Jaipur Trip !

Writing about our trip to Jaipur is itself a joy. We started early in the morning at 5:00 AM in our car. We quickly crossed NH24 and hit the ring road. And then we drove through the Lutyens Delhi before crossing the ring road again to turn towards IGI airpot. We took only 40 mins to cross Delhi and enter into Gurgaon. Early morning drive on Gurgaon NH8 highway is a pleasure. Jaipur is 285 km from this point. Its a straight highway drive till Jaipur with some small villages on the way. One have to be careful while crossing the village area, otherwise throughout the journey one can drive at 80+ Km/hr. After entering Gurgaon, we crossed Manesar first and then the Jaipur highway gives you a scenic view while driving. After taking the Amer Bypass, we entered Old city area of Jaipur at 9:30 AM. The whole journey took us around 5 hrs and 30 mins.

The old Jaipur city is quite crowded with bad road condition, after crossing the old city area, we drove in the main Jaipur city. Its really well planned with really good road conditions. And then we started looking for a budget hotel. We realised that a pre-booking is always better. It took us more than 3 hrs to finally locate a good budget hotel. We checked in at Lakshmi Villas. The hotel is situated on the main road and is surrounded by a big green area. Even though the condition of the hotel was not that good, but it was comfortable stay. After a long journey, we were exhausted. We had our lunch and then we slept.

Evening we started for "Chowki Dhani", a place on the outskirt of Jaipur city. Its a must place to visit in Jaipur. Chowki Dhani gives you a panoramic view of the complete Rajasthan culture. We arrived the place at 9:00 PM at night, we were greeted by locals with tradition "tika" and "namaste". It was a great view inside. One can find all the flavours of traditional village culture. the place has evrything -- Elephant ride, camel ride, bullockcart, local magician to name a few.
Just out of curosity me and Shalini visited a palmist there. He could tell quite a few things about us, which were true, he also mentioned about something good for us in future. And it would be a mistake if i dont mention about the food there. We enjoyed "pani-poori", "kulfi", "jaljeera" and finally the dinner. The dinner was cooked in local flavour. We found it a bit difficult to enjoy the dinner part. But overall it was a nice experience. We took so many snaps and finally we left "chowki dhani" with lots of good and plesurable moments with us.

Next day, we had planned for city tour. We started with city palace. Its again a place worth visiting. Shalini did some small shopping ( only to realise later that it was not of good quality). Then we visited the nearby "Jantar-Mantar". You have to appreciate the kind of accurate geometric structure, which were built such a long time back in history. I personally felt that the placve could have been restored in a much better way.

Then finally it was a time for Shalini to start with her local shopping. She was as usual excited by the range of local made snadals. She finally selected a "kholapuri chappal" and couple of handbags.

During our return journey to Delhi, we visited Amer Fort. Its know for having the largest "toop" (tank) in India. Its awesome to look at the dimensions of the tank. We were told that it was test fired only once. The guide took us around the fort and explained some interesting facts about the fort and its history. We visited a local souvenir shop. Shalini was again happy, this time it was the jwellery which fascinated her and hold her attention. A big hole in the pocket...

While returning we visited one more nearby fort and had our lunch there. It was really good. Finally we hi the road for Delhi. We crossed "Sheesh-mahal" on our way, but did not visit that as we were running short of time.

It was already night when we were approaching Gurgaon. We took our dinner at a dhaba -- allo parantha & curd and hot tea. And finally we crossed Delhi again to reach our home. We both were tired and had a good sleep, with beautiful memories of Jaipur.....