The trip snaps are available on flickr
We needed a break from work, and also it was time we vacationed someplace; a car-trip down south, or a trip to Rajasthan were options that we considered. Rajasthan was just desert and heat in my mind, and I somehow didn’t exactly warm up to this idea. But then Indu’s insistence, and some research on the web sort of convinced me that this may be worthwhile after all.
We applied for leave, and booked air-tickets to Jaipur and back. I usually use Cleartrip to look for tickets… somehow the layout of the site, and the aesthetic and utilitarian layout of content on that site really appeals to me. Anyway, I digress.
We then listed out our trip details, and the various costs on a spreadsheet – we used Google docs for that purpose. The plan was to spend a day and half at Jaipur, 3 days at Udaipur, a day or two at Ranakpur, a day at Jodhpur, and then return to Jaipur for the flight out to Bangalore.
Day 1: Start the trip, and head to Jaipur
The flight out to Jaipur was uneventful, and once we landed there, the in-flight announcement informed us that Jaipur was a warm 38 degrees in the shade. Later we were informed that this was the first time in a century that weather across Rajasthan has remained at summer-time temperatures, even in the month of September. Lucky us.
The heat was something we had to put up with, but then once we stepped out into Jaipur with the realization that our vacation had begun, all the temperature concerns took a back-seat.
We headed to the Rajputana Sheraton, from the airport. Had a decent snack, and hit the bed. Relaxed for sometime, and then stepped out into the heat again around 5pm. A cycle-rickshaw-wala offered to take us to the nearest market. We were reluctant to get into a cycle-rickshaw initially, and then on confirming that it is only a 5 minute ride away, got in. He promptly dropped us in front of a handloom store, and mentioned that this is the market. Looked like it was the usual racket of herding tourists to specific shops, and get them to purchase things from there. In any case, we spent the next couple of hours at this store, because we liked his collection of textiles and materials. The store is the Rajasthan Handloom Textile corporation, near Galaxy hotel. Bought a bunch of bandhani type textiles.
We planned to return to this store the following Monday to collect the purchases, instead of lugging it along on the rest of the trip.
Stopped over at the Railway station, headed to the Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation information center, inquired about the taxi rates to go around Jaipur for a day, and finalized on a taxi to pick us up the following morning.
Returned to the hotel, had dinner, and hit the sack. We were exhausted by then.
Day 2: Jaipur look-about
Woke up early, and when I stepped out of the hotel room, I could feel the heat building up outside. It must have been in the 30s at half past eight in the morning. We were glad to have asked for an AC taxi to tour Jaipur.
Had a hearty breakfast at the hotel, and finally started out on the tour at 9:30 ish. The plan was to visit the Birla temple, Albert Museum, Jaipur City palace, lunch, Amer fort, Jal-Mahal and back.
Albert Museum is closed Mondays, so we just clicked a few snaps of its facade.
The Jaipur city palace is colorful, and the textile museum within it is worth a visit. We hired a guide to take us through the palace and its history. Costs about Rs.150 for the guide. Its worth it.
The pashmina shawls, the embroidery, the richness of the materials and the sheer number of artifacts on display need to be viewed and appreciated over a day, rather than the hour or so that we spent there. There is too much to see and absorb. The day was really hot too, and once we were through with the Jaipur city palace, we headed out for lunch. Post lunch, we headed to the Amer fort.
Amer fort was our first encounter with a fort in Rajasthan, and it is a really fantastic sight. The moat surrounding the fort was dry, because of the rather dry year in Jaipur. This did not take anything away from the beauty and imposing structure of the fort. The Amber palace within it has been built and extended over centuries, and every successive king has made his contribution in increasing the size and grandeur of this palace. The Sheesh Mahal, and the expansive views of the city and fort from the palace windows are breath-taking. A guide is absolutely necessary to understand the history of the place, and also to easily navigate through the huge fort and palace.
We were exhausted by then – the heat was really getting to us. It didn’t curb our enthusiasm though, because the tour so far had totally engaged us, and the Rajasthan experience had been memorable so far.
On the drive back, we stopped at the Jal-Mahal – a palace on a man-made lake. Clicked some snaps there. On the drive back to the hotel, we stopped at a blue-pottery place (Jaipur blue pottery art center), and spent an hour or so there looking at their collection of pottery, and understanding the process of making such pottery. We also stopped at the Hawa-mahal and clicked a few snaps.
Our driver for the day, Santosh Singh, made the entire day tour enjoyable with his tid-bits about the city and its history, and also his engaging conversations.
Back at the hotel, a quick freshening up, and a relaxed dinner readied us for our night-travel to Udaipur. The train was on time, and we settled in for the night. The train was to chug into Udaipur by 6am in the morning.
Day 3: At Udaipur
We had arranged for a taxi to pick us at the station, and he was waiting for us, as arranged. It is a 1.5 hour drive to Jaisamand lake from the city. The drive is through some green country-side, and wildlife sanctuary – enjoyable in the mornings, because of the generally cool weather. We were stuck by how green Udaipur is. It is situated in a natural valley, and has a lot of lakes.
Once we reached Jaisamand, the lake looked simply breath-taking. We were looking forward to spending a couple of days at the Jaisamand Lake resort. It is a hotel built on one of the islands in the lake. Called up the hotel, and they sent a boat to pick us up. Everything was wonderful so far.
Things changed once we reached the hotel, and were taken to our room – the lift was musty and dark. The corridors were rather depressing, and once we were shown to our room, we didn’t know what to make of it. The view of the lake and surroundings were really nice. The room itself was sort of depressing – the carpet on the floor looked worn out and not so very clean. The toilet was huge, and not so very clean. It had towels from the Oberoi and other hotels. Indu and I were thoroughly disappointed with this hotel. The management was trying to setup this hotel to be another five-star luxury one, but just didn’t have the experience to run such a hotel. They could have just gone with a simple clean hotel – because the location of the hotel is fantastic… no one is necesarily going to ask for a face towel, or a stupid camel ride. Anyway, an hour at this place convinced us that spend Rs.4000 a night here was totally worthless, and decided to check-out. We called up the taxi (the one from the morning) to return from Udaipur and pick us up. The management in the hotel insisted on charging us for a night stay, and some arguments later, it was reduced to 50%. We just wanted to get out of this place by then. The hotel is an ugly blot on this location.
By the time we got back to Udaipur, it was already 2pm. We had noted down Amet Haveli‘s number, because of the reviews on TripAdvisor. We headed there, and the cleanliness of the room, the hotel, and the views of the lake from our room won us over. The tariff is a tad expensive, but by then we didn’t care. We had wasted enough time for the day. We chose to stay here, had lunch, and slept.
Woke up around 5:30pm, and walked to the nearest bridge to cross over to the old city. This is a better option, than taking a rickshaw to the old city. Its just a 10 minute walk. Once in the old part of the city, its a wonderful experience – there are a lot of shops catering to tourists. Most of the shops are paintings or curios … not very interesting. The bada-bazaar area, Jagdish temple area are all nice. We generally took in the sights, and also because it was Navarathri/Dusshera, the good part of the roads and city were lit up, and people were congregating at various spots to dance away the night (Dandiya dance)
Also spotted a place where fresh jamoons and other sweets were being prepared. Downed a couple of hot jamoons. This turned out to be a daily routine, right through the Udaipur stay.
Day 4: Udaipur sight-seeing
Woke up the next morning to see sunlight streaming into our room, and also the reflections of it sparkling on the lake outside our window. Some of those reflections found their way into our room, and basically lit up our room in liquid shimmering sunlight.
Had a relaxed breakfast at the Amet Haveli’s restaurant – the Ambrai. Watched an old man teach his grand-daughters swimming, by first binding one end of a dhoti to their torso, and holding the other, and getting them to flap in the lake waters. Other resident folk came by and took a dip or a swim in the lake. It was a picturesque setting – morning sun, cool shade of the trees at the Ambrai, views of the Udaipur palace and other havelis on the lake banks.
Following breakfast, walked to the City palace (just across the bridge, and close to the Jagdish temple), got our tickets, and a guide, and spent a couple of hours atleast walking through and admiring the contents of the palace.
Decided to have lunch at Hotel Natraj (highly recommended, for its simple, yet, quality vegetarian food). Walked to the hotel, after a stop at a fresh-fruit juice shop for some refreshing mosambi juice, conversation, and directions to Hotel Natraj.
Post lunch, stopped at the Elite tea center (Bapu Bazaar area) and purchased some somph, amla, and elachi based churan stuff. Got back to the hotel, and slept till sunset.
Decided to walk about a bit, and spotted the “German Bakery” next to the bridge, and immediately got chatting with its owner – Suresh (aka Daada). Conversation flowed over cups of hot tea, and Daada gave us some tips on how to get to Chittorgarh, and the other places to see in Udaipur. He also suggested we rent a bike (from the Hira motor cycles shop), and go around Udaipur. That sounded like a good plan, and we also decided to return to Daada’s restaurant for breakfast. Tracked down the Heera shop, got some details on renting a bike and the costs, and made a mental note to return to this place if we had some more time in Udaipur. Along the way we also met Rakesh Soni, who is a artisan and has his paintings shop near the Jagdish temple. We spent another hour of conversation with him, understanding his painting techniques, listening to his interesting travel tales, and his tips on how to not get swindled at touristy locations. None of these conversations took on the buyer-seller or tourist-local combination… rather they were just normal conversation between people who didn’t try to get the other to buy anything from them, or profit from the other. These were fun conversations, and it was good to meet people and have simple engaging conversations with them.
Walked down to the jewelery street, near bada bazaar area, and found a shop open. We spent the next hour there, buying some Meenakari jewelery. Then walked past the jamoon place for daily quota of jamoons. Back to the room for a contented night’s sleep. The plan was to visit Chittorgarh the next day.
Day 5: Trip to Chittorgarh and back
Another brilliant peaceful sunrise woke us up. We spent some time lying around in bed and gazing at the lake. Then got ready, and headed to Daada’s restaurant for breakfast. Had a decent breakfast and chai, and headed out to the bus-stand from there, to get onto a bus headed to Chittorgarh.
We were issued tickets to Chittorgarh, and bus we were supposed to get onto had already started moving out of the bus-stand, and we didn’t have a clue about that. Some general confusion later, and arguments with a disgruntled ticket issuer, we finally got our tickets transferred to a different bus. Thankfully there are buses to Chittorgarh every 30 minutes or so. An hour and half of bus ride through blistering hot sun, but the breeze blowing through the bus windows was surprisingly cool enough, and we reached Chittorgarh by 2pm-ish. The moment we step off the bus, we are accosted by an auto-driver who also offered to be our guide, and he promised to give us a fantastic tour of the fort and its monuments for 200 rupees. After some general head-scratching, we decide what the heck, he can’t be all that bad, and decide to use his auto-guide services. After a decent lunch, we headed to the fort.
By then, the sun was really heating up the place, and I guess the fort area must have been in the 40s. Blistering is the word. But then, the fort and its environs, and details out of Ram-Kishan (our driver-guide) was riveting enough, and we managed to put up with the heat and sweat. We stopped by at the granary/food-storage area, the ruins of the Kumbha palace, the functioning and beautiful Meera Bai’s temple, before we got to the area of the fort that has the magnificent Vijay Stambha.
The Vijay Stambha area is adjacent to the courtyard where Rani Padmini committed Jauhar. The story of the jauhar, and the societal structure and mental makeup of that time sort of weighed on our minds. We walked along the beautifully situated Gaumukh reservoir, and the Sammidesvara temple. Also had a quick look at the Rani Padmini palace, in the middle of another water reservoir. We were surprised by the number of water bodies, filled with water, in this fort. Quite a few of them are natural springs. This entire fort is also built on the top of a single huge hill. Strategically located, strong natural defense structures, and availability of fresh drinking water made this one of the coveted forts, during its glory days.
By the time we covered these monuments, we were feeling weak and dehydrated. We then downed a bottle of water each, and then headed to the Kirti Stambha – another exquisitely carved tower. From there, we had a look at the fort’s rear gate, and the expansive views from there. Custard apple trees dot the entire fort area, and apparently bear one of the choicest custard apples during the season.
Ram-kishan, our driver, dropped us back at the bus-stand, and we were on the 6pm bus back to Udaipur. The ride back to Udaipur was uneventful, and a cool breeze kept us in good relaxed spirits.
At Udaipur, we dropped by at a place that served Dal-bati-churma, near the bus stand, and were hungry enough to wolf down a couple of plates of it. It was delicious. Then took an auto, and headed to the jamoon place, and from there walked back to the hotel, and dropped into our beds. Content, and with dreams of the beautiful Chittorgarh fort.
Day 6: Head to Ranakpur
Another awesome day to wake-up to, at the Amet Haveli, and we were feeling sad that we had to leave this place today. After the relaxed breakfast at Daada’s, we headed to the Jewelery market yet again to pick up some of the stuff we had purchased a couple of days back. In the bargain, we ended up purchasing a lot more jewelery than we had initially planned. We were then left with an hour or so to return to our room, have lunch, checkout, and head to the bus-stand to get onto a 3pm bus headed to Ranakpur. Naturally, this didn’t work out… the lunch was at a relaxed pace, and we decided to take our time getting to the bus stand.
Finally got into a bus headed to Ranakpur, around 4:30pm. The bus initially collided with a car, while reversing out of the bus stand, and then just kept loading people on as it briefly toured the city before heading out to Ranakpur. We were comfortably seated, but in our minds we wanted to get into the Aranyawas at Ranakpur before night-fall.
The bus sort of lumbered along the road to Ranakpur, and at a half-way point, the engine compartment of the bus started billowing smoke. Everyone got out of the bus in 2 seconds flat, and most of the guys around started yelling their opinion of what has gone wrong, following that up with a lot of I-told-you-so. In any case, thanks to mobile phones, the conductor of the bus called up the depot in Udaipur and checked if another bus was on its way.
In the mean time, some of the passengers were trying to flag down other vehicles on the road, to hitch a ride to wherever it is they wanted to go to. I sort of convinced Indu to flag down a jeep, which, as it neared us, turned out to be a Police Jeep, and those policemen glared fire at us as they sped past us. Poor Indu didn’t know where to hide herself, and I had to laugh. At the wrong time. After a few minutes, we both managed to laugh out loudly about the incident, and hoped that the replacement bus reach us sooner than later. The “replacement” bus turned out to be yet another bus on the Ranakpur route, already bursting with passengers.
There was a mad scramble to get onto the bus. We boarded last, with all our luggage. Its a wonder how 100 plus people squeezed into that bus, with all our luggage. The rest of the journey is best described as traveling via Mumbai’s local trains at peak hours, with the train weaving its way at hectic pace through a winding ghat section. This was fun, in its own way. We were finally deposited in front of the Aranyawas main gate around 9pm in the evening.
The cottage room allotted to us was spacious, and clean, and comfortable. We then proceeded to freshen up, and had a nice relaxed and delicious dinner. Couldn’t have been a better end to the adventurous day.
Day 7: Stay in Ranakpur
Aranyawas is located amidst beautiful rolling Aravalli range of mountains/hills. Its got thick tree cover, and the temperature is atleast 8 degrees cooler than the plains. Also the area around the hotel is visited by various birds. We were basically woken up by the “music” of bird cries. Woke up lazily, and then headed for breakfast. The breakfast was as delicious as the dinner, the night before. The staff were courteous, and “conversation-oriented”. We felt really pampered, and relaxed. Post breakfast, with camera, and novels in hand, we wandered about the property. Clicking snaps, or just staring into the distance. Then finally settling down at a check-dam, watched dazzling blue kingfishers going about their breakfast, for hours on end. Before we realized it, it was already lunch time. Had a good lunch, and then it was time for siesta.
Woke up in the evening, and then I sat out in the balcony… and spent an hour or so conducting a staring match with a pigeon-like-bird perched on a tree branch close to the balcony. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend time doing nothing. Felt rather refreshed, and yeah, I gave up, the bird won the staring-contest. We decided that we wanted to spend another night at this hotel, and to truncate our Jodhpur plans to just a few hours. Aranyawas’ manager, Mr Subhash, made a few calls to find out about various modes of transport to Jodhpur, and finally worked out a reasonable cost for a taxi to Jodhpur. We just loved the service at this place, and the way the staff went out of their way to make us feel at home, and to sort out transport and other such issues.
Day 8: Head to Jodhpur and return to Jaipur
Woke up feeling refreshed. The taxi was to pick us up at 2pm ish. A hearty breakfast, some more bird watching at the check dam, and a quick snooze later, we were ready to head out towards Jodhpur. We felt we should have spent a few more days here, or better still, purchase a piece of property here and stay put (doing what? no idea). A few kilometers from the hotel is Ranakpur, and its magnificent Jain temple. We spent all of 10 minutes here, and continued towards Jodhpur. The heat hit us as we descended to the plains, and was with us all the way to Jodhpur.
We were at the outskirts of Jodhpur by 4:30ish, and the Mehrangarh fort was the place we wanted to head to, before it closed for the day. The fort entrance closes by 5:30pm. We wanted to see whatever we could. Managed to reach the fort gates at 5:30pm, and were deeply disappointed that we couldn’t enter the palace in the fort. We consoled ourselves by looking at the exterior walls of the palace, and the fort. The carvings, and designs were breath-taking. The plan is to go back to Jodhpur sometime later in life, and spend sometime walking through the fort and its palace.
Stopped at a handloom and handicraft’s shop, spent a couple of hours buying some textiles there. Then reached the railway station, dumped our luggage in the cloak room, headed to the nearby Kalinga restaurant for some decent dinner. The train to Jaipur was to start at 10:45pm, but finally left the station at 11:15pm. The seats of the train were covered in fine sand-dust, because it had just arrived from Jaisalmer, and its desert environs. Dusted the sleeper, and slept like a log.
Day 9: Back to Bangalore
Indu thankfully woke up before the train pulled into Jaipur. We got out of the train, and checked into the retiring rooms at the railway station. The rooms were clean, and so were the attached bathrooms/toilet. We checked into a double bed room, and went back to sleep. The occasional train pulling into the station with a loud honk tried its best to wake us up, but we were too sleepy to be bothered. Finally woke up, got ready by 10am. Had breakfast at a nearby restaurant. Went back to the Rajasthan Handloom Textile to pick up the stuff we had purchased the week before. Then returned to the railway station, checked out of our room, and headed to the airport. We had hired an auto to do the Jaipur run-around and drop to the airport. Once at the airport, we sat back in the cool air-conditioned comfort of the spanking new airport, and ran through the trip in our minds for the hundredth time.
An uneventful flight later, we were back in rain-cooled Bengaluru. Home.
The trip snaps are available on flickr
Mostly travel 
Kiran, I liked your narrative of the Rajasthan trip; I am yet to see
the pictures .The police jeep incident made me laugh as well!!
Looks like u have covered a lot of ground in Rajasthan, did u know it is the largest state in India? We have been only to Jaipur so far but your travelogue I think will make me plan another trip to more places
there.Hopefully we will see all the Meenakari jewekry that Indu bought in Rajasthan sometime!!
Keep travelling!!!
Raghu
Raghu, thanks for your feedback.
I was guessing MP is huge, but looks like Rajasthan is right there on top. Wikipedia actually informs me that Rajasthan is comparable to Germany in area size: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_and_territories_of_India_by_area
I strongly encourage you to have a look at Udaipur. Jaipur is nice, but too touristy. And yes, the next time you are in Bangalore, we can run through the list of things we purchased.
Wow wow wow… I am sooooooo impressed.. This email should be circulated by Rajasthan Tourism board! So informative and well written. The pics are fabulous. You both look so happy and adorable. Tx for sharing this. We cant wait to visit all these wonderful places. But the heat during summer months makes me worried! Tx again.
Laki, tourism evangelist, really? me? thank you 🙂
The heat was a bit of a freak occurence this time, I would guess. Again, it was not as bad as I made it sound, and hopefully this does not put you off of Rajasthan. Its a wonderful place, and you can look forward to a lot of unasked for advice from me, if you and your family do plan to go there.
I would love to get your input.. I will keep in touch with you on this. We are looking into July/August of next year.
Udaipur is beautiful I think, and the weather has always been loevly when I have been there.
Nice write up. Agree with the Jaisamand resort part. Keep writing.