“Where should i go” these three words were continuously crossing in my mind. I needed a tour to be as big as my south India tour. Closed my eyes and pin pointed my fingers on the India map. To my surprise it was on Jaipur. “Padharo Maro desh” hahahah I knew from the start I am going to love this tour. .
I had to chalk out a plan which would be very ease to do and we could see as many places in short span of time. My leaves were approved from Jan 7th 2017 to 15th Jan 2017. So just over 8 days is what I had to spend time in #padharomarodesh. The plan should cost me less and see more, So I decided to use mine, my wife’s air-miles to check if I can get free tickets to fly, My payback point to check if I could book hotels free of cost, Stay at hostels with cheap rates/night.
I took help of Guru from Pune who had done the Rajasthan circuit in December and Ariz chinoy who had done Rann of Kutch. I chalked out the plan by now and it looked like this…
The above trip as per Google was 3500 Kms and check my odometer after trip got completed
The motorcycles were done packing on 1st Jan 2017 and sent to Jaipur Via Jaipur express which ply’s only on Mondays from Hyderabad. It’s now very easy to load the motorcycles in train as there are authorised agents (fixed commission based on luggage) available at the station who have been allotted luggage boogies. How do you find an authorised agent hmmm…. that’s a question which I am bound to answer and this is what is did, “talking personally at the parcel ticket counter and asked them who does a better job and who is authorised for Jaipur”. They will give you the details of the all the authorised agents available at the counter. You can pick any one of them and do the booking. Previously there were agents who used to charge horrendous amount to take luggage, they were not authorised agents. Beware of them!!!
Well the Motorcycles have reached Jaipur and now waiting for us to to come and show them whats in Rajasthan.
This State in India is full of colours and beautiful roads which make the journey wow to awesome. The excitement was increasing day by day.
All packing done and I call up my mate Kaustubh that “I have booked the taxi”. The taxi arrives and reaching his office , I make a call asking him, come to gate number three, He said “wait I said I am I working from home today”, hmmmmmm, I was like Holy Shit!!! A (abb kya pause moment ) So Kaustubh says, “ You wait, I will come, I will be there in Top 5 min…By god’s grace My FZS motorcycle was with him and he came on it and we started at last to the Airport after facing such hustle and confusion.. We started our journey on 6th Jan to Delhi and from Delhi to Jaipur via Train. Expensive fares from Hyderabad to Jaipur on flight discouraged us and we decided to rather go to Delhi in Rs 3300 flight and 260 rupees to Jaipur Via Train.
Reaching Airport our flight was delayed by one hour due to fog in Delhi. Delays continued collecting our checked in luggage at Delhi . Well the good news was our train from gurugram was running late by 2 hours, so we had additional time to have dinner at the Subway and 2 pints beer.
We reached Jaipur railway station in the morning and collected our motorcycles, unpacked,loaded our accessories and they were ready to tour to Rajasthan. You can see the youtube link here about how we unpacked our motorcycles at Jaipur Railway station.
We had booked our Hotel The theme in Jaipur which was available at decent price. Price was 1421 for three people – address – Near B2 Bypass, Tonk road, Sita Bari – Jaipur.
Jaipur is a Beautiful city. The new Jaipur is so clean with wide roads and wowsome architecture that you will fall love with the City. The temperatures whole day were pleasant and being winter it quite tolerable. Suggest you not to plan Jaipur after End of Feb as it become too hot during the days and pleasant at nights. We were going to meet my senior in college Mr Bhaskar kalia. A great man by heart, He took a holiday from his work and showed us Jaipur. Thanks sir.
Jaipur’s main Attractions are
- Hawa Mahal
- City palace
- Amer Fort
- Jantar Mantar
- Nahagarh Fort
- Raj mandir Cinema
- Jaigarh Fort
- Albert Hall Musem
The Single day for Jaipur, It made me asking to stay more but I had other plans ahead which was another beautiful place known as Jaisalmer. Jaipur to Jaisalmer (560 kms ) with decent and bad roads. We start late around 11.00 am.
The leisure riding to Jaisalmer took 14 hours. We were stopping for photos and enjoying the desert views. The last section of 130 kms was bad and was under construction. We stayed at Hotel Fort Side whose terrace views at night were like this!!!
The jaws dropped, the tiredness vanished, what a fort it is!! also known fact of this fort is that it’s inhabited by 700 Families which were giving accommodations inside the fort. There was a City inside this fort.
Next day was planned for Tanot Mata mandir and the war front where Pakistani Army came to invade us, The Longewala. We decided to start early morning and as soon as we came out at 6.00 am we saw nothing but dense Fog. Waste of time this really irritates me. With no choice left, we were back in our beds and started at 10.00 am again when the fog was nearly clear.
The road to Tanot Mata is well marked and Smooth. Approx 120 kms can be reached in 2 hours. We took more than that as we were stopping taking pictures.
The roads from Tanot to Longewala are Small narrow road carved through the desert. You have to be careful as to oncoming vehicle like cars and busses take the complete road and leave no space to let you pass. It was no worries for us as we were slow and enjoying the surrounding.
We started our return journey from Longewala at around 4.00 pm and on the way back we took a detour which lead to a dried lake bed. The lake bed was dry hard and worth the off-roading that we did. Kaustubh touched speeds of 100 kmph on that which made me worry as in my mind I don’t want to fall here. This was a wrong feeling which I had and was not able to enjoy much. But it was fun there, we wanted to do more, as sun was setting in we started our way back to Hotel in Jaisalmer.
In Jaisalmer our stay was from 8-Jan-17 to 9-jan-2017 with”Bed & Breakfast for a Private room
Address:Jaisalmer, Rajasthan 345001, India : Message Host ·+91 8769 210 051″ (ALLADIN) In Jaisalmer These are following attraction you can cover.
- Jaisalmer Fort – you can ride in this fort using two wheeler and check out the narrow lanes and colorful people there.
- Sam Sand dunes – you can opt for Camping at Sam sand dunes from the range 2000 to 7000 rs per night based upon tent which includes night stay, Dinner, Camel ride, and probably breakfast.
- Gadi Sagar lake – In Jaisalmer
- Salim Singh ki haveli In Jaisalmer
- Patwa Ki haveli – In Jaisalmer
- Longewala
- Tanot Mata mandir
- Border Pillar 609 (Special permission from JAISALMER BP post to be applied with RC Xerox and ID card)
Next morning we started to Jodhpur
Well this is how it looked at 10.00 am in the morning.
We were like holy f%^K Jodhpur 280 kms will be trouble …. Well this fog issue was there till 12.00 noon but we started our journey slowly covering 60 kms in one hour. The speeds were slow but we knew it better to be safe than sorry.
The Jodhpur part would be exciting as we had booked Flying fox zip lining over the mehrangadh fort.
- Mehrangarh Fort – This fort is so huge that it took us 3 hours inside. 120 Rupees entry for Indians.
- Kaylana Lake – could not visit, Check google for photos
- Taj palace hotel – could not visit, Check google for photos
- OM Banna Bike temple – could not visit, Check google for photos
Jodhpur – Stay 10-Jan-17 at Gouri Heritage Haveli (Guest House) Address: Sharif Chowk,Laykan mohalla near clock tower,Jodhpur City, Phone: 02912644099 Email: gourihaveli09@gmail.com” Price: 2315
Jodhpur to Udaipur was quite boring part. There are straight roads and just straight road..Wait… what…. No it not that.. U cross like hundred villages in this route,
This where you can see the mount ABU range starting. The mountains are beautiful, will be mesmerised with the change in landscapes from desert to mountains and back to Salt deserts.
We reached Udaipur by 2.00 pm and it was late … We had to see so many places in Udaipur and also we were tired as we had done 2000 kms in last four days.
- City Palace
- Lake Pichola
- Lake Palace
- Jag mandir-At Udaipur, dont miss to have dinner at Jagmandir (in the middle of the lake)(like if u can afford it) .
- Ambrai Ghat – U can have a look at Lake Pichola and lake Palace together
- Vintage Classic Car Museam – is boring
- Mansapurna karni Rope Way – if you do flying fox at jodhpur this is nothing.
- Udaipur Solar Observatory is in the middle of the lake
- Kumbalgarh- huge fort, minimum 3 hours.
- Ranakpur – JAIN Temple
In Udaipur we stayed at Backpacker Panda- Hostel stay Backpacker Panda Lake Fatehsagar, Udaipur, Plot no 6, LalBapu ki wadi, near fatehsagar lake. Dewali.
Email:vivek-6aaqtmdrkqn4qq3y@host.airbnb.com, Phone number: +91 91 723 13 994 Trip details: Backpacker Panda Udaipur-A/C 8 Bed Mix Dorm.
Udaipur to Rann of Kutch and Back to Hyderabad we were just riding. Riding and riding. We had to cover 2300 kms in 4 days with sigh seeing.
We started from at 5.00 am and it was dam cold. It was showing 6 Deg and we started our ride to rann of kutch. We stopped at a chaiwala after 70 Kms with shivering cold and numb hands. We just could not tolerate the cold. It was windy and it was cold which made it a bad combination.
Well as the sunlight was making its way through the mountains we could feel its warmth and slowly increasing our speeds towards Rann of Kutch. It was long straight 6 lane highways which made it look like a cake walk but also made us doze. The 2200 kms done till date tiredness was showing it signs while reaching rann. We reached rann meeting my old friend midway who had come all the way from Pune – My dear Amit dubey… U are still the same and thanks for coming.
The booking at Rann Utsav was waste of money completely as there were families around us who used to see us as unruly people of the society. The foods were average, and were the tents. We learnt this hard way that do not invest your money in expensive accommodation if you are on a trip on your motorcycle. The 100 Pipers came to our help for those two nights. The biggest blunder was Rann of Kutch and this is what happened with us. We were not allowed to take our motorcycles in the white desert due to some issues which were faced by BSF two days back when a HOG rally and Bulleteres were doing this White desert.
Well this was discouraging and made me frustrated and unhappy, For the first time I felt the whole trip will go waste if we could not do this. Well when it’s decided it will not happen it doesn’t, we weren’t allowed on 14th morning also.
Well the frustration was pounding making me feel disgusted. I was shouting inside my helmet for what had happened. I felt down and didn’t know what to do. Kaustubh My bro stopped me seeing I was riding weird. He said… lets wait and discuss this out.
After some time I could cool myself and we started out journey back to home Hyderabad.
It was 1690 kms to be covered in two days and we knew that if we cover maximum kms on the first day we would be able to do the Mumbai Hyderabad section easily.
We crossed Ahmadabad but the journey looked harder. We were feeling exhausted due to continuous traffic, Sun showing its heat and our minds continuously at work for overtakes and Speed runs. The traffic increased by the day due to Kite festival Utran in Gujarat. There were dangerous instances where a Swift had come very near to us honking continuously. We were doing speeds of 120 and the swift guy was frightening us with his weird overtakes. The roads were getting messier and hard to judge and if we were to ride more further we were surely not going to make another 130 kms to Mumbai. So we stopped at Vapi to rejuvenate our energies and ride further.
We woke up by 5.00 am started out to cover the remaining distance of 900 kms to Hyderabad with stops at my home in Mumbai for some time. We reached my home at 9.00 am and started to Hyderabad at 11.00 am. We crossed pune with great difficulty, it was HOT, ridiculous City traffic and I hate doing Mumbai Hyderabad because there is no BYPASS for Pune. Well as soon as we crossed city limits in Pune we stopped for delicious lunch at 3.30. Targeted to hit Sholapur by 7.00 PM and took the kalburgi pargi route to Hyderabad. The zaheerabad Solapur route is fucked and is under construction. Don’t ever attempt to do this route.
We reached Hyderabad by 2.00 am. The last 60 kms which was done with most difficulty, firstly riding in night, Second I had crossed my limit of Riding till 9.00 Pm and go to sleep. Third we had done 600 kms in heavy traffic and another 330 kms in single lane bad roads with stars twinkling above our helmets.
We reached yes, we reached safely.
Happy riding
Life moves when two wheels move
Soul Tourer 