Jaisalmer road trip - Part II

Day 4 and 5:

We started off the day four with the complimentary breakfast and took a walk towards Gadisar lake. We spent almost one and half hours, roamed around the lake and took couple of photographs in the lake. We then visited Sawai Singh Haweli near the Fort. Finally, we made it to the main attraction of Jaisalmer (i.e., Fort). We spent almost 2 hours in rejuvenating our eyes with the historic beauty of the golden city. Since it was lunch time when we were out of the Fort, we again visited Riddhi Siddhi for our lunch. We headed back to the hotel and took rest post lunch.

In the evening we just roamed around the bazar street of Jaisalmer, had good tea (infact had 2 cups of tea) in between. Day four was done on having dinner at Rasoi, a hotel nearby Fort.

As planned, we started off day five in reaching Sam sand dunes. We left Jaisalmer at around 10 AM, filled the car fuel tank, collected some bananas & biscuits and headed towards Sam sand dunes which is 40 kms away from Jaisalmer. We were guided by the Registan sand dunes (which we had booked) owner Yogesh to reach sand dunes from Jaisalmer.

On the way we could see military offices,deserted land on either side and people having rides in 4 wheel drive. After about 20 kms, my car brakes were not operating, and as I was driving, I soon realized that I did not released the hand brake which I had applied while filling the fuel tank in Jaisalmer (Not sure how it had moved though I had not released the hand brake in Jaisalmer). I then released the hand brakes immediately but still the car brakes were not functioning. We were totally upset over it and got tensed too. It was right on the middle of the deserted area. We then thought of showing it to some mechanics in Jaisalmer and took a U-turn. After a while it started working, in the mean time we called up Praveen (shahrukh) in Bangalore and seek his guidance on this. As suggested by him, we stopped the car for a while, may be for about 15 minutes and then the car brake was back in condition.

We reached sand dunes by 12 noon. We were the only guests to enter so early as the package/program  starts only in the evening. The hospitality by Haneef is excellent in Registan sand dunes. We managed with biscuits and bananas for lunch. Also, Haneef managed to help us with Papad and peanuts.

Tourists started flowing in after 3 PM and we started off the evening with Camel ride to the dunes. We spent the evening in the dunes until the sunsets. We witnessed a wonderful sunset on that day. We were back to our cottages and the traditional songs and dance were arranged in the premises. We finished our day with the traditional dinner served over there.

Day 6:

Hospitality shown on us by Haneef is excellent, we were given complimentary breakfast before we departed the dunes. We took the route Sam sand dunes -->Jaisalmer --> Pokhran to reach Jodhpur. We reached Jodhpur by 2 PM, booked a room in Uthsav hotel. We got fresh up and made a visit to Mehrangarh Fort. We had a beautiful view of the purple city from the fort. We were bit late in visiting Umaid Palace and hence could not make an entry into it. We roamed a bit around the city and it was all over of our finest trip.

Day 7: Covered 600 kms (Jodhpur -->Pali-->Sirohi-->Palanpur-->Mehsana--> Ahmedabad --> Vadodara -->Ankaleshwar)

It was me who started driving from Jodhpur, left at around 7:30 AM and headed towards Ahmedabad on NH-15. We planned to cover beyond Ahmedabad and to make a halt at Vadodara. We had a breakfast on the way, missed the NH-15 at Sirohi (rather taking the route of Sirohi --> Udaipur --> Abu Road -->Palanpur), we took the Sirohi-->Palanpur state highway. Roads were in good condition though it was a state highway. We had our lunch before Palanpur and started driving on NH-15 towards Ahmedabad. It was around 5:30 in the evening when we reached Ahmedabad. There was no major obstruction on the way except a traffic jam at Mehsana (due to the construction of fly-over) which halted us for an hour.

Sudi then took over the driver seat and left Ahmedabad to reach Vadodara expressway. Our initial plan was to make a halt at Vadodara for that night. Since we could easily reach Vadodara by 8 PM, we thought of making a halt at Surat which is around 150 kms from Vadodara. We managed to get into a hotel at around 10 PM on the highway for our supper. We also enquired about room to stay in the same hotel rather going in search of in the city. But the rooms were not of satisfactory and left the place in search of hotel room for our stay on the highway. Finally, we found one at Ankaleshwari.e., Hotel Sadanand, managed by a Mangalorean.

Day 8: Covered 750 kms (Ankaleshwar-->Surat--> Mumbai --> Thane --> Pune -->Satara--> Kolhapur --> Belgaum)

We had our complimentary breakfast in the hotel before we headed towards Mumbai along NH-8 on day eight. This time we planned to make a halt at Kolhapur. I enjoyed driving on NH-8, crossed Surat by 9:30 AM. At the Gujarat – Maharashtra border, Maharashtra police waved their hands to stop by. We were under the impression that they have stopped us for the documents verification since ours is a KA registration. But it was not the case. One of the constable aged around 52 – 55 yrs came to us, did not even request, with a rude and harsh voice, asked us to drop him till Mumbai. Also, he said that he can waive off the toll fee that we come across on the way till Mumbai. Rama did not support his request. But I and Sudi did not want to take any sort of chances here.  Moreover, we thought he can guide us the right way to cross over Mumbai to reach Pune expressway. This fellow’s duty is at the Gujarat – Maharashtra border and everyday he comes with some passersby on NH-8. A typical Mumbai police in our car blabbered all sort of his opinions about politicians, sports persons, Bollywood celebrities, etc. And yes, we did not let him to waive off the toll fee on the NH-8.

We dropped him in the outskirts of Mumbai and we took the route to reach Pune expressway. At around 2:30, we had our lunch on one of the food courts that is available on the Mumbai – Pune expressway. I still continued driving on the expressway after our lunch. We took a break at McDonald’s, Pune and asked Rama to drive further. We were about to reach Kolhapur by 7:30 PM. Since Belgaum is 110 kms away from Kolhapur, we re-scheduled to make a halt at Belgaum. We reached Belgaum at 9:30 PM, had food at Ramdev hotel before going to bed.

Surprisingly, we had covered three states on this day, having breakfast in Ankaleshwar (Gujarat), lunch near Mumbai (Maharashtra) and dinner in Belgaum (Karnataka).

Day 9: Covered 510 kms (Belgaum -->Hubli-->Chitradurga-->Tumkur--> Bangalore)

On the final day, it was a smooth drive to Bangalore. We left Belgaum at around 9 AM and reached Bangalore by 3:30 PM. We had couple of breaks in between, one for tea near Hubli and other at Chitradurga for lunch.

The amazing journey came to an end on day nine and we all 3 had nice unforgettable memories. The words just describe about our journey but really feel great to experience.

Jaisalmer road trip - Part I

Our most exciting trip of the year 2012 was to Jaisalmer by road. This was planned in the last week of November 2012 and scheduled to leave Bangalore on 21^st December 2012 for about 10 days. I was accompanied by Rama and Sudi in my Ford Fiesta and as planned we left Bangalore on 21^st Dec at 6:40 AM from my home.

Day1: Covered 834 kms (Bangalore –> Tumkur –> Chitradurga –> Davanagere –> Haveri –> Hubli –> Dharwad –> Belgaum –> Kolhapur –> Satara –> Pune)

I took the driver seat and headed via NICE road from my home and entered NH-4. After reaching Davanagere, we started searching for a decent hotel for the breakfast on the highway. Our search ended up in reaching almost Hubli and finally found Kamath for our breakfast at 11:30 AM. We then left the hotel by 12:15 and continued our journey. It was 2:30 when we reached Belgaum and we entered the city for lunch. We had meals in Pai hotel near to Belgaum bus stand. We spent almost an hour in lunch and to reach back to the highway. This time, Sudi took the driver seat and headed towards Pune. We had a short break to fill our car fuel tank in Kolhapur at around 5:30 and continued. We reached Pune  by 8:30 and with the help of Rama and Sudi’s colleagues/friends we could able to find a hotel for our night stay near Swargate area. Once checked into the hotel, we had chats in the chat street near to the hotel and that was our dinner for that day J. Pune city did not impress us as it was hyped and when compared to Mysore.

Day2: Covered 664 kms (Pune –> Thane –> Kalyan –> Bhivandi –> Surat –> Vadodara –> Ahmedabad)

We started off with a complimentary breakfast (sandwich) provided by the hotel and left the place at around 9 AM. I drove along Pune – Mumbai expressway and were able to reach Thane by 10:40 AM. The drive was exciting along the expressway, passed few tunnels and good scenic beauty alongside. We continued on NH-8 towards Thane and Sudi who was in the backseat noticed a signboard written “Ahmedabad – 534 kms”. So , I took a deviation from NH-8 (which is actually not a good route, realised later) and continued via Kalyan and Bhivandi. Since the traffic was bad, we were able to hit the NH-8 at around 1:30 before Rama could take over from me where we had stopped for a small Tea break after Bhivandi.

We finished our lunch at a hotel on the highway and started our journey at 2:30,Sudi took over from Rama and drove towards Surat. We covered around 230 kms in the span of 2 hours, the NH-8 condition is damn good, we just loved it. We stopped after Surat for a Tea break at 5:15 pm for about 15 mins and then I took the driver seat. I had just drove for about 20 – 25 kms, we got stuck up in a huge traffic jam. NH-8 is a 6 lane road and on one side (3 lane) the road was completely jammed. Our Fiesta was surrounded by huge number trucks and when enquired, found that the vehicles got stuck up till 8-10 kms long. We got to know from the truck drivers that it’s a usual one on this road (yeh toh roz ka mamla hai) and this is due to the construction of a bridge. Truck drivers suggested us to be on right side so that once we find a deviation to the right, we can take the wrong side of the road to cross the bridge. Finally, we managed to take the wrong side of the road and crossed the bridge. We got stuck up for about 2 hours in the jam. This bridge is in a place called Bharuch near Surat.

There was an incident happened soon after I drove the car to the wrong side. As soon as I deviated to the wrong side I turned on the wiper with water to wipe off the dust on the glass. Two people on a bike stopped our car, did hungama for about 15 mins, claiming that the water which I used to wipe the dust on glass from the wiper had made their vision effected and made away with Rs 200  from us.

Atlast, we crossed the toll soon after the bridge at around 8 pm and headed towards Ahmedabad which is still 230 kms away. There was no obstruction after that and swiftly reached Vadodara – Ahmedabad expressway (90 kms long) which is again an excellent 4 lane road. We reached Ahmedabad at around 10:30 (covering 230 kms in 2 hours from Bharuch). Since it was closing hours for hotels, we found a decent hotel, soon after we got down from the expressway, for our dinner. We spent more than an hour after dinner in search of a hotel to stay. We managed to check in at around 12 midnight, near to the railway station.

Day3: Covered 534 kms (Ahmedabad –> Mehsana –> Palanpur –> Deesa –> Barmer –> Jaisalmer)

We started off at 7:30 AM where Rama drove us on NH-15. We had breakfast on the outskirts of Ahmedabad and flee the hotel at 9:30 AM and started heading towards Palanpur. There was no obstruction on the way though NH-15 was a four lane till Deesa and the road condition was okay.It was around 12 where we had a small break near Deesa, collected some biscuits and banana. I took over from Rama and started towards Jaisalmer. We had a real good lunch (rotis served with sabjis and jeera rice) in Barmer. Sudi drove the car post lunch from Barmer, though it’s a two lane road, road condition were good. We could see Sudireaching 140kmph on this road. We had a Tea break in the midway (need to mention that Tea was good, not sure if it was made from Camel’s milk ). We reached Jaisalmer by 6:30 in the evening and could make it easily into the hotel (Palace Heights) which we had booked. We had good dinner at Riddhi Siddhi hotel as recommended by the locals, a typical rajasthani food. One has to visit this hotel if you are in Jaisalmer.