Jodhpur - The Blue city

We had Pizza for our lunch at The Hippie House at around 3.45 pm. This was an interesting place which looked like an old building-turned-restaurant. The painting here reminded me of the globe in Ka, a Telugu movie. I was trying to guess the language of those numbers while watching the movie. But now when we were eating our pizza, my husband hinted they could be the 12 zodiac signs and it made sense to me now as to why that globe had these signs.

A beautiful movie it is indeed, but my blog is not about movies, so, let me take you to Jodhpur as our car also is nearing this place…

By the time we reached Jodhpur, our driver arranged a guide for the palace and the guide rushed us as most of the rooms start closing from 5 o'clock. The Jaswant Thada memorial of the king was built by his queen after his death. Jaswant Thada had 2 wives. The King died in Afghanistan during a business visit and was burnt there and his wife built the Jaswant Thada in his memory. The memorials of kings are inside the building and those that belong to the royal family are built around it.

 

Jodhpur is the kingdom of Marwaras. The Jodhpur Fort is made out of volcanic mountain rock. This is the best maintained fort of our country. The story of the fort dates back to the 14th century.  A monk used to stay here and the King Rao Jodha(not the Jodha of the silly Jodha Akbar movie) wanted to build a fort for his kingdom and requested the monk to leave the place, but, the monk refused. So, the King used his force to vacate him. Out of anger, the monk cursed the King saying his kingdom will always have water problems. When requested for mercy, the monk said the effect of the curse will come down by 15 to 30 percent if any person willingly sacrifices his life for the fort/kingdom. Later, a common man sacrificed his life and it is said that the water woes have relaxed a little after this.

The fort is made out of a single mountain rock. It has 15 floors and the top 3 floors are open for public. It also has a lift which operates from ground floor to ground floor meaning the lift starts from ground and the 13th floor is also treated as ground. From the 12th floor of this fort, the entire city is visible on both sides. Back of the fort has a lot of blue buildings which were constructed for the artisan families. The kings have invited artisans from brahmins and various other communities and requested them to teach the arts to the local people. In return these artisans were gifted with those blue houses and their livelihood requirements. The view from the front side of the fort has a little lesser blue buildings relatively.

Sheesh Mahal which is on the 13th floor is made of Belgium glasses.When the sunlight falls on the glasses, it reflects on the coloured glasses and this falls on the people who are dancing in the hall. The depiction looks sooo beautiful when we start imagining all of this, doesn't it?

The 14th floor has Phool Mahal. Around 15 to 20 kg of gold is used to decorate the ceiling. It also has Inlay art made on ivory.

Maharaja Thakat Singh had 29 wives and all of the bedrooms are on the 15th floor. This floor also has Janana Deodi (women door) and Mardani Deodi sections along with the first class or may be the first ever hall with around 10 baby creches for the kids of the royal family. This floor also has a painting of Veer Durga Das which was painted by the German painter A.H.Muller. People here rever this warrior a lot due to his service to the royal kingdom, it is due to him that the kings got the kingdom back. When Aurangzeb fought with Jaswant Singh and took the fort for 30 years, Veer Durga Das, the main chief of commander took Abhai Das, a 4 year old kid and the heir of the kingdom. After 30 years, they got their kindom back. This floor also has Deewan-e-khaas built by Maharaja Sur Singh in the 16th century. This is also called Moti Mahal because when the light reflects on the ceiling which has designs made of gold, it shines like pearls. Apart from these, this building also has a Holi chowk where Holi and other festivals are celebrated and there we can also find Swift bird nests which are 50-60 years old.

We were told by the guide that Jodhpur is also famous for Bandhani printing, Kundan work, Thewa and Modi jackets. While coming out of the fort, we observed that the fort was indeed very well maintained and hubby said the place had the vibes of 'Game of Thrones'

We also met a man playing famous movie songs on Tabla. Knowing we are Telugu, he sang and played Pushpa song for us. He also sang a beautiful impromptu song with our names - Annapurna and Vamsi.

After this, the guide dropped us at the famous "Rajasthali" as is the tradition of all the guides to drop the tourists at the shopping places. I have observed this with two other guides in Udaipur too. The owner of Rajasthali has the habit of getting photographed with every celebrity visiting the place as can be seen from the photographs on the glass door which has him along with actors like Govinda and politicians like YSR's wife Vijayamma along with tens of other celebrities. We went straight to the silver jewellery selection as we have already covered the Dohar, bedsheets, saree, gift articles in Udaipur. I bought 2 pairs of earrings and toe rings made of silver.

After this, we went to our stay - Ranbanka palace. My husband insisted with the tour operator for palace stays for the experience of it and here we are in a palace. It was around 7.30 pm by the time we reached the palace. The car entered the palace from a narrow passage on the main road and dropped us at the entrance. We entered the reception and showed our identity and moved into an open restaurant with tables arranged evenly. It was mostly occupied with guests with a few empty tables. The hotel staff was arranging portable fire places across this open restaurant - a small 3-feet high round table which holds wood in the center which is already lit and the staff kept adding more wood when needed. The open restaurant was facing a small dias made of rock around a big tree where a man along with 4 kids were singing Rajasthani folk songs while playing local instruments which resembled Manjeera or Chidatha in Telugu. The youngest of the kids must be around 6 years but his vocal range was very high and the energy with which all of them were singing is filling up the entire place with a very playful and joyful mood. The rooms of the hotel were on the 3 sides of this place in 2 floors giving it the look of an auditorium.

We proceeded to our room 134 from this place. As we entered our room,we saw a decent hall with a study room kind of a setup to its left with a bathroom on its side. On the left side of the hall is a door leading to a very big private balcony from where we can see the open restaurant. We had an awesome view of the palace and the place from here. The music, the breeze, the people, the lighting, all of it is something to be experienced in anyone's lifetime is what i thought.. My husband insists on experiencing every possible thing in life and I realize later how important it is to have such enduring experiences to cherish for a long time to come. We went back to the room after spending some time here and the bedroom looked very rich with two bed lamps on both sides, a table with 2 chairs besides a very big glass wall from where we could see the same open restaurant.

The bed had 9 pillows with a dohar and another colorful cover which looked like a dohar with small square cuts at the corners to make it fit the bed exactly so that it doesn't have to be tucked in the corners. The hall had an arch with curtains pulled towards the wall and a special cloth tying the curtain to the hook on the wall on each side. I loved this idea and thought we can have this setup whenever we have our next new home. The walls of the room had frames of the kings along with the animals they had hunted. After getting a feel of the palace that we are about to stay in, we called up home, got fresh and went to the open restaurant to have our dinner. We found a table for the 2 of us but the chairs were full of bags. The hotel staff moved these to a big table beside us where a group of around 8 people were sitting. The staff put 2 chairs for us to sit and we ordered tomato shorba and started getting the feel of the music and the refreshing air again. The music band continued singing beautiful Rajasthani tunes. Thanks to the Coke Studio my husband already knew at least half of the songs already.

 

There was also a man sitting a few meters away from these singers with a collection of Rajasthani bags and shoes. The guests were buying these from him and the entire place looked very beautiful.  While enjoying both the music and the atmosphere, we had a plate of mixed veg pakora and called it a day. 

Day4: 21-Dec-2024

The next morning we woke up at 6.30 as we had to cover another palace in Jodhpur before leaving for Jaisalmer. We got ready, packed all of our luggage after some rearrangements between both the suitcases. As we moved out of the room, walked through a narrow passage and took a turn we entered a very wide corridor with big mirrors on both the sides giving us a very royal feeling. We got down the stairs to see that there was an option to dine outdoors or go indoors to have breakfast, we preferred indoors as it was very cold outside. Though 14 degrees, it felt like 11 degrees. We had some sprouts, a toasted bread slice, vermicelli, utappam, aloo smiley,  pineapple juice and coffee for breakfast.

We checked out of the hotel at around 9.30 am and reached Umaid bhavan palace by 10 am.

This palace was built with a budget of 1 crore rupees and was completed with 95 lakh by the mid 1950s. Its built in 26 acres of land out of which 15 acres is garden. It has 347 rooms. This was constructed by the Jodhpur king Umaid, a true visionary. He was called a monarch by the people out of respect and love. He loved the sport of polo and so he took his army of ponies to England and Jodhpur emerged as a world polo power. He enjoyed flying, so Jodhpur became an international airport even before Delhi with three inter-continental airlines stopping here. His famine relief policy, gave rise to one of the largest and most magnificent royal residences in the world and a dam that remained, half a century later, Jodhpur's main source of water.  Though he lived for only 44 years, he left a legacy behind him. 

The place has rooms ranging from 65k to 5Lac for a night stay. 90 percent of the palace is maintained by Hotel Taj. We saw a few rarities in the palace like 2 winged fans, brass doors, 3d paintings, wooden tiles, Gold ceiling, antique clocks from England etc. 

The palace also has vintage cars which are in working condition and are usually rented by celebrities. This palace also hosts big fat Indian weddings, Prinyanka Chopra is one among the celebrities who got married in this palace. 

This is India's last palace after which none were built.

After visiting the palace, we continued our voyage to Jaisalmer…

Jaisalmer - The Golden City

We started from the Umaid palace at around 10.30 am and stopped briefly at Marwar Restaurant at 12.10 pm for lunch. We had one Tomato Shorba and Dal khichdi. The food was very pathetic. The drive from here to Jaisalmer was about 3.5 hours. Enroute, we saw a lot of windmills, the Jaisalmer Fort, Khaleja movie kind of cactus plants🙂. The very name of the place reminds this movie for any Telugu guy, I am sure. We could see that the forts and the houses are all built with gold coloured bricks, that's the reason probably why the city got its name as the Golden city. The structures have a smooth and rustic texture and look very beautiful. Due to this color, any house gets the look of a fort and looks as if it was built a few decades or even centuries ago. I also heard about Kuldhara village from both my husband and the driver. This village has a mention in the Hidden Hindu book too.

We reached the Desert Fort Safari Resort which is in the Sam village at about 4.10 pm and the manager suggested that we quickly freshen up and leave for the desert safari so that we can complete it before sunset. So, we took our key and took a few steps further and saw a big platform with a dining hall across our left side and a big open area in the center. There are white colored tents on the other 3 sides of the platform where we are standing. We took the steps down from here and there is an open area in the center. This is being set up with lighting, a maggie point and a stage in the middle with little elevated platforms on all sides. The place is probably being set up for some local shows for the night. As we moved towards our room, I saw that the tents until ours have white tent cloths on 3 sides and a roof but the back has a concrete wall while the tents next to ours and beyond have concrete walls on all sides which are covered with tents on the outer wall.

We entered our room and I wasn't sure if I would be able to sleep at night in that chilling temperature in a tent. With a lot of questions in mind about the room and the stay, we headed towards our desert safari in Thar desert. 

There was a pre-booked Mahindra Thar waiting for us and we got into the car. The roads were not properly laid giving us a safari feel already as we traveled towards one of the three deserts. We reached one desert and saw a lot of tourists there and the driver set on the safari(the ride) as soon as we entered the place. There were a few places where the desert sand was very deep forming a circle around and the driver was at times going into this hole kind of a thing and going in circles sometimes. It was a thrilling experience and I have decided to only enjoy the ride and not get afraid as is my usual reaction(I don't shout out loud in fear but something happens in my tummy with such adventures, but not this time around). Before we realized, the safari was over and I enjoyed it this time.

He then took us to the next desert and I was not following the sequence of events yet. He stopped us at a place and a person came immediately and started explaining about the ATV ride and after some bargaining between him and my husband, we got on to a Camel. I needed help to get on to it, owing to my height😉. As the Camel moved across the desert, my head was also oscillating back and forth just like that Camel and this too was a short ride.

Then came the ATV ride. The driver, myself and my husband got onto it and the first half of the ride was good enough until he stopped at a little farther place so my husband could ride. It's my husband's turn now. He rode it in his own style after which driver took over and then the actual fun began. He understood my husband is good at it and unless he impresses my hubby, he is not going to get a good tip, so, he started showing all his talent while I was flying, literally trying to catch the rod hard so I don't fall off… The driver and I both were happy when he stopped - for the tip he got and for the fact that I am intact after the ride..😜

The driver of the Thar vehicle was watching all of this so it was his turn now to impress my hubby. We got into the Thar and he gave us another ride in this desert. The ride here is different not because the desert was different but because the driver decided to impress my husband. My husband finally got excited and I tried not to get afraid while trying to enjoy the ride. The driver asked us to hold the rod and stand during our first ride, which I did then. But now, as the vehicle moved into the deep holes of the desert, I sat down as I lost grip and didn't dare to get up again until the end of the ride.

While we were going back to the stay after this joy ride, we saw a band playing outside one of the resorts and my husband started to have fomo.. as we reached our Resort, there was a grin on his face as there was a band playing here too. They welcomed us into the Resort.

We saw the night show setup was now complete in the center dias. There was a man playing harmonium and singing along with another person accompanying him with other instruments. There were a few people sitting around this place on the small platforms which had a few carpets spread across evenly on 3 sides along with the round long pillows for the purposes of relaxation. People came prepared with shawls and jackets to bear the cold winds and the maggie guy started selling maggie. There was lighting which was thrown to the sky giving the entire place a perfect atmosphere for partying. It was a great visual. We walked across to our room, spent some time there and got back to this most happening place as it looked like. There were two women dressed in traditional Rajasthani attire and while the music was playing, they performed the dances which was not so enjoyable.  I could clearly make out that only one of them was a good dancer while the other was pausing frequently to catch up the next steps from the other dancer and this lady was also pausing so that the other could get the steps. So it was a disaster to watch overall and we almost lost our interest. There were a few other performances by them for our distress. How I wished it was for our de-stress.

In between, a boy played Manjeera as jugalbandi with drums, which was okay to watch. Then came a man who gave performances with fire like taking some inflammable liquid into his mouth and blowing a Fire stick, which made the fire travel for some distance and putting the fire off by taking the stick in his mouth etc. While this was still going on, we moved to the dining hall for dinner.

The DJ started meanwhile and guests at the Resort started dancing and enjoying the tunes while we moved to our room. The dances continued until 10.30pm and I was peeping out from our tent in between to watch this. I prepared myself (mentally more) extensively to sleep in this chilling weather in that tent which was covered only with cloth on three sides, wait, actually four sides because the roof was also a cloth… As I was talking to hubby, I dozed off and had good enough sleep but my hubby couldn’t sleep so well to my surprise😉.

Day5:22-Dec-2025

Next morning, we got fresh, had breakfast,  and set off for Jaipur from there. We stopped at Kuldhara on our way. The story here dates back to 1835 when the people from this village and the surrounding 83 villages emptied the villages almost overnight. There are different stories behind this - one says the chief of all these villages decided to marry the daughter of Kuldhara village chief against her will, so all the villages have vacated the place, while another says the head was cruel and the villagers left the place as they couldn't pay the taxes. There were mostly ruins of the old buildings, a few that were in the entrance were newly painted and looked beautiful. These structures still look very solid. We left the place wondering how so many villages can stay abandoned for centuries.

Then we stopped at Bada baag, a cenotaph, but we were not sure on whose memory they were built. We took some good pics here

Our next stop was at the Jaisalmer Fort. We met our guide and we started walking towards the fort from the place where cars can't go any further. On our way, we had kachori and Dal Pakwan. This was very very yumm. On a big poori, completely mashed, 4 spoons of Dal is spread and it is garnished with onion, tomato, cilantro and some other spices. There was a long queue and the wait time was well justified.

As we walked towards the fort, the guide started explaining that the fort was built on a Triangular valley. There is a place termed Johar in the fort which in any fort means a place where the queen chooses to end her life in the act of Sati if she doesn't want to surrender to the conquerors of the fort. This is an 850 year old fort and cement was not used in its construction. Jaisalmer was a silk route until 250 years ago. It was famous for trading silver, gold and opium.

The fort is divided into 2 parts - King’s view for the kings and the Queen’s view, obviously for the queens. Jewellery and embroidery designs are the base for the king's view made of single sandstone. Sunlight makes this shine like a gold ceiling and the wooden ceiling is 150 years old and changes in different climates like giving warmth during winters and staying cool during summers. We saw various things like Kukris, which are small swords from Nepal, and Guptri which is a sword stick in a wooden case, Topidaar bandook - this is used for hunting but a single person can't operate this. There is a silver Singhasan made for kings - the King who is swearing in sits on this and this ritual is followed even to this day.

On the top floor, we saw a space which the guide explained as olden days cctv. There was no equipment here but people getting into the fort from every gate are visible from this place. When soldiers saw any threat, they used to play something called Nagada to announce the arrival of invaders. 

The main king is known as MahaRawal while his brothers are called Maharajas. There was a king named Shaluvahan singh whose height was 8 feet and he weighed 200 kgs, had 25 queens.

There was an ocean in this area around 400 years ago from where the fossil stones got formed and the same were used for constructing this fort.

Rang Mahal is the place where the King explains to the Queen about the commands used during war and during hunting through paintings made of gold while Murrah is a dance area which has entry only for ladies. Deewane aam is the place where king meets the people to listen to their personal problems. Kings utensils and furniture are all made of gold and silver.

There is a festival called Gangaur mela which is performed during Dasara and the procession is taken till the Gadisar lake by the royal family and they gather during this time no matter where they are.

There were houses built for the soldiers in the center of this triangular valley which were visible from this fort where the families of the soldiers stayed. We saw a wheel on the stairs and this was used to blow air for the Queen during nights. There is only a small slit for the person who is blowing air to move the wheel and he can’t see anything inside. 

On the Queen's side, we saw a statue of Gauri devi and a miniature of the fort which was very beautiful. There was 'Het vilas' which was for love and then apartments for the Ranis.

There were also safe passages for queens towards gufas(caves) which were used during invasions to safely transport the royal women.

60 percent of the tourism money goes to the King and the rest to maintenance & renovation. About 600 to 700 hotels are owned by the royal family which is approximately 1/4th of the city.

From the fort we travelled to Pattwon ki haveli via 7 seater auto.

Pattuwa is a title given to people who make silver and gold art on rock - Jains used to do this during those days. Havelis - a building with natural air and light - made by these people with intricate art took 60 years to build. Pattwas used to stay here. This was built by Guman Mal ji Bapna in the 18th century for 5 of his sons - 1 Haveli for each son. Out of these, numbers 2 and 5 were donated to the government during some crisis.

We were told that many bollywood shootings and advertisement shootings happen here.

From this Haveli, we went to the Jaisalmer War Museum of Indian soldiers. This had a lot of details about the 1962 war with China, 1965 & 1971 wars with Pakistan and the brave soldiers who contributed to our victory. We also got to see a few retired and captured war tanks and understood that if the war tank is facing down, it's a captured one. A park with statues of a few prominent veer jawans was built here in their honor. Beneath each statue, the stories of their bravery in war were inscribed. Reading how they inspired their team during the toughest and roughest of the times, not caring for their lives but only putting the safety of the country in the forefront filled our hearts with pride and tears.

From here, we reached a hotel near Jaisalmer railway station which we booked to stay until 2 in the night as our train was at 2.30 am the next day. We bid goodbye to our driver Jay Singh who toured along with us for these 5 days in 3 different cities.

When we came out for dinner, my hubby realized we can travel by bus instead of train to avoid odd hours of journey. So, we cancelled our train tickets and booked a bus. We hired an auto to hotel asked the auto driver to wait, checked out from the hotel and went to the bus boarding point in the same auto. The bus started at 9pm from Jaisalmer.

Udaipur - City of Lakes

Day1: 18-Dec-2024

Started at 6:20 am at home and reached the airport by 7.10 am. Srikanth drove us to the airport. There was no self baggage checkin for Indigo so we had to wait in the long queue for check-in, losing time for breakfast. Instead of having breakfast in the lounge, we shared one plate of Guntur karam idli at Minerva Coffee shop near Gate 111. We started watching Maharaja - a Tamil dub movie and landed at 10.30 am on 18th Dec in Udaipur.

Collected our baggage and boarded Jay Singh, our guide cum chauffeur was already waiting for us. We chose to not check in to the hotel yet as we boarded the flight in the morning and feeling fresh. Instead, we chose to roam around the ‘city of lakes’. Udaipur got the name as White city due to its lakes.

We went to the world's only Royal Enfield museum but couldn't visit it due to power cut. Then we headed to the monsoon palace Sajjangarh. It is a very good view point. We could see 2 lakes from there - Fatehpur lake and Pichola lake. There was a person playing Ektara and a statue of Sajjan Singh. No other attractions.

We had our lunch at 1559AD. The food was good - potato kulcha/garlic naan along with paneer tikka masala. Then we went for speed boating, it was real fun for 472 bucks. We had a thrilling experience as the boat rider was making twists, turns, ups and downs which was really exciting. We went for another ride immediately but this time it was not as much fun.

Then we stopped at Sai Sagar to have Kullad hot coffee as hubby loves such experiences, I also had a sip and it tasted very good.

From here, we went to Maharana Kumbha Sangeet Parishad, which was a local arts show promoted by Rajasthan tourism. We enjoyed it thoroughly. The troop divided into teams and performed Rajasthani local dance and every item was a feast to the eyes. Major attractions being a woman performing dance with pots on her head and someone would add more pots one after the other during the dance show and with all the pots on top, she would pick a note from the floor. Then there was a puppet show.

From here, we went for some shopping and bought Dohar and a Bandani Saree as these are famous here, then we had chat for our dinner at Chotu Bhai which is in a row of chat shops in Udaipur.

Then we reached our hotel room which was very beautiful. We loved the sofaset which was on the windowsill.

Day2: 19-Dec-2024

We had our Chole bhature and bread for breakfast in the hotel and headed to the Udaipur City Palace. We took a guide to walk us through the palace. Our guide, ManSingh, was a little elderly person and initially we thought he would make us feel bored as he was asking us to repeat what he was saying, but he turned out to be a great company throughout. 

It took 22 generations of the king’s dynasty and over 250 years to complete the construction of the palace.

Half the palace is open for visitors while the royal family lives in the other half. It has 4 floors with a garden on the top. We first reached the rooftop and started our tour from there. There were few big, huge trees on the rooftop which explains how strong the construction was. We took a few snaps there and the guide liked my dress a lot and was more than happy to help us take pics. 

While we were going down, I saw short, narrow passages, then understood why the guide said my husband should mind his head in the palace. These passages had a special purpose. They slow down the troops of the invaders and the soldiers of Udaipur kingdom would cut the heads of the invading army as they try to peep in through these passages. 

The city of Udaipur got its name due to the King UdaiSingh. Maharana Pratap is his son and is the greatest warrior king of this place. He had a horse named Chetak and we have heard many stories of this horse which was very loyal to his king. It was due to this horse that the King won many wars. The 2 wheeler of Bajaj - Chetak - was also named after this brave and loyal horse. There is a big statue of Chetak in the palace which has an artificial elephant-like trunk. This trunk made it look like an elephant and gave it an advantage during wars.

Mewar kings worship Sun God and have the habit of praying to him first thing in the morning and to do this, they have constructed a few window-like openings in the third floor. On the days when Sun is not seen they have built a very big, beautiful 5-feet statue of Sun God on the first floor.

The palace had a honeymoon room for the newly wed king and queen and a special playroom for kids.

Another beautiful preservation we saw in the palace was a room full of intricate paintings. These were painted with natural colors in the 17th century and the art is intact till today and looks very beautiful even without any touch ups.

We had learnt a lot of details about the palace from the guide and he treated me like his daughter. He also said we stay happy forever and come back as three the next time we visit the palace. 

He took us to a shop which is famous for local paintings and bid us goodbye there. The shopkeeper explained to us in great detail about Pichwai art which is about how the background looks when we see lord Krishna. So he showed us the paintings of the Lord, some of which have gopikas and cows while the others just have the cows. The paintings have real silver and gold in them and most of the colors are natural colors which come from rocks and vegetable colors. The color stones are rubbed on other rocks which gives color powder and a natural liquid glue is added to this which can then be used for paintings. That is the reason these paintings dont fade and last forever. Sunlight is the only thing that can damage these and folding these paintings would also not cause any damage. The paintings can be done on silk, paper, cotton and also on a material that looks like ivory.

There are paintings of different sizes starting from 1 feet to 8 feet which can cover a wall beautifully. Though very expensive, they add a lot of beauty and elegance to any place where they are hanged. He also showed one painting which would be used in a temple often for the sevas. We considered a few paintings for our new home which would be built at Kollur.  The place also had big statues of elephants, soldiers etc made of wood. Overall, a very artistic place, anyone with a taste for arts would enjoy looking at those paintings.

We had the local fame - Dal Bhati - for our lunch at Krishna Dal Bhati. It was served in traditional vistaraku and bowls also made of the same material. The Bhati is crushed and about four tablespoons of ghee is poured on it. Kheera, garlic chutney, pudina chutney, Dal, capsicum curry and a sweet were served as accompaniments making the lunch very heavy.

After a heavy lunch, we started for our next point and saw a vintage Car showroom on the way. This place has a collection of more than 50 luxury cars which were used by the kings and are still maintained in good condition.

Next, we reached Sahelion ki bari, which is built by the King to appease his 7 year old daughter who insisted on seeing the rain even after monsoons. This is basically a garden where ladies of the royal family would visit for entertainment. This princess used to celebrate her birthday here and there would be a lot of entertainment and she would invite his father for these celebrations. The garden had 5 different segments and the guide put up a good story for each of these linking them to the events of life of the princess. Back then around 400 years ago, the fountains of the garden were constructed when there was no electricity. This was possible because it gets water from the lakes of Udaipur which is 80 feet higher than this place. That's how great our architecture was. The pipelines were made of copper due to its non corrosive nature. The same pipelines are used till date.

This guide dropped us at a shop where local jewellery and clothing was sold. We took a few bracelets and bangles to gift to our friends and family.

Our next destination was a ropeway. Udaipur has 2 ropeways - one was the Neemach Mata and the other was the Karni Mata ropeway. Our driver dropped us at the Neemach Mata ropeway.  We had the pleasure of watching the sunset from the other end of this ropeway point. 

After this we went to the hotel, got fresh and we shifted to another room 203 as there was a lot of disturbance in our room 303 due to the kitchen on the floor above. My husband borrowed a bike from the hotel manager and we got the screen guards added to both of our mobiles in a mobile shop. Then we bought a few snacks from a bakery and a local shop and my husband got the bike filled with some petrol as a token of thanks to the hotel manager. We returned the bike and called it a day.

Day3: 20-Dec-2024

After finishing our breakfast, we started in the same vehicle to Jodhpur. On our way, we saw a beautiful statue of Lord Krishna built by the Miraj group. They have also built a big Siva statue in a theme park but we liked this Krishna statue a lot.

Have you heard of snow in desert? Yes, unbelievable but it is true as you can see below!!

This is at Kishanpura - a marble dump yard which became famous for pre-wed shoots due to its scenic beauty. Due to the white color and the water, it feels like we are in snow. We came across atleast 5 couples in the short time span of half-an-hour that we spent there. Jay Singh helped us get some good pics. For the first time, I planned and prepared myself for a photo shoot kind of a thing 😎. I got inspired from my friend Ramya's pics which were taken at Kishangarh, a similar place near Jaipur.

I was satisfied with the pics we took and we headed to Jodhpur.