Journey To Rajasthan

Below are few excerpts from my trip diary jotted during my journey to the largest state in India, Royal & Incredible Rajasthan.

Day 1.

Our proposed itinerary was, Jhansi -> Kota -> Chittorgarh -> Udaipur -> Jodhpur -> Pokhran -> Jaisalmer and back same route. For most of the stretch we knew the drive will be close to comfortable so we were looking forward to it. Everyone was pretty much ready with varied doses of Cinnarizine/Domperidone/Sprite in their tummy. Some handy plastic bags and news papers for those unwanted times (Note: we were traveling with kids and throwing up in the car was the worst nightmare for both adults and the drivers)…We were lucky nothing like that actually happened.

After leaving Jhansi, and a bit of hadkai necessary for the drivers to be bit polite on the steering wheel, we reached Kota (the Coaching Capital of India) via 4 lane newly constructed highway NH-76,. This was our planned lunch break. We stopped at a highway side restaurant called Monalisa J…nothing like it…but we were very happy and contained with the Rajasthani/Punjabi thali…decorated with Gurh, Lahsun ki Chatni, Sarson ka saag, mixed Vegetables, and Makke ki Roti, with Chai on the side, we were pretty full and relaxed after the meal and ready for our next stretch to Udaipur.

Since the Kota highway bypass is still under construction…we had to pass the city…which is a mid size city on the banks for river Chambal. Now the interesting stuff started…something we suspected when we started our journey…any guesses…YES! – directions :) . Our drivers were pretty new in this area…we were relying on “kyon ‘bhai’ yeh Udaipur ka raasta kahan se hai…” which turned out to be a funny line after some time as you can see the road side assistance can get bit tricky depending on the mood of ‘bhai’ you asked. He has the POWER to ruin your day if he wish, since you have given him the supreme authority of a map maker. We got bit sidetracked…but thank God, we had our iPhone with GPS working flawlessly on Indian highways…though the local believed that the ‘bhai’ on the road side is more accurate…you cannot really challenge multi billion dollar company Google when it comes to mapsJ. Anyway we realized we were heading bit north to Bundi instead of west to Chittorgarh, we changed our route on time and were on our way to Udaipur. We entered the city at around 7 pm. The heritage hotel we stayed ‘Jaiwana Haveli’ was right in the heart of the city, on the shores of Lake Pichola the center of all attractions. The road to get to the hotel was a fun ride itself…from all the Gully and Nukkads of the downtown and almost 5 stops to the passer by ‘kyon bhai ye ‘Jagdish Chowk’ kahan hai we finally managed to check-in. This is approximately 100 year old haveli…now converted to a hotel. They had a nice relaxing rooftop restaurant with some amazing views of the lake city. We had our tea and dinner and went on a little stroll on the narrow streets. Met a local artist popular for his miniature painting skills, something you would expect in most parts of Udaipur. The guy was amazing, he drew a traditional little sketch of royal elephant on Aranv’s nail with his fine paintbrush made of squirrel hairs. Cool. Arnav was happy :). We were tired after a long day and crashed early.

Day 2:

Lake Palace Hotel at night.

Our plan for the next day was primarily sightseeing and some roadside shopping. Udaipur (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udaipur ) was named Best City of the World in 2009 by Travel & Leisure so there was a lot to explore. We started with an early breakfast and went to visit the City Palace, this is a working palace as the Prince of Udaipur occupies 2/3^rd of it, rest is converted into a museum highlighting the historical past of Mewar Dynasty and its rulers, including famous Rajput ruler Maharana Pratap and his horse ‘Chetak’. After the palace, we went to see the Maharana Paratap memorial on a hill called Moti Magri and later to ‘Saheliyon Ki Badi’, my niece Ashi was delighted to find a little sparrow nest which she carried with her throughout the trip. After that our guide took us to a local handicraft store to showcase some local items…we bought bunch of Udaipur Rajai’s (thin blankets) as souviners. From there we left for our hotel for some quick break and then to Lake Pichola for a boat ride during Sun set, which turned out to be a cool event of the day. We sailed passed the Lake Palace (a Taj group 5 star hotel) and Udai Vilas Palace (a Oberoi group 7 star resort). Also saw famous Jag Mandir ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jag_Mandir ) located on one of the 3 islands within the lakes, its mostly reserved for private parties…like Raveena Tandon marriage, which happened couple of years back. After the boat ride, we headed to Apni Dhaani (a traditional restaurant with village setting, with folk dances and Rajasthani activities). Kids enjoyed the Camel ride. The food was awesome with traditional Gatte, Dal-Baati, Haluwa, Jowar ki Kheer, etc, we had one of the best Jalebi’s as well. After a full meal, we were pretty much waiting to hit the bed for yet another early start next day for Jodhpur.

Jag Mandir – One of the three islands on Lake Pichola.

City Palace and Museum at night.

Day 3:

Thanks to Dada for an early bed tea, we left the hotel at around 9 am…The route we choose was via Ranakpur, idea was to visit the famous Jain temples build some 600 years ago in Dilwara temple style (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranakpur), tucked deep in the middle of a big valley in Aravalli mountain range. It was a long winding road and some of us were bit tired after 3 hours ride…but in the end we really enjoyed the temple and its magnificent architecture. We had traditional Jain style food for lunch and after a short break we headed for Jodhpur, the blue city which was around 3 hours drive from Ranakpur. We reached Jodhpur at 6pm, the heritage hotel we booked (Devi Bhawan) was a sweet surprise, with traditional green setting surrounded with lavish multicolored bougainvillea flowers. The rooms were nicely decorated and the staff was very helpful. We had our evening tea and went on for shopping with the help of few local contacts. We had a nice home cooked traditional dinner at Dada’s friends place and went to bed early that night.

Inside dome at Ranakpur Jain Temple.

Day 4:

We had a late start after all… breakfast at Devi Bhawan followed by a trip to Mehrangarh fort (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehrangarh_Fort )

The fort is a magnificent piece of architecture, a living fact on how people in ancient times build these giant structures without cranes and modern day machines, pretty amazing. Jodhpur falls under Marwar region of Rajasthan, refer to Wiki if you want to learn more on this fort, this is one of the forts which is still occupied by the Royals. All in all, it was time well spend. After that we headed to Umaid Bhawan Palace, again a living palace, 1/3^rd converted into a museum, 1/3^rd into a Taj 5 star hotel and 1/3^rd occupied by the current prince. Kids got to enjoy Elephant ride here as an added bonus. After the palace, which was so-so, we stopped at National Emporium, a big Bazaar kind of stores run by Rajasthan govt. for some quick lunch and shopping. From here the shopping freaks went for a shopping spree and rest of the group went back to hotel. Jodhpur is a second biggest Rajasthani city after Jaipur, and is a well established shopping center, there are lot of export houses here, exporting traditional furniture / art / craft / collectibles to Europe and the US. We went to one of the export places and bought bunch of stuff. The guys showed us items they export to Armani / Louis Vuitton etc at ridiculous prices, pretty interesting.

Day 5:

Jaisalmer Fort during night.

Group headed for our final destination, Jaisalmer, a little gem in the middle of Thar desert. We left Jodhpur early at 8am and took a short breakfast break at Pokhran, the place got its recognition from the nuclear tests India conducted in early 70’s and late 90’s. The test site is bit off track, around 50 km deep in the desert…and is a restricted area, so we decided to stop by a Pokhran Shakti Sthal instead…(nothing fancy, just few rocks and monuments from the nuclear test site created for tourists). After that we headed straight and reached Jaisalmer at 12pm, our Hotel this time was a small haveli situated inside the famous fort, called Raj Mandir, it’s a heritage hotel with traditional feel to it. The view from the room was amazing specially during sun rise. The city is all golden, made of sand stone and most of the buildings showcase great examples of complex carvings on the stones in typical Jharokha pattern, few buildings to name are Patwon & Nathmal Ki Haveli. Well our hotel was good, the owner was very welcoming and treated us really well, that is one thing I noticed in Rajasthan, natives there are very friendly / honest and they like to welcome tourist, I guess tourism is one of the biggest industry in Rajasthan with most number of western/Indian tourist visiting there among anywhere in India. Anyways, after a nice home cooked meal, we decided to visit the Sam Dunes for a Desert tour around 40 kms from Jaisalmer, it included trip to Kuldhara (a deserted village, bunch of Bollywood movies were shot here, like new Deewar, Kachche Dhaage and Reshma Shera to name few), followed by Camel ride in the desert during Sunset, Folk dance / music / camp fire / Dinner at the base camp etc.

Not sure if you have ever done a Camel ride before, it’s a different experience, their long strides and strong humps makes it fast and full of fun, especially if you try to sprint with them. Warning: Folks with back problems should pretty much stay away from the running part. Our Camel owner was ‘Ali’ a 8 year old boy from the nearby village, he made sure we had some good time sitting up on Hrithik Roshan (our Camel’s nick name) 10 feet above ground. The feel on the desert was very nice…we found some local musician playing traditional tunes on ‘Algoza’ (pair of wooden flutes played together, one maintains the harmony and other plays the notes) and our home dancers, Shubhi, Aashi and Meenal dancing to his tunes. Shubhansh and Arnav also had some good time sliding on the sand dunes. After the dancing and Sun set, we got back on the camels and continued to the base camp for some folk music / dancing in traditional circular setting with camp fires in the center etc. Again our home dancing crew had fun intermingling with the traditional performers. We had some authentic Rajasthani food and headed back to the hotel in the night at 10pm, driving in the Thar desert under full moon was an awesome experience by itself.

Jaisalmer Fort and Palace.

Day 6:

Since we were pretty near to the India-Pakistan border, we decided to include that in our journey (one would ask, when else do you get such rare chance, of course!!!). You start getting a different vibe, a feeling of patriotism just thinking about visiting the Jawans on the border and touching the soil which has witnessed all of the past Ind-Pak wars. Our hotel owner suggested us to visit Tanot, a small village 10 kms from the border, famous for Tanot Mata (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanot_Mata ), and battle of Longewala (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Longewala) during 1971 war. It is said that bombs dropped by Pakistani tanks during 1971 war did not explode or so to speak, refused to explode near the temple area. Mata ka adbhut chamatkar hai is jagah par. Now days Army / BSF manage this temple and have immense faith in Her powers.

The town is under BSF control, and entry beyond Tanot is prohibited for general public, but we were lucky to get the permission after few requests and visited the border post BPO 609 Prakash Border. The fence, probably longest running fenced border in the world, from Gujrat to Kashmir (almost 600 kms) is interesting and fine example of security. There were 2 BSF jawans posted on the border post, one from Kashmir and other from Assam, guarding the border in the middle of no man’s land, it may sound bit boring to some, but for them, Country comes first. Hats off to them. Anyways…overall it’s pretty peaceful border, but infrequent infiltration is the only thing they need to watch for. One jawan told us that they captured one intruder that morning trying to sneak in. Since this is deep into Thar desert, temperatures here typically reaches 49-50 degrees during summer time, so if the intruder somehow managed to sneak in, they won’t be able to go for long, the heat will eventually kill him, jawan said. We shook hands with them, collected some Sand as a souvenirs, took few pictures after getting his approval and observed the Pakistani territory from the tall check post. Arnav and kids were excited to see the real semi automatic rifle jawan had. After few minutes we headed back inland…I was busy taking pictures of the giant sand dunes, camels munching on shrubs, and army bunkers, overall it was the most exciting and fulfilling event of the trip.

On our way back, we had Lunch at the Desert Bite…a nice little restaurant towards the entrance of the fort. Food was good and served in authentic style, followed by yet another Jaisalmeri delicacy, called Ghutwa Laddoo. very tasty, I packed one kilo of it to carry back home. After lunch, we started heading to the Jaisalmer fort and museum, this fort is pretty amazing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaisalmer_Fort ) in the sense that half of the city lives inside the fort. Fort is made of sand stone and has unique flare. After the fort, we went to visit the popular Haveli’s in the downtown / city area. These Haveli’s have some astonishing designs and hard to believe carving done on the sand stone. We spent some extra time in hand for local shopping in the bazaar. That night we had traditionally home cooked meal, sponsored by our hotel owner, and went bed early.

Carving on sandstone at Patwon ki haveli.

View from a Jharokha at Patwon ki haveli.

Day 7:

We had a long drive to Udaipur ahead of us, we started at 9 am and decided to stick to the highway for most of the journey. We bypassed Jodhpur and reached Udaipur via Pindwara. This time we were bit experienced Udaipur traveler :) so we knew the roads and reached Mewar Haveli, heritage hotel, which was right next to the Jaiwana haveli, we already stayed in. So the area was pretty familiar. We took a tea break at the rooftop restaurant with amazing nightly views of the lake, and headed for some quick shopping in Bhatiyani Chohatta and Hathi Pol, the two main bazaars of Udaipur. Tourists can easily get trapped in this maze…especially if you have your better-half with you. To much shopping is not good, we found out when we thought of these new bags we collected, but thank God we had our cars…just dump stuff everywhere…under the seats, use as pillow or hang it, everything works. Anyways…after all the walking we were pretty much tired and landed into deep sleep thinking about all the stuff we didn’t buy ;(

Day 8:

Rani Padmini’s Jauhar site inside Chittorgarh fort.

We again had long drive back to Jhansi ahead of us, we started at 10 and reached Chittorgarh fort (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chittorgarh_Fort ) at 12pm, this fort is considered the largest fort in India and the best in the state of Rajasthan. It’s on a hill top and runs for 16 Kms. Its famous for Rani Padmini (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rani_Padmini ) and her Jauhar. Also for victory tower constructed by Rana Kumbha to mark his victory over Mahmud Khilji. This is one of those laces which gives you a real feeling of what history has gone thru, the fort was build in 734 AD. We also bought the famous ‘Sharife ka silk’ sari as a souvenir and started heading for Jhansi. We took a short lunch break at Monalisa restaurant in Kota, and pretty much ordered the same thali to mark the end of our 8 days journey to Rajasthan. We reached Jhansi in the evening by 7 pm. Total distance covered was approximately 3500 kms and our trip finished something like:

Jhansi -> Kota -> Udaipur ->Ranakpur -> Jodhpur -> Pokhran -> Jaisalmer

->Tanot -> BP609 -> Jaisalmer -> Udaipur -> Chittorgarh -> Kota -> Jhansi.

We were tired but at the same time delighted with all the adventure and knowledge we gathered from this trip and to top it all, we spent 8 days together with our family and together we had some quality fun. It’s few of those experiences one would cherish for their entire life.

The End.

Note regarding highways: Overall we had a safe journey on the road. New Indian highway system, also known as ‘Golden Quadrilateral’ is a great step in the right direction. The highways have improved and are getting better day by day, there are series of things which are still not at par, like rest areas, clean toilets and exit markings/signs etc, which I think will develop over time. One other thing I felt missing is the sense of highway culture among people. I guess that will automatically come as more and more people start using the highways and get familiar with it and benefit from it. But as always “Better late then Never” is the right motto to follow on Indian roads, or any road for that matter, and you would be happy and safe.

Happy journey!!!