...continued from the last post
Day 3: The Roadtrip which made me remember Highway!
Matt
Dwyer and I are Librans and his sister Britt Dwyer is an aquarian. Perfect
sunsigns for crazy friendships. But the key difference in me and these 2 dwyers,
during the trip, was in planning.
When I would ask them so what’s the plan for the next day? What
time? They would say “Swati! No plan is our plan! We
were to leave for Jodhpur in the morning of Day 3 and had to book a cab but
till 9 am , we were clueless… I mean I was :) Booking a cab wasn't difficult but the skill was
to get the best deal. So we wandered around a bit in the narrow lanes of
Udaipur, bargained with few travel operators and finally took one which would
stop at Ranakpur and Kumbalgarh on the
way. The way we negotiated was funny. First I used to go to check on the price
and then would send in these 2 foreigners to see if they were cheating us on the price! :D
 |
| Kumbalgarh |
Ranakpur is a jain pilgrimage
spot. What sets this place apart is that, it is situated bang in the middle of
the Aravalli Mountain Range with pretty much nothing around it.! Kumbalgarh is
the birthplace of the famous Maharana Pratap Singh. This fort is also in the
Aravalli range, massive in size and known for the fort walls that go around it.
We liked the uphill walk in Kumbhalgarh but Ranakpur was a disappointment (again
may be because I am not too artistic). Some school students had come for a
picnic at the Kumbalgarh fort and they wanted to get pics clicked with the
dwyers, especially Britt ;) Seems like Indian boys are turning into men at an
early age. It was funny to hear when Matt and Britt said “Namaste”, someone replied
,“Namsate
, aloo khao saste!” :D (meaning Hello! Eat potatoes which are cheap).
Funny lines, just to rhyme.
The 7-8 hours of drive was at its
best at the national highway. The weather was perfect and peeping out of the
window, I could feel the breeze on my face. Eyes closed, every inhalation was energizing
and every exhalation relaxing. All this while, the song “Patakha Gudi”
resonated in my ears.It was beautiiiful :) I’d been waiting for such moments ever since I saw Highway.
(Remember my love for this movie which I’d posted here). I felt satiated. Just few minutes were worth
7-8 hours of ride. It felt like meditation – you sit for 20-25 minutes to get into
few minutes of Samadhi. We also saw
some langoors on our way. Though for
Matt and Britt, they were monkeys only. They couldn’t understand what’s Langoor ;) On our way, we had bought
some ber ( a type of fruit cherry like) which we starting throwing at these
“monkeys” from our running car. They ran behind the car at a speed that the driver got petrified! He said not to throw the ber else they might break the
car glass. But anyways, Britt was able to capture one of the “monkey moment”
;)
 |
| Monkey Ninja! |
We almost entered Jodhpur by around
7 pm and the first thing we saw was a peculiar temple in a
village Chotila, adjoining Jodhpur. Here a Royal Enfield Bullet motorcycle is
worshipped as the presiding deity of a temple. Legend has it that once a
simpleton from a neighboring village, Om Banna, was cruising on his Bullet and
he met with an accident between Jodhpur and Nagaur. His bike hit a tree and he
died on the spot. The bike was impounded and taken to the police station, only
to return to the accident spot in the dark of the night. Cops tried all that
they could to stop the bike — they chained it at the police station, emptied
the fuel tank — but to no avail. No matter what they did Om Bana's Bullet
returned to the accident site in the dead of the night. The news spread and
people from villages in the area built a memorial — a temple to worship the
Bullet motorcycle.This temple is known as "Bullet Baba's temple" and commoners believe that even after
his death Om Banna helps distressed passers-by. Travelers who pass by, stop for
a while to bow their heads at Bullet Baba's feet. The Dwyers, after hearing
this story, were like “Oh! India you never cease to amaze us!”. Sarcasm
in their tone was obvious ;)
 |
| Banna Temple |
We reached our guest house –
Kesar Heritage. The rooms were ok, but the most spectacular thing was the roof
top café. Many of the guest houses and hotels in town have their own rooftop
restaurants, giving great views overlooking both the blue cityscape and
Jodhpur’s iconic Mehrangarh Fort. Sitting there till
midnight, chatting and chilling, watching the fort in the backdrop, was bliss. :)
Day 4: Jodhpur Explored and Conquered!
 |
| Mehrangarh Fort |
Post breakfast, we were off to
explore the Blue City (also known as Sun City). We started the day with a walk towards the Mehrangarh fort. The entrance of the Mehrangarh Fort was steep as it is
located on a height of 400 meters above the city. Guys, if you remember the
title song of the bollywood movie "Shudh Desi Romance", yes, it was the same place where the shoot
took place.
 |
| View of the Blue Village |
The Fort is famous for its architecture, the views on offer, as well as
its museum – which has a collection of palanquins, howdahs, weapons, paintings,
and clothes. I loved the views out to Jodhpur, which showed off the blue walls of the Brahmin homes
that give it its ‘Blue City’ tag. And the city palace view from the top of the fort, totally worth
it!!!
 |
| Zipling! |
The Dwyers, being adrenaline
addicts wanted to swing across the skies and registered for the Flying Fox
aerial Zipline tour! :) Addi did it too. I didn’t :( Yes, I was scared but would have taken a chance but was
too expensive for my trip budget. I consoled myself with a promise that I will
do it back in Delhi at Neemrana. (It’s still pending!).
Our next stop was the
Umaid Bhawan Palace, where the maharaja actually lives with his family. Built
in 1943 by Maharaja Umaid Singh, the grand Umaid Bhavan palace is
said to have taken all of fifteen years to complete. This grand edifice is
considered to be one of the world’s largest residences! A part of the palace
has been leased by the Taj Group and converted into an ultra-luxury hotel. Another tiny
portion of it has been converted into a museum so that aam-junta like us can
take a peek inside this massive complex. The museum wasn’t very interesting,
though; it was small and a little uninspiring. And it occupies such a small
part of the palace that it hardly felt like we saw enough of it.
 |
| Umaid Bhawan |
We had a train to catch at night and had few more hours to spend. We
were dead tired to walk around. All we wanted was food and
a good place to relax. I searched on the internet and chose Namaste Café and it
turned out to be good (thankfully!). The person who runs the place was very
friendly and enterprising, cheerfully entertaining his guests and seemed a good
listener; no wonder hippies who were there were very happy with him! The food
was good and economical and the place had relaxing bed-like seating arrangements.
As it started getting darker, the view of the fort from the café started
getting beautiful.
 |
| Namsate Cafe |
The Authorities switch on the fort lights daily in the
evening till about 9 pm. THAT view is spectacular. I had seen hippies in
Pushkar but it was here that I met them, in true sense. I realized their
definition of “meditation”, “consciousness” is different from what I know of
spirituality so far. Drugs of all sorts were rampant there. I wonder someone
whose tasted the nectar in the meditative state would want to get back to
artificial stimuli? I experienced a higher
blissful state through my breath, in the Sudarshan Kriya. But hippies are
different. Here I got was my first hand personal experience :)
We boarded our train well in time. Did not miss it this time
;) Yey! It was another 7-8 hours journey to reach our third and final
destination…the one we’d been waiting for – JAISALMER!!
About Jaisalmer adventures, in the next post :)
Keep Smiling :)
Swati
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Tuesday, February 03, 2015
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