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.
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