“Padharo Mhare Des”: ~3600km Rajasthan Bike Ride 2021 - Part 2

Sometimes you find beauty in unexpected places. And yes the above place is in Rajasthan!!!

A quick recap, Ashish and I started our Rajasthan bike ride on Dec 21, 2020. During the first four days of our trip, we had covered Mumbai to Udaipur, Udaipur sightseeing, Longewala, Tanot Mata Mandir, and stayed at Sam Sand Dunes. On Day 5, after experiencing the mesmerizing sunrise at Sam Sand Dunes, and exploring Jaisalmer Fort, we started our ride to Jodhpur, the Blue City of India. In case you missed it, read the first four days of our trip in the Part 1 of the blog.

But before we move to the next part of the trip, enjoy pictures of the awesome roads and desert scenery of the Jaisalmer - Longewala route:

Day 5 | Ride to Blue City of India (Jodhpur): Our original plan was to ride from Jaisalmer to Bikaner, stay for the night, and reach Jaipur the next day. Then after exploring Jaipur, cover Jodhpur in the return leg. Given that we had no plans to explore Bikaner we tinkered the itinerary and decided to ride to Jodhpur first and then proceed to Jaipur. If you ride from Jaisalmer to Jodhpur, you need to take a right from Pokhran. Both Ashish and I were excited about Pokhran (for obvious reasons)  and had decided to make a scheduled stop at Pokhran. However, on-route to Jodhpur, you don't enter or cross Pokhran town but take a right to avoid entering the town, so we had to make good with the town banner 😞.

Jodhpur is ~280km from Jaisalmer Fort, so with highway in excellent condition, we were covering distance at a good pace. We stopped 80km before Jodhpur for a tea break and decided to book the hotel as well. What we missed was that it was not just Saturday but also 25th Dec and that means yearend holiday season has started. After multiple calls to 100 or so hotels, and non-availability we finally found a place at Hotel Siddharth International. The property was new with huge lawn and has been built primarily to cater wedding functions, didn't have restaurant and overall was average. Good thing was, the sightseeing places were quite nearby to the hotel.

Day 6 | Jodhpur sightseeing: Our first stop was Mehrangarh Fort, which is one of the most massive forts I have seen, covering ~1200 acres located on hilltop around ~120 mtr above the plain built by the Marwar family. Fortunately, we could drive our bikes right up to the fort's parking near the main entrance. We had our breakfast inside the fort, Kachori chat and saffron lassi; chat was good but the lassi was amazing. After having our fill, we spend the next few hours exploring the fort and in my view, Mehrangarh Fort was the best of all the Forts we visited during our Rajasthan trip. It had all components of the fort, it had a few aspects of palace as well. In addition the museum inside was one of the better ones.

These Rajput royals claimed themselves to be descendants of Sun/Moon/Fire, i.e. they were Suryavanshis (descendants of Lord Rama) or Chandravanshis (descendants of Lord Krishna). I believe they did it to establish the lineage superiority of the royal family and hence their entitlement to rule over these lands. 

Post enjoying our time exploring the fort, we headed to Jaswant Thada. It is a cenotaph and serves as the cremation ground for the Marwar royal family built by Maharaja Sardar Singh in 1899. The building itself has a striking appearance to it, the entire building made of white marble sitting on top of a red sandstone base.

While Jodhpur is known as the 'Blue City', one can experience this only by visiting the old part of the city, which we couldn't, owing to the lack of time. There are multiple reasons on the internet on why people of Jodhpur started painting their houses blue, but for me it was disturbing to know that this was done to identify their caste and separate the Brahmin households from the lower caste ones. 

Day 7 | Ride from the Blue City (Jodhpur) to the Pink City (Jaipur): This time we decided to book the hotel in Jaipur a day in advance. After much online exploration, we booked Hotel Marigold for 3000/- per night. We had to book this hotel, which is 15-20km outside the main city as even the basic decent hotel in the city were expensive or simply not available given the holiday season.

The ride from Jodhpur to Beawar was a delight - excellent highway with everchanging rural scenery. But that changes as soon as you join NH58 at Beawar for Jaipur. This is the main highway till Delhi thus the truck and other four-wheeler traffic increase multi-fold making the ride a bit irritating.

Earlier, in Jodhpur, I came across pictures of a place with a striking turquoise water lake, and beautiful sparkling white surroundings while randomly browsing through social media. The pictures appeared completely surreal and to my surprise, this place was in Rajasthan and on our way to Jaipur. First, have a glimpse of the place before I write more about it:

This is a dump yard, yes you read it right a dump yard at Kishangarh. It is ~250km from Jodhpur, on the way to Jaipur. Kishangarh economy mainly depends on marble trading. All the marble waste has been dumped at this place and it turned into this beautiful place. If you are passing by, make sure to stop by this place, I'm pretty sure it will turn out to be the surprise package in your itinerary. The local management has constructed proper changing rooms in addition to the wash room as people come here for a photoshoot. We also found from a local that there is another dump yard, much better maintained but is not open for the general public; only movie shooting is allowed. After spending a couple of hours at this place we headed towards Jaipur. 

We reached our hotel by evening and the hotel turned out to be another surprise. Good property, clean spacious room, access to the roof, super courteous and helpful staff. We had tried the famous Lalmaas at Khama Ghani restaurant, Udaipur. It was quite good, but we liked the one served by Hotel Marigold much more.

Day 8 | Jaipur sightseeing: Before the sightseeing we wanted to experience another thing that Jaipur is famous for - Pyaaz Kachori and Rawat Misthan Bhandar serves the best kachoris in town. This place is in the crowded part of the town, so it took us a good 45-60min to reach there. After having our fill of two kachoris each with saffron lassi, we headed for our first stop - Amer Fort or more rightly Amer Palace. 

Amer Palace was built by Raja Man Singh and later, additions were made by Sawai Jai Singh. Built on hill, it is one of the main tourist attractions, and hence largely crowded. Just like the other forts, one can drive into the fort. The problem is unlike Mehrangarh Fort, the parking space is small and poorly managed, which do result in a traffic jam inside the fort. Given it's a palace, it has a courtyard, 'Diwan-e-Aam' (Hall of Public Audience) and 'Diwan-e-Khas', and Mirror Palace. The palace lives up to the hype, and despite the crowd it was an unforgettable experience.

As I mentioned above, Amer Palace was a 'palace' and armies can't fight or defend from a palace, and hence a fort was built overlooking the palace with a secret tunnel and everything - Jaigarh Fort. It was built on a high point on the Aravalli range, called 'Cheel ka Teela' by Jai Singh II. It was primarily built to serve defense purposes, and hence it has no fancy structure but is only utilitarian. 

What is the most important thing needed if a fort is under siege - water. So, the fort was built with its  water harvesting system, and water tank so large that as per the guide, 10000 soldiers will have enough water for two years. Though I don't know what they planned to eat, but then you don't get all the answers 😊. It has a Cannon foundry and it houses the 'World's biggest cannon on wheels' of its time, and guess the name - yes it is called 'Jaivan Cannon'. Do you see a pattern here - the ruler, Jaisingh seems to be so obsessed with himself that he named everything he constructed after himself. The fort's name - Jaigarh, and the cannon - Jaivan; who knows what else he named after himself.

We took a guide at Jaigarh Fort, who took time to explain the history of the fort and its various aspect. Our next stop was Nahargarh Fort, which was built by Maharaja Sawai Singh as a place of retreat and to look over the entire city of Jaipur. We got to know that later small palaces were built inside the fort for each of his nine wives. The place doesn't give the feeling of a fortified structure like Jaigarh fort but  feels like a retreat place.

Our next stop was Jal Mahal, a palace for the summer season in the middle of the Man Sagar Lake, originally in 1699, both of which were enlarged and renovated in the 18th century. I'm surprised, he didn't change the name of the palace to 'Jai Mahal'.  

Unfortunately, a visit to the Jal Mahal was not permitted, so we spent the evening on the side of the lake and capturing nature around in our cameras. After relishing our evening, watching sunset, birds, blue sky, we headed to Babu Bazaar in the old part of the city for a bit of shopping for my kid and my better half. After shopping, we ended the day with another round of Lal Maas 😊.

Day 9 | City Palace, Jaipur and ride to Beawar: The trip was going great, but it started setting in that our epic trip was in its last phase, the return journey was about to start. We wanted to check out the City Palace, Jaipur and Hawa Mahal before starting the return leg towards Mumbai.

City Palace, Jaipur was established by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II at the same time as the city of Jaipur. It houses the Royal family till date, in addition to the Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum. The museum, as well as the palace is worth a visit. One thing, I overheard a guide talk about (reconfirmed on Wikipedia) the Royal Women-folk. While they did follow the purdah system, they were involved in the governance of the kingdom or estate in absence of the heir, making them the alternate centre of power in the kingdom.

Photography and videography are not allowed inside the museum, housing clothes, utensils, weapons, gift items, canons, and paintings of the Royal family. However, for me the most fascinating things were the two largest silver pot in the world, which was constructed by melting 14000 silver coins over 2 years. Interestingly or rather pathetically, Maharaja Madho Singh II took these 2 jars filled with water of Ganges to England to attend the coronation of King Edward VII in 1902. 

We skipped Hawa Mahal, as we wanted to cover as much distance a possible before sunset. We reached Beawer before sunset, and could have covered another 50km, i.e. reached Bhim but we could find decent hotels in Bhim and hence decided to stay for the night at Hotel Suryamahal, Beawer. Basic hotel, but clean rooms, decent food, hot water and gated parking space settled for us.

Day 10 | Kumbhalgarh Fort and Ride from Beawar to Modasa : The plan for day 10 was to ride beyond Udaipur, at least till Kherwara which was ~300km from Beawer. We kept the target at 300km only as we wanted to visit Kumbhalgarh fort. It was a small detour, but Kumbhalgarh fort is not just another popular tourist attraction but also the birthplace of Maharana Pratap and was built by Maharana Kumbha, Great Grandfather of Maharana Sanga. The fort is also known as the Great Wall of India, as it is the second-longest wall in the world after the well known Great Wall of China. In its entire period of existence, this fort has been capture just once after a siege of 6 months - by a General of Emperor Akbar, but it was recaptured by Maharana Pratap within the next 12 month - I guess it has been captured twice and not once.

The ride from the highway to the fort and back - narrow good quality road, greenery and engaging route. We reached Kherwara later afternoon, so we decided to ride ahead till Modasa.

Day 11 | Ride from Modasa to Mumbai : We started early as we had to cover ~550km. The ride back home was more or less uneventful. Given the highway condition, we covered good ground and reached Ahura by afternoon and decided to have our late lunch - Keema Pav was awesome as always. I reached home by 6:30pm and that was the end of our epic bike trip to Rajasthan.

End of  3600km bike ride (Ignore the clock!)

There were so many high points in the entire trip, but the highlight was the Jaisalmer leg and Kishangarh was the surprise package. 

Our country offers such diverse and rich experience, it would take more than a life time to cover just the main attraction. For every main attraction/ tourist point, you have multiple local unknown and undiscovered points. I would consider myself very lucky if I can complete just my bucket list which keeps growing everyday. So keep riding, keep discovering!!!

Not going to repeat the mistake I made in Blog's Part 1 😄: 

Thanking my amazing WIFE who allows me to go on LONG BIKE RIDES!!!

“Padharo Mhare Des”: ~3600km Rajasthan Bike Ride 2021 - Part 1

Many wonder, many ask, "why do you do long ride on a bike?". Usually, I respond, because I like it but there is more to it than that. Bike riding is my form of meditation, it can't be explained, nor can be put down in words, it has to be experienced. 

This year we decided to head to the north to the 'Royal State' of Rajasthan for another ~3600km ride. It was our 'third season' of our long bike trip. The first was the ride to Hampi-Badami, ~1600km round trip, followed by South India ride, ~3500km round trip.

Unlike the last two times, when four/five of us rode - Ashish (@ashish_ranjan_87), Kshitiz (@nuisancejunkie),  Shreyas (@shreyas_ad), Amrut (@iamrut11) and I (@subitsaurav); this time around it was just Ashish and I. Learning from the last ride, both of us decided to buy blue-tooth helmet communicator (We were using Parani M10 and will write a separate blog as a review). It turned out to be the best decision, and I would recommend everyone to invest in one if they are looking to go for group bike ride for the following reasons:

• We could check if the other person has fallen too far behind, and adjust our riding speed; this helped to avoid wastage of time in coordinating and ensuring that everyone is safe and sound;
• We could alert the other person while overtaking, of potential hazards like animals or people randomly deciding to cross the road all of a sudden;
• But most importantly, it gave a feeling of group ride as we could talk to each other while riding. During the last trip, while we were a group, in essence we all were doing solo trips;

This year we started our ride on Dec 21st and returned on the evening of Dec 31st. After multiple iterations, we did Mumbai - Udaipur - Jaisalmer - Longewala/Tanot/Sam - Jaipur - Jodhpur - Jaipur - Udaipur - Mumbai. 

(Rajasthan Trip Route Map)

Day by day plan:

Day 1: Ride from Mumbai to Udaipur - Approximately 730km ride and then overnight stay in Udaipur;

Day 2: Udaipur Sightseeing, i.e. Udaipur City Palace including Crystal Museum and Sajjangarh Palace, also known as monsoon palace;

Day 3: Ride from Udaipur to Jaisalmer via Barmer - Approximately 500km ride and overnight stay in Jaisalmer;

Day 4: Visit Longewala War Memorial, Tanot Mata Mandir, and then stay overnight at Sam Sand dunes in one of the desert camps (highlight of the trip);

Day 5: Sunrise and desert safari at Sam Sand dunes, visit Sonar Fort (Jaisalmer Fort) and then drive to Blue City of India (Jodhpur) - approximately 325km drive and overnight stay at Jodhpur;

Day 6: Jodhpur sight seeing, i.e. Mehrangarh Fort, and Jaswant Thada;

Day 7: Ride from the Blue City (Jodhpur) to the Pink City (Jaipur) - approximately 350km with a visit to Kishangarh (turned out to be the surprise package) and overnight stay at Jaipur;

Day 8: Jaipur sightseeing, i.e. Amer Palace, Jaigarh Fort, Nahargarh Fort, and Jal Mahal;

Day 9: Visit Jaipur City Palace and ride to Beawar - approximately 200km ride;

Day 10: Ride from Beawar to Modasa, and on the way visit Kumbhalgarh Fort - approximately 400km ride;

Day 11: Ride from Modasa to Mumbai - approximately 575km long last stretch.

As you can see from the day by day plan, our primary objective was riding bike across Rajasthan and we accommodated main/major attractions for sight seeing. 

Day 1 | Ride from Mumbai to Udaipur: We knew that this was the longest single-day stretch in our entire plan. For 'pro-riders', this is not too difficult but neither Ashish nor I am a pro by far distance of imagination😊. However, we were hopeful, as during our South India trip, despite multiple stops, time wasted while coordinating etc., we were able to cover ~600km on our first day (though it was 8pm by the time we ended day 1). 

The plan was to meet at Fountain Hotel, Mira Bhayandar and start our ride by 5:30am. Both of us managed to reach the meeting point by 6am but the ride started with a small glitch. While riding to the meeting point, Ashish hit a pothole which resulted in a minor bend on the front rim. We did panicked a bit as it could have delayed our trip by at least 1 day in addition to the additional expense. Luckily, it neither resulted in the loss of air pressure nor in bike wobbling, hence we decided to proceed with the trip.

The early morning fog was enchanting but it also made us ride more cautiously. After covering ~100km, we stopped for breakfast at Hotel Jalaram Kathiwadi (a popular weekend breakfast point for many bikers). It is a pure vegetarian restaurant but the food was fresh and tasty. From there we entered Gujarat shortly and the biggest delight wasn't the superb highway but the petrol prices 😊, as its 10-12 rupees cheaper than Maharashtra. Ashish also needed to get his PUC done which costed him just 30 rupees, while in Mumbai it cost me 80 rupees for the same a couple of days back. The Gujarat highways are certainly a delight to drive on, however in absence of any ghat section/ curves, the ride was less engaging and could have become monotonous. The blue-tooth communicator was the life saver. However, people's driving 'style', kept us on our toes. It seems drivers in Gujarat are not aware that vehicles have indicators or what is it used for. Nor do they seem to understand that if you want to take a right, you need to move to the right lane much before you turn and not make a left-to-right swerve at the last moment without an indicator.

Despite multiple breaks, we reached Kherwara around 6:30pm and could have stretched to Udaipur before calling it a day as it was another 80-90km. However, as soon as you enter Rajasthan from Gujarat, the highway primarily has been carved out in the Aravalli mountain range. While it was not the ghat section we wanted but it has fast corners with poor lighting. Further, while Gujarat seemed like continuous town, as soon as we entered Rajasthan, there were significant uninhabited stretches between any two settlement. Lastly, post-sunset temperature dropped significantly and the wind was chilly. Considering these factors, we decided to stop for the night in Kherwara at Hotel Atithi Palace for 1200/- a night.  The place was good with large parking space, and that settled it for us. We were happy that we still managed to cover  ~650km on Day 1. Few pics from day 1:

In hindsight, it turned out to be better decision, as hotels in Udaipur were far more expensive being the holiday season. 

Day 2 | Udaipur Sightseeing: We started early from Kherwara and reached Udaipur by 10:30-11:00am, but ended up wasting an hour to find a suitable hotel around Lake Pichola. I would not recommend staying in the area surrounding Lake Pichola, as it is part of the old town and hence you have to navigate through narrow roads ('galli' is the more appropriate word). Luckily we stumbled upon Hotel Wondercliff, which cost us 4500/- per night. 

After freshening up and having delightful Aaloo Parathas with curd and aachar as our brunch, we headed out to experience the City Palace. It was built by the Mewar dynasty over 400 years in an exceptionally extravagant manner overlooking the lake Pichola. The palace is huge and hence one must keep atleast 3 hours to just explore it. Within the palace you also have the private crystal collection of the Royal family, which is worth a visit. Unfortunately, given its private collection, any kind of photography/ videography is not permitted inside. 

After spending a good 3-3.5hrs, we headed out to the other palace of Udaipur, i.e. Sajjangarh Palace. It is also known as 'Monsoon Palace', because it was built chiefly to watch the monsoon clouds 😒, and it has been built at the top of the hill, overlooking Fateh Sagar Lake as well as the entire city. Today, people drive to the palace to spend their evening and watch the sunset, which looks mesmerizing.

Unfortunately Rajasthan tourism has not made effort to put sign-boards in the right places, which resulted in a few wrong turns. I wonder why we don't properly promote our tourist places.

Day 3 | Ride from Udaipur to Jaisalmer: We planned to start early to cover the ~500km ride during day time, however, our love for the Aaloo parathas delayed our start 😁. We decided to ride via Barmer, which was a good decision in hindsight. Apart from small patches, the highways are in excellent condition, however, I would still suggest reining in your speeding intuition as the frequency of people, vehicle and animals crossing the road increased significantly. On the positive side, in addition to the superb highway, the scenery was much more pleasing than day 1, changing every few kilometres - from rocky side to green trees to shrubs to desert. The ever-changing scene remained a constant and pleasing part of the Rajasthan ride.

We don't book hotels in advance during our long rides. While we broadly know the destination for the day, not booking in advance leave enough flexibility to alter or micro manage the pit stop for the night. As mentioned above, while we wanted to ride till Udaipur on day 1, based on the situation, we decided to end the day ~90km before Udaipur at Kherwara. 

So when we stopped for water break after crossing Barmer, we started looking for hotels in Jaisalmer. We found availability online at Hotel Oasis, Jaisalmer so I made a call to them. The registered number was that of the owner and he for some reason mistook me for the Sardarji of JS Flims. Apparently, JS had stayed with them in the past, and when I mentioned that we are riding to Jaisalmer and will reach in couple of hours, he mistook me for him. So apparently, we got preferred rates of 3000/- per night. I also found that when booking a hotel at the last moment, approaching them directly gets you better rates than what one would get online. Reason? I think, the manager knows that he need to close the deal else the room will remain empty for the night and second he doesn't have to share any commission with the online platform.

We reached the hotel at 7pm; the hotel is just outside the main town and right beside the highway, so it was quite convenient for us. The property looked superb from outside, but was quite average from inside - rooms, bathroom, cleanliness etc. The restaurant was outsourced, which is not a problem, however the average service quality and average food were.  

Day 4 | Longewala War Memorial, Tanot Mata Mandir, and Sam Sand dunes : We checked out in the morning for Longewala War Memorial, which was little more than 110km from the hotel. As soon as you will drive through/around the city, you will realise why is it called the Golden City. Most of the government buildings, hotels, monuments etc. have used yellow sandstone on the external walls/ structure which gives the building their 'golden' hue. After riding for ~65km, we stopped for breakfast at roadside dhaba, Hotel Tanot. 

As most of you know the Longewala War Memorial is a reminder of the battle fought with Pakistan in 1971, and a tribute to our military heroes who fought, and many who gave the ultimate sacrifice of their life fighting for their motherland. The battle is remembered for the bravery of those 120 Indian soldiers who held 2000-3000 Pakistani soldiers along with 30-40 tanks from mid-night to dawn before the Indian Airforce could provide support. The Hunter fighter planes which were stationed at Jaisalmer were not fitted with night vision equipment and couldn't provide support till dawn. Just walking around the War Memorial reading about their heroics deeds, their sacrifice will give you goosebumps. In addition, you will find few Pakistani tanks which were captured during the war. You will also realise that the India-Pakistan border is a mere ~15km from the site.

Our next stop was Tanot Mata mandir, which is 38km from Longewala War memorial as well as is close to the border. Tourists can go beyond till the border, but one need to get the relevant documentation in advance from the District and Military Authorities. For me the temple was quite fascinating. While the temple is quite basic and simple, in my view there are quite a few - 'the only temple'. As in my knowledge this is the only temple with an Indian Flag and a victory pillar. Also, this is the only temple where the daily worship rituals as well as  maintenance, is taken care of by the Indian Army. Given its proximity to the border, the temple or I would say the village was bombed heavily by the Pakistani army during the 1965 as well as 1971 war. According to the local folklore, the bombs either missed the target or didn't explode, and those unexploded bombs are still in the showcase of the temple.

As we came out, I found a nail in my new rear tyre but luckily the puncture wasn't resulting in loss of air pressure. So we decided not to disturb it, and get it repaired after reaching Jaisalmer. Our original plan was to look for desert camp in Jaisalmer for the night, but while getting the puncture fixed, the repairman told us that if we want to experience the sand dunes, we should go to Sam Sand Dunes. Luckily Sam is only ~40km from Jaisalmer, and we had some time before sunset. So we drove to Sam and found our overnight stay in one of the Desert Camps for 1800/- per night. The camp was quite basic but it had clean rooms, fresh vegetarian food and great hospitality.

 

Day 5 | Sam Sand dunes, Sonar Fort (Jaisalmer Fort) and then drive to Blue City of India (Jodhpur) : The camp owner provided us with a morning Jeep Safari including a camel ride for additional for 1200/-. So we woke up early the next morning to experience the amazing sunrise in the desert, took our short camel ride and got back for the breakfast.

After breakfast, we checked out and headed to see the 'Sonar Fort' (Golden Fort or Jaisalmer Fort). Between our desert sunrise, breakfast and time it took ride to the fort, we reached the fort at peak tourist hour. Jaisalmer Fort is one of the few 'living fort' in the world, as one-fourth of the population still lives within the fort. In fact, for the better part of the 800 years of the fort's history, the fort was the city. Being a 'living fort' we could ride our bikes quite far inside the fort. While the fort is a sight to behold, it was simply too crowded and that dampened the experience.

We could have easily spent 1-2 hours more within the fort but with the increasing crowd and our plan to reach Jodhpur, we left the fort for the next leg of our ride. Stay tuned for the next part...