My Rajasthan trip report and photos

Radjesh

Went to rajasthan in january, covered jaipur,udaipur,jodhpur and mount abu, thought its never too late and posted this. If u find it too long or boring just skip the reading & check out the photos

Day 01: We started from Delhi, took a late night bus from Delhi and reached Jaipur early morning. We covered Amber Fort, Kanak Vrindavan, Jal Mahal and Jantar Mantar. Amber Fort was the best of all, the Jal Mahal is seen only from a distance and is inaccessible

Day 02: We visited Ranthambhore national park. We took the 6 AM bus to Sawoi Madhopur and reached there @ 11.30 AM , quite a bumpy ride. We then met with a local tour operator there and he arranged for our safari in a canter Rs300/head. Also gypsy rides are available but slightly more expensive. The safari was for 2 hrs & it was quite good, unfortunately we couldn't any glimpse of the tigers. There are many routes for the safari, we went in route 2 which the driver told us was a very good route, but we were unfortunate. We left in the evening & reached Jaipur just before midnight.

Day 03: Last day in Jaipur, we visited Jaigarh and Nahargarh forts, City Palace and Gaitore. Both the forts were pretty good; one gets an entire view of the city from the Nahargarh fort. Later in the night we took the JP UDZ SUP EXP

Day 04: We reached Udaipur around 7 AM, stayed @ Hotel Shalimar Palace, a moderately priced hotel with good food & excellent service. After breakfast we started the sightseeing from Varma garden which is a small park, then Lake Pichola & Lake Fateh Sagar, visited Nehru Park which is a small island park in the center of Lake Fateh Sagar and finally the impressive Udaipur City palace. The city palace is very good seen from Lake Pichola, then there is also the Taj Lake palace and Jag Mandir in the middle of the lake.

Day 05: We hopped into a private travels bus that was taking us to some places around Udaipur; we visited a couple of places like Eklinji, Nathdwara etc… famous for the local deities there, definitely an uneventful trip. An entire day wasted; we should have headed to the nearby Chittorgarh or the Kumbalgarh fort instead.

Day 06: We took the morning bus to Mount Abu @ 8.30 AM and reached there @ 4 PM, the roads were full of potholes and in a bad state. We stayed at Rising Sun retreat a good place 1.5 kms from the town centre & there are no autos available in Mount Abu so it's all walk, up and down from the hotel to town unless you have a vehicle. Later in the evening we spent some time in Nakki Lake

Day 07: We did the sightseeing in Private travels bus that takes one to tourist places there. Only the Dilwara temples, Gurushikhar peak, Nakki Lake and Sunset point were noteworthy, the sculptures in Dilwara temples were amazing. Left Mount Abu for Abu road in the night, spent the night @ the railway station and took the RANAKPUR EXPRESS in early hours of the morning

Day 08: Reached Jodhpur around 10.30 AM, checked into Hotel Ratnawali located in the centre of the city. We started after lunch and covered Meharangarh Fort, Umaid Bhavan Palace and Jaswant Thada. The Meharangarh Fort was the best of all the forts, a grand structure. Umaid Bhavan palace was fantastic on the outside but was a disappointment as visitors were allowed only to visit a very small section, most part of it was converted to a hotel

Day 09: A trip to Rajasthan wouldn't be complete without a camel ride in the desert. So we headed to Osian (the desert starts here) which is abt 2.5 hrs from Jodhpur. We found a local who said he could arrange camel ride, the rates he told us were over the top. After a lot of bargaining we agreed upon a nominal fee. The ride was good but it was the sun that was killing us. While returning to Jodhpur we stopped @ Mandore garden.

Day 10: The last day we hired a taxi & headed to Guda Bishnoi village which is about 70kms from Jodhpur. Here the Black bucks and Chinkara roam freely along the barren lands; we did manage to get a few long distance shots of it. Also we visited the places of some artisans involved in pottery making and handlooms and then returned to Jodhpur in the evening. We took the JSM DLI EXPRESS and reached Delhi the next morning

Overall it was a very satisfying trip but unfortunately as we were short if time we missed out on the Desert circuit i.e . Jaisalmer – Bikaner.
Except on the last day we covered most of the places in an auto rickshaw, a real money saver.
Overall it cost us 9000 for the entire trip for 10 days from Delhi – Delhi, a huge difference when compared to the package tours

have uploaded some photos,
http://travel.webshots.com/album/556935772oFDlAi

Radjesh

Nick-H

Nice report, thanks for posting it.

Be interesting to know what was wrong with the places on Day 5 that you were so dispointed.

Also a lot of people might find your budget details useful.

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karnail

I was remembering my one day in jaisalmer Here it goes

manreet_16

good for my expenses..

Radjesh

Hi Nick
Being in south india which is so full of temples i have hardly visited any of them, so spending a day visting temples in Rajasthan was a bit disappointing for me, wud have settled for forts or palaces instead...

and for the budget details i didnt travel alone we were 4 of us, so the total split by 4 came to 9000/head.. of course it may vary with the numbers

smo

I did the same mistake. I was at Udaipur on 18th of last month and took the private tourist bus for the full day. Except Haladighati ( Rana Pratap Museum ) all places were temples. A better options would have been to take a private vehicle and covered Kumbhalgarh & Ranakpur.

Next day when we left for Jaipur ( Via Ajmer & Pushkar ) we again passed through Eklingji.

We had selected this because of Haladighati but there is nothing much to see except the museum.

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