Rajasthan trip

   This Christmas season we decided to check out Rajasthan. My sister and bil joined our family on this trip.  None of us had seen a desert before, so we were really excited!! We decided to take the Jaipur -Jodhpur-Udaipur package because we could only do 6 days this time. We wanted to include Jaisalmer but time didn't permit. So we decided not to be too greedy. Let's just enjoy as much as we can.

 Our flight landed at the Jaipur airport and the airport although small, was artistic and pleasing to the eye. There were murals and also colour etching on the glass walls. 

Oh wait, there were lots of flowers and a red carpet laid down. But then MakeMyTrip just told us about the driver holding a placard for us, they didn't tell us about these special arrangements. Ok as you must have guessed already, the flowers and red carpet were not for us, they were arranged to welcome the guests of the Lodha wedding being held in the city ;-) Kya timing hai!! Enjoy the scene! 

As we proceeded to our hotel, our driver pointed out few landmarks and poured out details. The city is nice, this part where we were was not very different from any other city. We were surprised to see greenery everywhere and asked the driver what's going on, where are the sand dunes...he explained that this part of Rajasthan is not arid. We need to go further west if we want to see the desert. In fact many villages in Rajasthan have good ground water. Now this was a surprise!! Ok then, good for you...

We had very little time for sightseeing that evening so we visited The Albert Hall museum. The building had colourful lighting outside and very good exhibits inside. I especially liked the pottery section from different countries, Persian collection was impressive. Also I have never seen so many kinds of string instruments, some of which I hadn't even heard the names of. But then the size of this museum doesn't compare to our Salarjung museum. 

It was Christmas Eve so our hotel had provided a Gala dinner, which was actually not very lavish. We tasted gatte ki subji for the first time and it didn't leave a good impression. But later in another city we had the same dish and it was good.

On Day 2 we had a lavish breakfast at our hotel and visited The Amber fort. It is a very big fort. Our guide gave us a detailed tour of the summer palace and winter palace of Raja Jaisingh and also the palace of Raja Mansingh. 

He showed us the wheelchair used to move the queen around the fort as her lehenga was too heavy. Well not everyone can carry one like Deepika Padukone in Padmavat. We saw their air cooling system in the summer palace and the awesome decorated bedrooms of the kings. Outside the fort i saw a man playing an instrument called Ravanhattha, it had a lovely sound.

Next we stopped at Jal Mahal. It's a five storey Mahal, three of which have been submerged underwater because of floods over the years. 

There was no permission to enter the island palace as it was private property. So we just took pictures of it from a distance and enjoyed the food from the food stalls on the river bank. I tasted a new fruit known as Star fruit. It tasted like gooseberry and mango combined, just irresistible.

Our next stop was the City palace Jaipur. It wasn't as impressive as the fort IMO. Only the doorways of the palace were special with lot of work done around them. One thing we found funny was that the doorways to each room inside the palace were so small, even i had to bend in order to enter. Were these kings short i wondered. Unfortunately we didn't engage a guide here to answer our questions.

Next we visited Hawa Mahal and Jantar mantar. Hawa Mahal looks beautiful from the outside but very plain on the inside. Although we enjoyed the view from the top after climbing it's tall tower.

Jantar mantar had all kinds of instruments/gadgets meant for astronomical calculations. We couldn't make head or tail out of the explanation written about the usage of each instrument, so very boring. After this our original itinerary was to visit Chokhi Dhani and enjoy the programmes there and have traditional Rajasthani food. But we had had such a heavy lunch and in no mood for heavy dinner. So we ditched it to go shopping. We bought some nice bandhani salwar suits and some suits with Rajashthani style embroidery.

On Day 3, we started to Jodhpur. We were getting impatient as we hadn't seen the desert yet. Our driver was no help so my sister googled a bit and found that there were some sand dunes and fun activities if we took a small detour from our original route. So Osian sand dunes it is!! We didn't know what's in store for us. When we arrived there we had to engage a jeep to take us for a desert safari on the sand dunes. Also a camel ride, and if we wished to, a scooter ride. We took the whole package because we didn't want to miss anything. But the minute we neared the sand dunes in our jeep, our hearts started pounding looking at the steep slopes. I prayed to God, please don't let him climb those steep slopes....and my prayers were answered. The driver took a different route where the slope was bearable. I thought ok not bad. Then started the thrill and throwing around of our body. It wasn't going to give anyone a heart attack though. I mean if I found it fun, then no one can die out of it. I could die on a roller coaster although I didn't, so this could be endured. After having our 15 minutes of never-ending thrills, we reached a spot which was almost flat, here we took a camel ride. 

There were some ten year olds who said they would take good pictures of us with our own phone, we handed them our phone doubtfully. To our astonishment, they took pictures and videos with camera tricks which left us awestruck. There's no other word for it. We tipped those kids although this was part of the package. 

Oh you must be thinking this adventure is over!! Nope, remember the steep slope we saw as soon as we neared the dunes? The driver took us down the slope!!! I'm sure my heart stopped for a few seconds as we made it down safely. I shouted so much that our driver should have become tone deaf, as I was sitting right behind him. But no, he seemed not affected at all. I wondered if he uses earplugs while driving on the dunes. Imagine bearing these shrill voices all day every day. Not my kind of job. With shaking knees, we checked in to our hotel which had such awesome interiors. 

On Day 4, we had an awesome breakfast buffet. We first visited the Mehrangarh fort. It's a very big fort with beautiful hallways and bedrooms of the kings. Jhanki Mahal is a Mahal built for the poor ladies to enjoy any events taking place in the fort. They can peek from the tiny windows and holes of the walls as they were not allowed to sit in public. Jhaankna, hence the name Janki Mahal. The kings bedroom had a beautiful ceiling with intricate and colourful work done all over. Outside the fort, I bought a Rajsthani painting done on a cloth with vegetable colours. It is so eye catching.

Next we visited Umaid bhawan palace. It was a total disappointment and utter waste of time. Never trust ratings....this is what we learnt. This palace, we can just look at the pictures on the net, no need to visit. We had a delicious lunch, I tried a new type of kofta curry, Nakhmali kofta curry - it was so delicious and had a very different flavour. Then we started to Udaipur. It was a tiring journey because already we covered so many kilometres going from one city to another. We had to just endure it. 

We continued to our next destination, The Ranakpur Jain Temple made of marble. It was on the way to our hotel. Unfortunately because we visited Umaid bhawan palace, we lost some time, the sun had set and there were no lights at the temple. In this day and age we didn't expect that. It's a pity we couldn't appreciate the intricate carvings in daylight. We finished darshan and headed to our hotel. There was no way we could cover this again next day because we had lots of sightseeing planned in Udaipur.

On Day 5, Our first stop was City palace Udaipur. It's a huge one, again not very impressive. We also went to the island palace there by boat. We enjoyed the boat ride more than the palace, but I wouldn't say it was a waste of time.

After this, we went to Ghangour ghat where MakemyTrip arranged a photoshoot for us. It was part of our package so we decided to do it. But the ghat was so filthy, as expected the photos were not great either. We have this feedback to them so that other tourists don't have to waste their time. Instead we could have done some shopping of marble items. I really wanted to get something from there but they were so expensive I didn't think it's worth carrying those from Rajasthan. At that price I can get the same things in Hyderabad. If only there weren't so many foreign tourists, maybe they would keep reasonable prices. But it was a joy just looking at those artistic jewellery boxes, little camel and elephant figurines etc. I bought a set of painted wooden elephants and a marble pen stand as souvenirs. After all I couldn't go back to Hyderabad empty handed. If we hadn't changed our route to include the sand dunes, then we could have gone to a place where the artists carve the marble items themselves and sell at reasonable prices. But since this was no longer possible, we had to be content.

After this we went to a big garden called Saheliyon ki bari, which was made for the benefit of the queens and her handmaids. We saw a huge fern tree, the biggest I've ever seen. Also many varieties of flowers. An unexpected surprise was an exhibition of lovely paintings in one room. I enjoyed this a lot. 

On Day 6 we started back to Hyderabad. Overall it was a fun trip because we went as a group. MakeMyTrip could have planned the itinerary better because our schedule got messed up from Day 1 because of our flight timing. We didn't know there was not much scope for sightseeing as the palace closes at 5 pm. They should have known and planned accordingly. We had to adjust the whole schedule which kind of made it a hurried business. Is Rajasthan your money's worth?? Debatable... because we spent a lot considering that most of the time we were on the road. I suggest others to cover Jaisalmer also, because there you can see the desert and camp in it overnight. But that's definitely not for winter season. An 8 nights package is ideal if you want to cover everything to your satisfaction. But if you can spare only 6 nights, my suggestion is Jaipur, Udaipur and Jaisalmer.