Udaipur - The City of Lakes??

We reached Udaipur at around 4:30 in the evening. We had already got ourselves a booking at the Lake Pichola hotel with a lake view room. I don't know about Vikram but I was expecting a spectacular room with an amazing view of the lake. Well the room was really nice but the view.....hmmm, well was quite disappointing :( . The lakes on the whole were quite a sad sight, as it has not rained for 2 years. And even otherwise I do not think the citizens or the Government is really concerned about the cleanliness of the lakes.

Since we did not have much time to cover the Palace or the other tourist spots. So we decided to go for the city tour, which was nothing great to talk about. Even if we had not seen those places there wasn't anything much we would have missed. If you do want to do the city sight-seeing, make sure you take an auto and bargain well. Do not take the taxis offered by the hotels, they turn out to be pretty expensive.

The next day was reserved for the Palace and the lakes. Again I was not very impressed with the sight-seeing, and the city did not seem to be very Indian-tourist friendly. There is no differential pricing in Udaipur for entry into the tourist location, but there definitely exists a differential treatment! You are expected to pay as much as the foreign tourists, but they do not like it when you can pay. So the overall experience left me wanting....

Before we took our train in the night for Jaipur, we went to visit the Monsoon Palace. The Palace again did not have anything, but its worth the visit if you make it in time for sunset (I guess even sunrise)! Since it is located at a height, it gives a complete view of the city and of course the sunset is a breathtaking view. Not wanting to miss our train again :), we reached the station well in advance, and thus ended our not so satisfactory tour of Udaipur.

Ranakpur - The land of the most beautiful temple!

We grabbed some lunch in Jodhpur, which was not as easy as it sounds! Some people will be able to explain better than me :)
We boarded a bus from Jodhpur till Ranakpur. Roads again were pretty decent, the bus journey was smooth. We started around 3 and reached by about 7:30 PM. Ranakpur was a very tiny sleepy town,actually I could not figure out where the town was! There was the Tourism Dept hotel, the bus stop (or at least what they called a bus stop) and the temple. But whatever little was there of it, was really nice. It is set among the valley of the Aravallis and would be surrounded by more greenery if it was raining i guess. But I just loved the peace and the quiet in that place. We checked in to the hotel, had some dinner and sat out in the open for sometime. It was bliss!

Next morning, we started out for the temple. We were told that though the temple opens at 10, no photography are allowed till 12 inside the temple. We thought we would check out the temple, and if it was worth photography would stay back or push off. But the moment we entered the temple....OMG......it was like WOW!!!! I would have stayed back till midnight if it was required for photography! Believe you me.....it was the most aswesome temple i have ever seen, the most marvellous piece of architecture ever, ever ever....And to think it was constructed around the 14th-15th century.
Inside the temple, time just flew past as we walked around admiring the intricate carvings on the marble temple. The Jain temple is dedicated to the first Tirthankara and has these numerous pillars which are marvellous and just so magnificient! I think I am going to run out of all adjectives in this post :)
This place is a must visit, and if you plan to visit make sure you reach the temple much before 12 PM. Once the clock strikes 12, busloads of tourists come here and that kinda spoils the charm of the place. Visit the place around 10, soak in the beauty, click photos at 12 and make a quick exit with beautiful memories and a peaceful mind.
After this fantastic trip, we got our luggage from the RTDC hotel and waited for the bus that would take us to the city of lakes or so we thought!!
P.S. On the way to Ranakpur we saw something that looked like a black buck!

The Desert City

pWe hit Jaisalmer around 9:30 PM and as we entered the city were chased by 2 bikes!! Someone should put a warning sign at the entrance saying "Beware:Touts out to get you" or Jaisalmer -The city of touts! :)
After managing to escape from them and grabbing some dinner, we decided to look for some place to stay the night. WE got second time lucky, when we found this place called Gorakh Haveli. Like most of the tourist places, you can bargain and get down the rates here too. The hotel was neat, big rooms, clean bathrooms with hot water. Had a good nights sleep and were ready to see the city in the morning.
The day started with breakfasting on the rooftop, and this is when I realised the desperation of the guys on the bikes. Every house in Jaisalmer is a hotel and every rooftop is a restaurant. With no other source of income and so much competition; I do not think they have much choice. Sad but true, I felt the charm of the place was lost beacause of excessive commercialisation.
We started our site seeing with the Havelis - Patwa and Nathmal. The former was really beautiful and well maintained, while the latter wasnt too great. But the most disappointing thing was the very badly maintained city roads with open drains flowing all around (you can see sewage flowing and it stinks like crazy). Kind of spoils the experience and makes you wonder why a place that survives on tourism would not want to maintain itself??
After the visit to the havelis, we went to see the famed fort. The fort kind of is visible from everywhere in the city, but the view does not remain as good coz of the constructions and the mobile signal towers. The fort is quite a massive one, really really huge! Half of the city lives inside the fort; shops restaurants everything is found in there. We walked around the fort and did a bit of seeing about. Somehow we did not explore it fully.....i think the number of people in there kind of put us off.
After lunch, we finally headed to the desert. This was the most awaited part of my trip, i was dying to see the desert! I was hoping to see a Bollywood style never ending beautiful desert......but was a tad disappointed. The desert actually wasn't too big, it actually got over pretty fast :). I would want to sue all the movie ppl who show wrong images :). We did the camel ride in the desert, which was real good fun. Unlike Leh, vik and I sat on the same camel this time; poor camel though (he he he). Went for a short ride, away from the maddening crowd and then stopped on top of a dune to watch the sunset and paint the sky with beautiful colors. This was a truly amazing sight! After spending some time wit the sand and the camels, we got back to land.
We spent the night in a desert camp, actually just a part of the night. They had some cultural programs there, which were good and enjoyable. This is a normal practice in the desert, there are lots of camps that serve dinner and have cultural traditional programs. You can also spend the night there, but we decided to head back to the city. We needed to start early the next day and head back to Jodhpur, to continue with the rest of our trip.
After a good night's sleep, again at Gorakh and a good breakfast we hit the road at around 9:30 AM. We made good time and reached Jodhpur by around 1.
Jaisalmer as a city wasn't too impressive but the desert trip made up for it, even though the camel ride was a bit steep. Advice to tourists, make sure you bargain and decide the rates before starting the ride.

Jodhpur - The Blue City

After the long cab ride, we reached Jodhpur at 6 in the morning. Caught up on some sleep and by around 10-10:30 we were ready to do some site seeing.

Since Abhi was with us, we did the moving about in his car. We started with some breakfast in a restaurant called Gypsy (decent food). We started by visting Umaid Bhavan Palace, a part of which has been converted by Taj into a Hotel. The palace and the architecture was absolutely beautiful. The second stop was at a local eatery to have Pyaaz kachori :). I did not care too much for it though.

The next visit was to Jaswant Thada - the memorial of Maharaja Jaswant Singh II. A very beautiful and quite place, also a lot of scenic beauty and of course the architecture of the cenotaphs was another masterpiece. A lot of charm was also because it was not overcrowded like other tourist spots. The next visit was to Mehrangarh Fort built by Rao Jodha in 15th Century. Another magnificient piece of art and architecture. The museum also has displays of the palkis, armoury,etc. Provides a good glimpse of the lifestyle of those years.

After this we went to have some mirchi vadas...which were not mirchi at all!! Then we started on our drive for Jaiselmer around 4:30, this was to be our next stop, and for me the most awaited spot to visit. The drive was good, the roads were also very good (including the single lane one). The best part of the drive - the starry sky, I swear i have never in my lifetime seen so many stars at once. Absolutely divine and breathtaking view! That was one site that i will carry in my heart and memories forever, no sky can ever match up to that.....

Am back....

Am back from Rajasthan and also to the blogging world :). I hope to be less lazy this time around. I plan to put a couple of blogs around my trip to Rajasthan and this is the first in that series.

We started on Saturday morning from Bangalore, by taking an early morning flight to Delhi. We went to Faridabad and caught up with Adita. That was a good visit :), had good food made by Aunty and did some chatting, while my husband caught up on some sleep!!

After that started our adventure or should I say misadventure??? We missed the train to Jaisalmer....@@##%^#&@*(@#$$@.....this is what i was feeling after missing the train. Imagine standing on the platform for 1 hour, seeing the train come, asking the TT if we have enough time to reach our compartment and then as we walk towards it, the damn train starts moving. And there is no way you can get on to it......
I did not know, if I should be cursing my luck or that stupid TT or that station that has no sign boards. Khair jo hona tha ho gaya. With Abhi's help, we took a cab and went to Beawar (or however you spell it) and then he picked us up from there.

So instead of Jaisalmer, our trip started with Jodhpur, which probably wasnt a very bad thing. I quite enjoyed the Jodhpur experience. Details to follow.....so keep watching this space!!