RAVISHING RAJASTHAN. ...contd after the Agra trip..... With the break of dawn ....I felt a pang in my heart ...because time to bid adieu to the Taj Mahal and Holiday Inn had finally arrived. ... With shower and a sumptuous buffet breakfast of Holiday Inn we jumped into the car and started our journey to Jaipur but before that to my sisters home in Behror where her husband worked as a vice president in Mt Shivalik distilleries. On our way the drver reluctantly agreed to take us to the famous Bharatpur or Keoladeo bird sanctuary cos the route had to be diverted because of political unrest and street fights in Dousa.a rsjssthani suburb... We had urge to visit the Ranthambhor zoo and forest reserve too but our driver told us it would be far and the lions and tigers were all asleep ....I had to resign to my fate and his lies....:) As we stopped near the Bharatpur bird sanctuary hundreds of rickshaw pullers...came hovering like honey bees puzzling us whom to choose. After agreeing to pay hundred fifty to each we jumped into two rickshaw s ...one me and my son and other one occupied by my husband and maa. As we entered inside the gate the rickshaw pullers told us that the sanctuary was too big an area to be covered in two hours.We were becoming masters in counting as the speed of rickshaw s were 5 km per two hours....:) Deep forest on two sides and chirpping of birds but no bird in view the rickshaw pullers were acting like somnumbullist and I felt like hitting them :) After loitering for half an hour we saw few cranes near a pond and my son who was getting restless seemed little happy. Again sleep walking and few crows we got excited cos I didnt see crows for few years after leaving India and settling in Dubai so crow seemed like own estranged cousin after a long. .:) :) Slowly the rickshaw pullers gathered a little speed and we thought at last we may find something exciting. ..but to our utter disgust they both stopped near a home and I shouted in glee Antelope...my son got so irritated that he said,Maa have you gone nuts...this is a calf..again excitement went down the drain..the rickshaw pullers told us it was their snack time and without waiting for an answer they vanished inside the house. We were famished but had no choice and waited for half an hour till they came back..We were taken to the last water front and again saw few cranes and to our delight one fox and one peacock...After one and half hour we reached the entrance and found our driver talking to the local police man .My mom thought that the driver must have been worried about us but he was only asking about the way to Jaipur and Behror. The journey was tedious as we had to avoid many roads because of floods and political unrest and finally reached Behror at nine in the night to find my sister worrying about us. After a shower and tasty dinner we dropped dead on bed. The next day was our trip to Jaipur and we drove to Trident early morning through beautiful green and yellow hilly roads.We approached a walled city and entered the pink city The history book pages opened in front of my eyes and hindi film songs began dancing in front of my eyes as we saw the eye catching Jal Mahal and opposite to it stood our destination The Trident a palace convertrd into hotel.We walked through the plush interiors and entered our room. After resting for a while and a delicious breakfast we went out again to see the beautiful Amber Fort whose architecture and glass works took my breath away. We went to other forts like Amer and few others and came to the middle of the city to see Hawa Mahal which was then being renovated. We stopped at a local Rajasthan I restaurant for Thali which was served in a huge thali with fifty dishes including the famous Dal Bati...Two people could easily eat from one . After lunch my brother in law took us to the famous Pandit jis shop to have Kulfi and lassi. I had never had such tasty kulfi in my life till that date..Our next destination was few shops as ladies never tire if they can shop...so pickef up some wonderful sarees and went off to see the Jantar Mantar and a temple.At night we drove down to Chauki Dhani for dinner and see the puppet show..local song and dance and enjoyed till midnight. The next day we wanted to drive to Samodh Palace few miles outside Jaipur. As we drove out of the hotel gate my husband was about to put the seat belt on a police man came running to us and said as my husband didnt put the belt before getting up his fine was hundred. We all knew he was bluffing us and we were not interested in small tiffles we paid him one fifty instead with a bag of lectures he went off quietly. On our way we witnessed a dead body with hovering policemen and news reporters amidst a field and my son already had a plot to write a mystery novel....:) We had lunch at the Palace which was converted into a hotel and came back to our hotel.In the evening we had dinner at the army club as my brother in law is an ex army colonel and witnessed a lavish Rajasthan I wedding. We retired to bed early as we hsd to go a long way next day to Udaipur the famous Lake Palace city which wss my dream place......... To be continued. .......
Posted on: Sun, 20 Apr 2014 03:28:28 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015