We left to Jaipur on 31st Oct. The flight was to Jaipur via Mumbai. But unfortunately to pilot diverted to Ahmadabad due to traffic congestion at Mumbai. This delay of about 3 hours affected our next day site seeing at Jaipur quite badly. Finally we reached the Hotel at around 11pm. By the time we went to bed it was close to 1:00am. The rooms at Hotel Palms (not considering other facilities) were just normal and not worth paying more than 1000 bucks! Even the breakfast was very ordinary.
Nov 01st morning we started our sightseeing program at Jaipur. We could watch City Palace, Jantar Mantar and Amber Fort quite in detail. For Jal Mahal and Hawa Mahal we had to settle for watching them from the Road. In fact there seems to be nothing much to see there. I found the Jaipur palace a boring place to visit. Except a Sabha bhavan and Darbaar, there is hardly anything to see inside the palace. The entry fee of 75/- per person is ridiculously high! Don't even try to compare our Mysore palace with this one! Amber (Amer) Fort in fact is pretty good in terms of the view inside as well as the outside view. After lunch by 04:00 pm we could leave Jaipur to reach Udaipur at least by late night. Our initial plan of visiting Pushkar/Ajmer could not happen . We reached Udaipur around 10:30pm).
The facilities at hotel "India International" was pretty decent, however the breakfast was not to the expectation. Nov 02nd at around 9:00am we started off with our Udaipur sightseeing. Could watch City Palace, Jagdish Temple, Saheliyon Ki Baari (just a small garden with fountains) quite in detail. Also could visit Fateh Sagar Lake, Lake pichola and went on boat rides in both the lakes. Could see the floating palace and Jagat Mahal quite closely from the boat. After that, we visited Rana Pratap singh memorial as well, which is located beside lake pichola, on top of a hill. This place was a pretty good to visit. Evening took a cable car to visit a temple on the top of another hill. The sight from there in the night was really beautiful with the lightings of Jagat Mahal, City palace and the glittering white city with full of light all over. Udaipur visit was really pleasing compared to the Jaipur visit.
On Nov 3rd morning at around 8:00am we continued our journey towards Jodhpur. On the way we visited a Jain Temple (there are 2 in fact in the same place). The big Jain Temple is an ultimate one from inside. The stone carvings on the pillars (should be more than hundred pillars), on the walls, on the roof, in fact all over the temple is a real eye catcher. Worth seeing. Unfortunately taking photographs was allowed only between 12pm to 2pm, because of which we could not take any photos. At around 5pm we could reach Jodhpur. After 5pm, the heritage sites get closed. So we could spend some time at Ghanta Ghar in Jodhpur for shopping. After about 3 hrs of roaming around, we went to the hotel. That night we stayed in a heritage hotel by name "Krishna Prakash Heritage". The hotel is worth staying except the approaching road which was too narrow to travel in an Innova! Plus due to Diwali the streets were very crowded.
Next day morning we visited Mehrangarh Fort and Jaswant Thada. Both are worth watching. Though we wanted to visit Umaid Bhawan, due to lack of time we skipped that. Our next destination was Jaisalmer and we had to reach the Sand Dunes latest by 5pm!
On Nov 04th, at around 11:30am we left to Jaisalmer. The drive was very good. In fact almost all the cities of Rajastan are well connected by very good roads. For the first time I tried my hand at driving an Innova. To my wonder, it was as good as driving a petrol car, rather cooler than a car. After dumping our luggage at the Tent we enjoyed a camel ride (...naa.....we struggled a camel ride...lol). After the sun set we went back to the tents. There was a cultural program including Kaal-belia dance at the tents. Even dinner was arranged at the tents. These tents are not worth paying more than 2000/-. We had paid 2800/-. The next day Nagaraj (my co-bro) and I went for a early morning walk, to the Sand Dunes. The Sand Dunes were not great for me as I had seen much beautiful sand dunes in Dubai and surrounding places.
Finally on Nov 05th at around 08:30am we left off to sightseeing at Jaisalmer. Could see Jaisalmer fort and couple of Jain temples inside the fort. But could not see couple of Haveli's which we intended to see. At around 11am we continued our trip towards Pushkar. Overnight stayed at Pushkar.
Though we reached Pushkar at around 7pm, we could see the Bramha Temple and also the Holy Pushkar Lake. Night stayed in Master Paradise which was very good in terms of service. Compared to all other hotels this one was the best in the 1600-2000/- range.
Our flight to come back to B'lore was at 10:50am on Nov 06th. From Pushkar we started at around 7:00am and could reach the Airport by 9:30am.
Overall it was pleasant despite of carrying 2 kids of around 3 years of age and 2 families going together :-)
