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A Hot Summer Day in Sariska - Ankur Agrawal
I warn you about the lunch table discussions at Adobe. Never take them LIGHTLY. They can take any course like the one which took a group of 9 adventurous engineers to Sariska National Park- the Tiger Paradise, near Alwar in Rajasthan, around 220 km from Delhi. For me, the day started at 4:30 am with my mom and friend calling; trying to wake me up from my sleep. Five calls down the phone, I became fully awake although the booze’s effect (though I didn’t drink), from last night party, was still on me.

Before continuing, I just wanna make a point that I am not covering any technical details of this journey as they are beautifully covered in Nandan’s blog. Here, I am just adding some nutty things that will always make me remember this trip. These things may make no sense to you; just ignore them. So, there I was standing outside my office building at 5:25 am; enjoying the freshness of the morning and waiting for the other group members to pick me up.

We cruised on NH8 to reach Dharuhera, from there we took a left towards Bhiwari and then took a right towards Alwar. One thing, if you are visiting this place in summers, don’t take too many readymade spicy snacks, chips etc rather take some fruits and juicy stuffs. Also, take something for breakfast, as you will not find any proper breakfast dhaba in the way.

Continuing further, my journey till Sariska Park was fun as I enjoyed the movie quiz, and some nice dancing and singing performances in the way. After reaching Sariska at 11:00 am, we registered ourselves at the gate and entered the park. No entry charges are taken on Saturday and Tuesday, because of the devotees that come to park to visit the ancient Hanuman Temple located in the interior of the park. Now days, not many animals can be seen in Sariska but the beauty of the forest is really soul soothing. There are two important things about animals that you should take care of; firstly, never take panga from monkeys and langoors present there else you can land yourself in a big trouble and secondly, whenever you meet a fox never try to act smarter than her.

After enjoying Sariska Park’s natural beauty and lunch at RTDC hotel, we decided to head towards Silisedh Lake. What a wonderful and ravishing it is….I feel that boating in this lake on a pleasant evening can be a wonderful idea. And yaa do enjoy some Fresh Lime Soda at the small restaurant present at RTDC Silisedh Lake resort.

Last tip from my side is; just before the journey, don’t bother yourself to find the bed sheets at your home after 10 pm as you will see that they are of no use to you throughout the journey.

Rs 250 a night for a room and everything else - Ankur Agrawal

It was the usual Thursday evening when I gave a ring to “Mohit” on a possible visit to somewhere during the weekend and as I predicted, he was all set to go. We were nearing weekend so the only undecided question was “Where to go?”. Being a “Punjabi”, he insisted on going to Mussoorie (Nandan will understand why I am saying so) but after exploring, we finally agreed upon Udaipur. The little more exploration about the transportation, city, tourist spots, staying facilities etc, put the final nail into our plans. So, there we were ready to go to Udaipur - The City of Lakes & Palaces.

Day 0 – 23 March ’07 (Friday)
As Mewar Express was over booked, we both agreed to go to Udaipur by DTC run Volvo. It started at 6:00 pm sharp from ISBT, Kashmiri Gate; the fair was Rs 700/- and after crossing Gurgaon it caught NH-8 route. The best part was that the seats that were quite easily available. I boarded Volvo from Kashmiri Gate while Mohit caught it from Gurgaon. Bus crossed Jaipur and Bhilwara. From Bhilwara, it took a left exit towards Udaipur, bypassing Chittorgarh on the way.

Day 1-24^th March (Saturday)
After reaching Udaipur at 7:30am, our search for a decent hotel started. As experienced guys, we knew that the area near bus stand will have a decent one waiting for us. Finally, we reached to Sieta Ram Lodge located in Hotel Wali Gali. Yeah, its Sieta and not Sita.

As we both liked the room so we asked for the tariff. The caretaker asked for Rs 550/- per day but being smart guys, we started bargaining at Rs 200/- . If I define the scene clearly then it was something like this… the room was on fourth floor, so while coming down from elevator he was decreasing Rs 50/- from tariff as each floor is passing, while in room the rent was Rs 550/- , on entering elevator it was Rs 500/-., on reaching 3^rd floor it was Rs 450/- and so on. Finally, we negotiated & brought him down to Rs 250/- per day thing and checked in at around 8:10 am.

After having our usual morning routine, we were back at caretaker’s desk at 9:30 am to ask him from where we should start our expedition. And there we found an auto rickshaw driver waiting for us. He asked for Rs 200/- to take us to 12 major spots in the city. As we were hungry, he took us to some famous breakfast point near JMB. Wow!! What a yummy Pyaaj ki kachori and mouth watering Dhokla we had there.

From all the places we went, Lake Pichola including Jag Mandir and Lake Palace, City Palace, Jagdish Temple, Maharana Pratap Smarak and Fateh Sagar Lake including Nehru Island were worth visiting places.
For lunch, we went to Natraj Hotel present in Bapu Market – The City’s Main Market.

As we both has a bad hand at shopping so we didn’t even try a bit of it. Heat was too much so we spent most of our afternoon - evening time on Nehru Island looking out for awesome view of Fateh Sagar Lake and Aravalis from there and remembering those golden college days. After our Udaipur city expedition, we found that touring around Udaipur will not be a worth giving thing so, we decided to go to Chittorgarh the next day.

Day2 – 25^th March ’07 (Sunday)
Wow!! What a sound sleep we had the previous night. After checking out we boarded Rajasthan Roadways busto Chittorgarh (120 km from Udaipur) at around 9:30 am.

On getting down at Chittorgarh at 11:00 am we took an auto rickshaw to reach fort. Fort covers a vast area and is walled from all sides by thick stone walls. Looking at it, anyone can imagine why it was called the strongest fort but currently it is handed over to ruining. As the auto rickshaw moved on fort’s peripheral roads, it brought me the memories of all the historical serials like Tipu Sultan etc that I had seen on Doordarshan when I was a kid.

Apart from “Vijay Stambh” and two temples (that were closed) nothing was there to watch. But as we both share some ape characteristics, we loved climbing the broad fort walls, exploring those fort ruins and doing a bit of wall climbing.

As I did my whole return journey from Rajasthan Roadways Buses, something about Rajasthan Roadways is worth mentioning over here. I can see why it is called one of the best state roadways in India.
The five category buses that it has – blue line, star line, silver line, gold line and deluxe buses- and its cooperative staff really make your unplanned trip a planned one.