Jan 6: Best Day so far! (part 2 of 5)

Right at the entrance, I observe that my camera is not focussing on distant objects. I've had this problem before. Now that I'm half a mechanic, I'm tempted to look at the problem. Expensive mistake - I remove the filter with the lens facing down. And out falls one piece of glass from my expensive 18-200 lens, and two metal rings. I pick up the glass and it had chipped off a bit. PANIC! All of sudden, I'm up with the possibility of no photography for the rest of the trip. I gather my wits quickly and get the filter cleaner cloth and blower from my bag. I hastily put the fallen pieces back in place and screw them in a bit. And try focussing again. Crash - the glass piece is out and down again. This time I replace it with extra care and things start working. Hooray! My camera is up and running. The chipped piece of the glass has seemingly no affect on the picture(as seen from the LCD screen). I hope to get it checked once I reach back. I'm not sure how the piece came loose. Could this have been due to the fact that I kept the camera in the panniers? I had kept it protected at most times, but not all. Nothing to lose sleep about at the moment.

The fort has seven entrances. One of them was where Sher Shah Suri tragically lost his life just after conquering the fort! The fort is supposed to have been a difficult-to-conquer fort in the bygone days.

I spent more than two an a half hours roaming around the fort, with a guide showing me around. 'mrugadhara' is where a clear stream of water comes out of rock. Apparently, the opening was the mouth of a deer shaped rock, hence the name. The deer shaped rocks remains no longer, but the name remains. Jakeera Mahal is the house built for the vaishya called Jakeera. And the impressive Rang mahal is where she would dance. The Rang Mahal, as many other buildings around, is built of a mix of limestone powder, jaggery and many other ingredients. This is supposed to last much longer than a few hundred years, compared to c