A trip to Rajasthan...

Not getting into the flight plan and its details let me start with my entry into the Rajasthan at the city known as Pink City – you guessed it right, Jaipur, capital of Rajasthan.

The moment we hit the roads after getting out of the airport, I realized that I have come to a different world from the one I am living in. It’s the clean broad and nicely divided roads that got my attention. The roads were spotless! The walls besides the road were neatly painted with good graphics and guess what, absolutely no poster or for that matter any painted advertisement. And this trend continued with our whole journey within the city.










We stayed at one of our colleague’s home. After keeping our luggage at their home we were free to move in the pink city. We started off with asking our directions for the well known - Hawa Mahal (t was built as a sandstone screen from behind which the ladies of the court could watch the proceedings on the road below without being seen). And as you reach the top you understand why it is called “Hava” Mahal. At one side you get nice view of the City Palace and the Amber Fort situated on the hill in its backdrop and on the other side you see the Jaipur city from a bird eye.




















Well after looking at the area I realized why it’s called pink city. It relates to the convention that every individual follows, to color their home / shop. Though the color is not very pink and is more reddish in nature, but along with the real pink color of the monuments this city is meant to be called pink city.

After having lunch of malpue and puri sabji (here they give puri’s by weight and not by numbers / plate, its “ek paw puri” that we had with the “aloo ki sabji”), we proceeded to seeing what a palace looks like. On our way to palace we saw an example of telecom explosion in India. Who says India is still developing :)











Here we were at the entrance of the City Palace - a blend of Rajasthani and Mughal architecture. Guarded and managed by turbaned member of the management, this place is like a dream place – you don’t get enough of it. Every thing so well maintained and not a single point where you will see any kind of disturbance.











A good time to be at City Palace would be near evening as there will be less crowd as well as you can feed pigeons at the palace gate.











Moving from the palace we went to do some shopping and then a little bit of worshiping at the Birla temple. On our way to the temple we could also get a glimpse of the Albert Hall. though it was closed for the day we could get a colorful night view of it.










While we were on our spree of shopping I came across an unusual example of being in business! After purchasing some goods from one shop we went to another shop. There we told him that we have already purchased some goods from earlier shop and we would like to know the price of the goods we purchased at his place (just to ensure that we were not fooled). At this stage the shopkeeper could have very well used this stage to have a hit on his competitor, but he replied with in a very cool manner “Sab ji, ab jab aapne khareed hi liya hai to ab daam kyo poochate ho. Agar waha aapko jyada keemat lagi hai to ho sakta hai ki waha ki quality bhi jyada achchi ho.” He meant that if you have already purchased the goods then why you want to compare the prices now. The other place where you might have got it expensive might be selling a better quality good. Well I was not surprised by the fact that he was a good person but at least in this business world somebody saying anything good about the competitor, is surely an eye opener. Being in sales I understand the worth of his reaction.

After having a good Punjabi dinner at my collugues place, we moved ahead to the railway station. We had to board train at midnight to Jaipur.

While waiting at the station enjoyed the tea in kullahad. After my childhood days this was the first time I tasted the tea in kullahad. It really tastes different as well as nice. During our train journey I figured out that the stations that we were passing, no matter how big or small the village was, one thing common to all was being neat and clean!










And here we reached the golden city - Jaiselmer! As I was on an official trip, it was the third day when I had some time to explore the golden city. We started off with going to our work site by bike. The highway is spotless, it was fun riding on those roads. In the afternoon we visited one of the very old Jain temple.

In the evening we headed to the place called “Sam”. This place is known for the “reth ke teele” - sand dues. We reached well in time to see the magnificent sunset scene. One thing I felt sad about was that the tourists turning the natural sand dues into landfills (by throwing empty wrappers, PET bottles etc.). Anyways, went ahead with capturing some sandy pictures and cherishing the beautiful sunset.

Once you enter the area you will be surrounded with people asking for permission to sing a song for you or perform a folk dance for you (of course they charge for that but that’s ok. It’s how they make their living.) I would strongly recommend listening to their song at least once. It feels really good to hear the true Rajasthani folk music in sandy background!










After watching the sun go down, we returned back to our hotel.

The next day was passed doing little bit of shopping and visiting the Jaiselmer Fort - The oldest living Fort in the world. It is a residential fort with shops hotels and houses inside the fort.

From the fort I could see the whole city and also realized the reason for it being called Golden city.

On our way back we got ample time to admire the railway station of Jaiselmer. Though there were heavy winds bringing in the sand, but the platform was still a nice place to be at.

And as every good or bad time has an end, our escapade to the Thaar Desert ended with fresh memories from one of the very beautiful part of India, carved in our minds and heart!

An observation: The whole state is fully covered in terms of mobile service network coverage. You get full signal almost at every place. For our work and the escapades we visited very remote places as well, still never had problem of network coverage!