Rendezvous with Pink City Jaipur!!

In my previous trip to Rajasthan, I had to skip Jaipur due to heavily loaded trip and time crunch 🕐. This trip we planned to cover Jaipur and few surrounding places. Few weeks ahead of the trip I booked railways tickets and hotels, plan was to stay in Jaipur for 5 days and cover surrounding area. As planned we (Me - Jyotin, My Wife - Anki and My daughter - Manu) left from Pune via taxi .. boarded train 🚂 from Bandra terminus and reached Jaipur next day around 11-11:30 Am ...we quickly checked-in hotel. Hotel was huge with luxurious rooms with all the amenities. Since we had only half a day with us plan was to cover City Palace.. so we took an auto to city palace. Palace was big and it took us around 2 hrs to explore it. Palace did have amazing artifacts and intricate carvings. After visiting palace we saw Hawamahal.. took some pictures and ended our day with early dinner on a scenic rooftop restaurant while watching the sunset 🌅.

Pushkar is religious destination for Hindu's ... it is said that Pushkar is the only place where Lord Brahma is worshipped. To reach Pushkar we boarded train to Ajmer (2 Hrs)... From Ajmer we took a bus to reach (45 Mins) Pushkar.. Puskar is very close from Ajmer. We explored Pushkar mostly on foot 🚶.. first spot in our itinerary was of course Brahma temple. Brahma temple was beautiful and painted in pristine white colour. Luckily queue was not big and we quickly took darshan. Pushkar also has one of the shaktipeeth.. being a devotee of goddess Durga.. Manibandh Shaktipeeth temple 🚩 was next spot in our list to visit. Temple was located in the greenery and there was no crowd.. such a peaceful place it was. After shaktipeeth darshan .. we had a lunch at nice place with a view of Pushkar lake. Post lunch we sat on Puskar lake steps for sunset view. Late evening we head back to Jaipur via same route which took while coming to Pushkar.

Now was the time to visit most haunted 👻 place of India.. Bhangarh Fort. #bucketist moment ❤️. I booked a cab for a day to cover both Bhangarh Fort and Sariska National Park. We left from Jaipur in the morning and reached Bhangarh Fort in around 2 Hrs. I have heard and read about Bhangarh countless time and here today I was standing infront of it.. Fort did look spooky. Not many tourists were there .. we explored entire fort in around 2 Hours .. No haunted experience though 🙄. Fort has nice view of hills and there are many small/big temples around it.. all in ruins.

I intentionally choose Tuesday to visit Sariska as there is Hanuman Temple in heart of Sariska and entry of private vehicles are allowed to visit Pandupol Hanuman temple with a small fee of 250 Rs. It is said that place where Hanuman Temple is located is where Lord Hanuman gave darshan to Bheem. So after 45 mins of road travel from Bhangarh we entered Sariska... as soon as we entered Sariska we saw hundreds of peacocks 🦚 on both sides of route till Hanuman temple. Anki and Manu went crazy seeing so many peacocks... in some time we reached Hanuman temple and took darshan. We didn't saw Tiger but many other animals .. deers, wild boar, langurs, bison and ofcourse many many peacocks. We came out of Sariska before sunset and headed towards Jaipur.

Initial three days we focused mostly on visiting places outside Jaipur.. now was the time to focus on attractions in Jaipur. Our todays itinerary includes Hawamahal, Jantarmantar and in second half Nahargarh Fort. First up Hawamahal .. took an auto 🛺 from our hotel to reach Hawamahal in the main city. Bought tickets and explored Hawamahal. Facade of Hawamahal very beautiful .. from inside also this places has intricate work and many beautiful rooms. It took us around an hour to view it and immediately we walked to Jantarmantar which is just behind Hawamahal. I took a guide this time.. I was fascinated by this place and got to know how advanced our civilization was. Half of the day passed.. we had a quick lunch and reached Nahargarh Fort. We choose to climb on foot... way till top is well maintained and can be reached easily. We reached fort.. had a quick snack 🍟🍕and explored the fort. Later on we went to sunset point to see spectacular sunset.

Last Day in Jaipur and we were still left with most important site.. Amer Fort. This fort is seen in many bollywood movies and its a humongous fortress... so first up Amer.. Amer is bit outside of Jaipur .. so to reach there we rented a two wheeler 🛵which is an easier commute. We reached Amer Fort.. parked the activa we rented and for this fort also we hired a guide. Guide here as well was very good.. he explained various aspects and places inside the fort. He was also a pro in using camera and suggested many different places within fort to click pictures. It took us around an hour or two to complete sight seeing of entire fort. After a quick tea break we headed towards Jaigarh fort to see record holding canon. We went up to see the canon and nice view of surroundings from top fort. While returning back we saw Jalmahal on the way. Rest of the evening we spent in Jaipur city to shop. Next day we traveled back to Pune via train till Bandra Terminus and Taxi thereon... finishing our exotic trip of "Pink City"🎉🎉.