It sounds crazy, right?? Here you go, read on my travel story..
Rajasthan.. The name says it all.. A place full of variety of forts and palaces and one can spend number of days here. But I had only 3 days of time to visit as many places as we can. One of my bestie was getting married to a rajasthani guy in Kota, so that made all my friends - a gang of 8 people to plan a trip to Rajasthan along with her wedding too. It all started from Kota and the route we followed will make you go crazy. Pune -> Mumbai -> Kota -> Pushkar -> Ajmer -> Jaipur -> Delhi -> Pune.
The day and time was not feasible for us to take a train from Pune to Kota directly, hence we took a train from Mumbai Central to Kota, Golden Temple Mail Express. I should definitely tell you about this train. On time departure, well maintained, good services in train. Almost in all junction stations, the floors in train were mopped and cleaned. This is part of Swacch Bharat Abhiyan and people are following it and that’s really appreciable. Thanks to Modiji..!!
On a mid week day, Wednesday, myself along with my other seven friends, started from Pune to Mumbai by a cab around 4.30pm and reached Mumbai Central Railway station by 7.30pm. Our train was at 9pm. So we quickly got freshened up and rushed to have dinner before we board the train. We could get back to our train by 8.45pm and our reserved seats were in AC 3-tier. As we all had heavy luggages, it took us some time to settle down and by that time the train departed. Even though we had booked tickets together, we had our seats split in 2 different compartments. As we Indians are well known for JUGAAD, this is the time we used our JUGAAD skills and we all got seats together. So one whole compartment of 8 seats were ours now.
By the time we board our train, we were already offered with 2 blankets and a pillow for each passenger and those were very clean and ironed. Every compartment having a mobile charger point helped us a lot who uses a smart phone more. Of course, we carried our own power banks too. There was no stop in the station for atleast next 3hrs. We started playing dumb charades in the night and it was too fun. As we all friends met each other after a long time, it was time to talk hell lot of things too. It was late night, one by one of us started feeling sleepy and we all dozed off.
I’m the early bird in my group and was awake by 6.30am. But still I tried sleeping more as we would reach our stop by 11am. The first station where our train had stopped on that morning was Ratlam, MP. Then I figured out that train was running 1 hour late and I woke all my friends too. We had IRCTC special coffee and tea respectively which came across several times during our journey. Again we played dumb charades and passed our time till our train reached Kota.
We all got down in Kota by late morning and the first thing we did was a SELFIE in front of Kota station. My group of friends were crazy for photos anytime, anywhere. We managed ourselves in 2 auto rikshaws and went towards the marriage hall, as we all had come to attend the wedding first. Arrangements were done by my bestie’s dad for our accommodation and food, so we didn’t find any difficulty in Kota.
We reached on the wedding day and the arrangements were going on in a steady manner, we had our breakfast and met our bestie first, where HALDI function was going on. Her family members were there to celebrate the happiness and as soon she saw us, am sure that added to her happiness. We also met her parents and greeted them. We were given our rooms to settle down. So we shifted our baggage and relaxed for a while.
Wedding rituals were about to start in the late evening, so we had time to explore a bit of Kota and we planned to visit 7 wonders garden of Kota. It was a huge garden where wonders of the world were replicated in their own style. Except Great wall of China, all were present. It was hot sunny afternoon, we had our lunch and could get Ola cabs and reached the garden.
We purchased the entry tickets and entered the garden, the first wonder we could see was Colosseum of Rome, Italy. Of course we had carried selfie stick and clicked lots of pics with different poses in front of every monument. This was followed by Great Pyramids of Giza, Egypt and Taj Mahal, India. Then the crowd also was increasing. It was burning heat there, we were getting restless as and when we go deeper in the garden.
We were really exhausted due to the summer heat and desperately wanted to have something cold. We found few shops inside the garden which could offer us cold drinks, ice cream etc. By that time we had to return back asap because we were running late to the wedding function for which we had come all the way.
We all got dressed and geared up for the wedding. Baaraat arrived late in the evening, we were with our bestie till then encouraging her, teasing her, clicking pics with her. Then she was called for all the rituals, varamala took place followed by reception. Food was real tasty and they had variety of mouth watering cuisines. Wedding took place really well and my bestie is MARRIED now. We were so happy to see her with her better half and they are just made for each other.
Its time for us to leave Kota and explore rest of Rajasthan in a limited time. We had hired a cab which could drop us till Jaipur. So we were gonna have a road trip from Kota to Jaipur via Ajmer & Pushkar.
We started from Kota around 10am, and took our first break on highway around 12pm and had our lunch in one of the highway dhaba with the tasty parathas. Then we continued our journey towards Pushkar on a hot sunny day, where we could also see desert look besides us and the road in between.
We managed to reach Pushkar by 4pm in the evening and the temple had just opened after the noon break. We had to stop our vehicles at some point and from there it was around half a kilometer walk till the temple. On the way, you can find variety of rajasthani attire shops and so on, We stopped by in one of the shop and did some shopping. Then we entered the temple with bare foot, we had to climb few steps and that was the entrance of the temple. This temple is only one Brahma temple all over the world so we could see many foreigners also. We had a good darshan, the temple was so peaceful and the cool breeze made us feel to sit there for some more time.
It was just around 20kms from Pushkar to Ajmer and we drove down very soon, stopped our vehicle upto a point, from there we took a TONGA driven by horse, to reach Dargah Sharif. That was a real roller coaster ride as the roads were also too small, 2 wheelers, rickshaws were filled on those roads. We all adjusted in single tonga, it was real fun. As we entered Dargah Sharif, we were told to cover our hair and not even a single hair to be seen outside. This is compulsory for all girls and ladies. It was too crowded inside and we managed to get a good darshan. This was the first time ever I visited a Dargah and it was a beautiful experience. Though I don’t know their way of praying Allah, I prayed in my own way and felt blessed. Ultimately, God is all one !!
By that time it was already 6.30pm in the evening and we were all hungry. But we could not find any good restaurant to stop by, so we purchased some fruits on the go and started our journey towards Jaipur. Our cab driver suggested that there is a huge jain temple on the highway and it’s worth visiting. As I had jain friends in my group, we planned to visit that temple, that’s NARELI JAIN MANDIR in Ajmer-Jaipur highway. That was really very big temple, such s peaceful place it was. It’s built below the hills and definitely it was worth visiting. That was my first time to a Jain Mandir and I felt it too good to be in. It was well maintained, very clean, calm and one can find happiness for themselves. After climbing few steps, there was huge a jain god (Adinath Bhagawanji) inside temple. I just sat in front of that and kept seeing that. The carvings done on each direction of wall had its own stories to explain.
Then we proceeded towards Jaipur. But we had to stop in between for dinner at a dhaba where we were just 35km away from Jaipur and that was a Punjabi dhaba. No doubt, food and service was excellent. With satisfaction of food, we left from there within no time and reached Jaipur by 10.30pm. We had booked a hotel (Redfox Hotel) well in advance through online booking and we just checked in. Before going to bed, I was just thinking that in the same day I got a chance to visit a Hindu Temple, Muslim Dargah and a Jain Mandir too. What a beautiful feeling it was..!! This thought really made my day. As we all were tired because of full day travelling, we wanted to relax soon.
This day was planned for a Jaipur local sight seeing. So we hired a cab from Rajput tours and travels, they gave us a well maintained Innova car for us for the whole day. Our hotel was located near to airport, we had to come city side for all tourist places. First, we started with Hawa Mahal. That was a beautiful monument which shows the Rajput style of architecture, which is also called “Palace of Winds”. This was built and designed in such a way that ladies inside the Mahal can view the busy street of the city, but nobody can see the ladies from outside as it has small windows from inside, which helps in air circulation also and hence the name.
Our next spot was AMER FORT. Most beautiful fort that I have ever seen. We had hired a guide to know the history of the fort, he explained really well, and it is so big that it took more than 2 hours to cover whole fort. This fort was built in 1592 by Raja Man Singh. It is completely built by white marble and red sand stone. The artists were brought from turkey & Afghanistan. Their families still exists in Jaipur. They took more than 100 years to construct this fort. I can say that this is more of a palace than fort with huge courtyard, temples inside, silver door, paintings, marble sculptures and so on. That just looked so stunning. It also has Sheesh Mahal (Mirror Mahal) inside this fort.
Then we headed towards JAL MAHAL, one of my favorites that I wanted to visit. Unfortunately, they did not allow us to visit the mahal from inside as there was some renovation going on that time, so we had to see from banks of the lake. This mahal is built in the middle of a lake which also shows the Rajput architecture. It has 4 floors built under water and rest of the floors above water. So we could just click some pictures in front of it. That place also gives rajasthani dresses for rent and allows us to click pics, which we did it on a hot sunny afternoon.To beat the heat, we had coconut water, ice creams, kulfi, pani puri lot of times.
From there, we went to City palace which is located in heart of pink city. It is built to show the Mughal & Rajput architecture and most of the walls are colored in pink color. It has a museum inside the palace, which we took a glance at it. They have preserved it so well and everywhere CCTV surveillance is setup. As and when we reached each tourist place, we didn't forget to click pictures anywhere.
We could just cover main attractions of Jaipur and still few were left out, but shopping Bandhinis were running through our minds. Our cab driver helped us to get into a local shopping area where we could get Bandhinis and Mojris for a very reasonable prices.
We all shopped very well to our closed ones and gave them a good business too. We had planned to have dinner Choki Dhani which is famous in Jaipur for Rajasthani cuisine. This is a huge restaurant with village theme in it & rajasthani culture. We purchased the coupons & entered inside, they had excellent hospitality. We had chosen rajasthani buffet, unlimited food. We were roaming around since morning and couldn’t have proper lunch, so this was the place where we could sit back & relax and the cherish the pure rajasthani food.
We all were bit disappointed because of the taste in the food. We had expected little more better tasty food. Folk dancing and singing were going on side by side. For each group of people they will sing a song and dance, they involved us also in dancing and taught few steps. There is a separate children play area inside to keep them busy and also game area for adults too which were charged individually. The best part of choki dhani was Camel ride. Though it was a short distance ride, it was fun. The way when it gets up from the ground and sits back is really scary. I felt like I may fall down, but I didn’t..!! We reached back to our hotel by 11.30pm.
This day 2 of my friends had to get back to Bangalore & Hyderabad respectively, had flights early in the morning, so they left early itself. Rest of them had flight at 11.15 from Jaipur to Pune via Delhi. Since, we slept late in the previous night, we woke up late and with all the hurry, we packed up, checked out from the hotel & reached airport by 10.15am. Airport looked so empty and the security checkin was also done for our flight and they had called for boarding too. We were the last one to board the flight. It took off at 11 am itself, before time.
We landed at Delhi by 11.35 am which was one hour before than the scheduled arrival time, as Jaipur Delhi was a short distance, and the flight was also too small. It was an ATR aircraft carrying around 70 passengers. Oour next flight was at 5.15pm from Delhi to Pune. We had to kill the time till then as our baggage will be in transit and we were not able to access them. Instead of sitting idle in airport, we thought of visiting Qutub Minar, which was around 13km from airport.
Yes, we visited a tourist spot in the layover time of our flight. Quickly, we took an airport bus and got down in Airport Metro station. Then we thought of hiring a cab, since we were 5 in people, none of the cabs allowed 5 members in one cab so we had to go with Metro only. But there was no direct Metro from Airport to Qutub Minar as their lanes were different. We had to go till Delhi Central and change the respective line to catch a connecting Metro so as to reach Qutub Minar.
That was my first ride in Indian Metro and that to in Delhi, was something exciting to me. We got seats and settled there till our destination. It took us almost more than 40 minutes to Delhi central. Then there was long queue for purchasing ticket to our next Metro. Somehow we managed to buy tickets and boarded our next Metro. That was bit crowded and we were in ladies compartment. We never felt lost because there were announcements and displays everywhere to see where we have reached.
We reached Qutub Minar station by 2pm and we had to take an auto rickshaw till the tourist spot. The sun was bright and I was feeling down and down, tired, tensed too because we had to get back to airport by 4pm too. We roamed inside the Qutub Minar park and clicked pictures. Quickly we came out and had light snacks and booked an Ola cab to airport & didn't try metro again as we had very less time in hand. Finally we were there in airport by 3.30pm.
We finished our security checkin and all and sat in a coffee shop inside airport. That was the time to recollect the memories of that trip. Those 4 days just gone like 4 seconds. The fun, travelling, visiting the places was just amazing and when you do it with your close friends then I need not tell the feeling that you would get. It was adventurous too, almost all types of modes of transport we experienced, starting from train, cab, tonga ride, camel ride, bus, metro, flight too. Isn’t it awesome ? We reached back to Pune by 7pm. Even today, this trip is my lifetime memory that can be cherished forever. Thanks to all my dear friends making this trip most memorable.
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