Amber Fort is a lovely palace with a lovely view. We spent around tow and a half hours exploring the majestic palace. It was a really good experience, thanks to our guide, Balram Singh Rathore, a very polite & thorough gentleman.

Amber Palace had lots of interesting things to offer to us. From its amazing Mohan Bagh (to grow saffron in arid place); to astounding natural air coolers in the Summer Palace; to the perplexing Sheesh Mahal, made from small curved Belgium glasses in the Winter Palace; to the marvellous rain water harvesting techniques of the yester-era; to the unbelievably “individual” mansions of twelve queens of Raja Mansingh (they were not allowed to meet and even see each other); to the beautiful organic color paintings which are still intact and beautiful.

Below is a picture of us and beautiful carvings in stone in Amber Palace:

And, presenting to you ladies and gentleman, Ritesh “Kabootar-wala” :

From Abhaneri, we headed to our next pit stop – Jaipur. In the excitement of going to the o-so-famous Chokhi Dhani, we checked into Snehdeep Guesthouse and left in a jiffy.

But from the moment we entered Chokhi Dhani, it was nothing but a disappointment. The place, and even the people, are so over whelmingly artificial, that it set us back. Everyone over there seeks for fat tips and you feel being flinched. The only good thing over there is the food.

Driving in the rain, splashing water & getting ugly stares, we reached Abhaneri.

We spotted the Chand Baori & parked our car. As it was pouring there, we fled to a nearby shed, hoping to borrow an umbrella. There we met Sukhdev Singh, who volunteered to be our guide and even arranged for an umbrella for us.

Chand Baori is supposedly the deepest step well in the world. There are many Baoris in Gujarat & Rajasthan, but this one is different the Baori contains a palace as well. The Baori stuns you, amazes you, tickles the curious side of your brain. True marvel of engineering, it,s a must visit for everyone. Visiting Chand Baori was worth all the diversions we took and drove against heavy rains.

But we feel that the ASI (Archaeological Survey of India) is a bit ignorant about this site and it should be maintained in a better way.

After a long treacherous drive through the worst roads we had seen in last few years, we finally reached Ranthambore. A lot of asking-for-directions were needed to reach our resort, Tiger Machan. We were thrilled by the utter remoteness of the resort and the beautiful luxurious tents. Mr. Virender, the owner, was a good man too! We felt we deserved all this after a day full of un-happening events.

Next morning we reached at 5 AM to the Tourist Information Center to find out the bookings for the morning safari to the National park is already full. Now we can get only the evening safari and the bookings for it will start at 1 PM. Damn! This is not fair, we were cursing and cribbing.

Disappointed, we went to Sawai Madhopur city to get fuel, we didn’t even have enough fuel to go back to our resort. Found 3 fuel stations, but at 5:30 in the morning no one was ready to wake up. We kept banging on their doors, asking them for fuel. The care takers ignored us as if we were asking it for free. Finally one station opened up! And we fueled up the car.

While returning back to our resort, we realized that it’s drizzling, and by the time we reached back, it was raining heavily. This actually made us happy, we were like, whatever happens, happens for good. Had we taken the morning safari, we would have been sitting like a drenched chicken in those open Gypsies. Content, we slept again in our cozy tents. Getting up after a few hours, we found out that the Rain God, Zeus, has played spoilsport. We decided to leave Ranthambore as the evening safari would also not be possible now and left in the direction of Jaipur.

Agra was not a pleasant halt for us. You can call it our first bad experience on this trip.

Already frustrated with the Taj Mahal’s parking system, came another shocker… Taj Mahal is closed for public viewing for almost another 2 hours, due to some “Damn” VIP visiting it. We didn’t have that much time on hand, as we had to leave for Ranthambore. So we decided to go to the backside (Dashera Ghat) and take some pictures from there.

Somehow with lots of walking and fighting with the policemen, we reached Dasera Ghat. The view from there was not so good, could see only the dome of Taj. There was a boat, but no boatman in sight. As soon as a Japanese (think so) tourist was in sight, from no where the boatman appeared, and before we could even think of anything he had already striked the deal of Rs. 1000 for 15 mins of boat riding. And with 1000 bucks already in his pocket he was not interested in doing any more work.

But good part of it was, we met a nice couple from the UK. While talking to them, we found out that the guy was a Indian and the girl, Pakistani. Isn’t it great to have such a confluence

Coming back to the main gate of Taj, we saw a queue that was almost 2 kms long for entry into Taj, we dropped all our plans and hopes of seeing Taj Mahal this time and left it for a later date (not decided when). The damn VIP didn’t leave us after that also, we were stranded on the road to go outside Agra for almost half an hour as it was closed for the VIP.

So overall, Agra was a disaster for us!!

With a lots of expectations in our heart and lovely dreams in our eyes we landed at Delhi Airport. The first thing that struck us was the heat. Already fed up of the heat, we approached the guy from the car rental company. And there it was, a white Wagon-R which we were supposed to drive throughout Rajasthan. As he opened the boot, whoooops, it was all full with the CNG kit, absolutely no space for even for a rat to sleep…!

And at the very next moment we were figting with him, literally bulldozed him . Poor fellow, he offered us another Wagon-R, and guess what, we didn’t even like it. Can you imagine, driving through the great vast Thar desert in a Wagon-R without power-steering??? That’s it, we put our foot down – give us a vehicle which satisfies all our demands. And can you believe, we are now driving a beautiful black Innova .

Isn’t it an oppurtunity in disguise?!?!?

Hello Again!!!

Now that only a few days are left to start our dream… ohhh sorry… “The Trip“… are we nervous??? May be!!!

We have traveled a lot, driven a lot, but not exactly this way. Yes! We are excited. Driving more than 2500 Km in 8 days is like testing ourselves. Although we are trying to plan as much as we can, still there are things that we want to leave on our moods. We want to forget everything and enjoy the nature and each other’s company.

In this expedition we look forward to experience the lulls (sand dunes of Khuri) and the storms (the drive through the desert), the highs and the lows, the villages and the cities, the tigers (Ranthambore) and the rats (Deshnok), and also would like to be pleasantly surprised and amazed all the time.

We will be posting our experiences through the blogs and the pictures regularly throughout the trip.

Keep visiting us!!!

Hey Guys!

We have been planning a Rajasthan Roadtrip for October 2009. Now it is more or less on papers and confirmed. Just wanted to share the route plan with everyone.

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Please follow us on twitter for regular updates on the same. Also during the journey, you can track our real time location on “Here are we!” section of our blog on your right. Zoom levels will be restricted to city level for privacy.

Suggestions and relevant experiences are more than welcome.

More later! Keep following!!