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.