of bureaux, chaise longue, chairs and row after row of the beautiful glass lamp shades.  Eat your heart out Jim Lawrence! You can see some of them hanging in the photograph below.

See the hanging swing seat, the table that would seat two dozen, the marble floor, the painted ceiling.....such splendour - all in a summer house by the pool!

This hotel was really a one-of-a-kind!