Bish got us some cabs for the day to take us around to 3 nearby tourist attractions that were open. First we went up the mountain and hiked up to the top to stand at the highest point in the province of Rajasthan. On the way back down there were a bunch of Indian tourists taking photos of us - we've started to get used to this. At the bottom, a local told a girl in our group with a darker complexion that her skin was dirty. He asked another girl if she was a student - "no" - "oh, a housewife then?" - (sarcastically) "yeah, sure" - "OK, good!"
Our second stop was a temple for Shiva. They were charging 10 rupees for each photo you took! We didn't stay long but did have the pleasure of seeing a guy urinating inside the temple (you can't wear shoes but you can pee on the ground?) The third stop was a "world-famous" Jain temple. This was a huge temple (actually 4 temples, each built in the 1400-1700 range) with intricately cut pillars and ceilings, mostly made of white marble. It was pretty neat to see and I would recommend having a look if you're in the area (though not sure why you would want to go to Mount Abu! :)
After touring around, we drove into Abu at the base of the mountain and attempted to go for dinner but had to bail when we got to a very low overpass that we couldn't fit through because our bags were piled on top of the car. We ended up driving to the train station and getting takeout from the least sketchy restaurant we could find nearby. We were going to catch the 8:30pm overnight train to Mumbai, but when we got to the station we found the train was delayed by 2 hours so we played card games and ate our takeout until the train arrived at 10:30.
The train begs were split into 6 per section of the train - one "room" with 2 bunks and a 3rd set of bunks running beside the hallway. I had a top bunk beside the hallway so I had a personal curtain (the other two bunks only have one curtain for the entire room so it's only ideal for families of 4). I was exhausted so climbed into my bed, pulled out my travel pillow and sheet (thanks again Alicia & Julia! The sheet is awesome! I didn't realize it was like a sleeping bag, and the built-in pillow case is really convenient!)
The train rocked a fair bit but I was able to fall asleep fairly quickly.
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