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Hey all, this is the first long distance trip i've done on my bike, went around half of Rajasthan, and kept a travel log, where i wrote everyday night. Please bare with me since its around 3500 words, although so that you all dont get bored completely there are pictures as well. Enjoy and give feedback on the pictures if you can.
Day 1, 10th March 2009: Delhi to Pushkar- 408 km
4 AM the alarm rang to what felt like a complete sleepless night. Probably because it was, we (archit & me) went to sleep around 1130 the previous night, spent the entire night tossing and turning. It’s hard to fall asleep early when your body clock is accustomed to sleep around 2- 230 in the morning. Despite all this we managed to get about 2 hours of shut eye.
Once the initial shock of waking up at 4 AM sinks in and the light in the room is turned on, everything soon falls into place. With our eyes burning, we managed to get ourselves out of bed, one went to the bathroom the other (myself) went to make chai. After about an hour we were ready to leave, at 5 we carried our bags down and strapped them down to our motorcycles, said bye to dad and we were on our way.
We decided to head through MG road towards NH8, roads were empty but bad as usual. The morning ride seemed fine at the time, pleasant weather, cool breeze made it feel like a good day to ride. We headed down DLF and turned off at IFFCO chowk onto NH8, and that stretch of road is probably the most beautiful stretch of tarmac I’ve ever seen in many cities. We zipped down the highway all the way to Manesar, saw a few strange and a few bad accidents along the way caused by truckers, which forced traffic from our lane onto the incoming lane on the highway, as our lane was blocked because of the accident. Once that stretch was over, we moved onto the right side of the the highway and things were all good again, only for a while though.
Once we were out of Manesar, the temperature just dropped like no one’s business, and the pleasant breeze I felt a while ago started to feel like gale force icy winds. For about 2 hours we rode through this, barely carrying enough warm clothes thinking that “we were going to the desert, it doesn’t get cold there in the day”. After about 2 hours at around 730 we stopped for chai as our bodies we demanding warmth from some source. Once we stopped it was still so cold that it felt like my balls were going to shrivel up and fall off and my nipples got hard enough to cut glass.
First stop: Too cold to ride
My Baby
Once we were warmed up, we got back on the road and just kept riding keeping an average speed of about 70 – 80 kmph. Since this was the first long distance trip for the both of us, we decided we were going to drive with our heads and not adrenaline. About 2 hours in I started to feel very sleepy, to a point where I almost shut my eyes for 2 seconds. I just had to pull over, got off and washed my face a couple of times, smoked a few cigarettes and everything was fine again.
Pretty much from this point (100-150 km from Delhi) to Jaipur, it gets pretty standard driving on the two lane highway. Since it was quite a drab, a few times on empty stretches the both of us would duck our heads behind the visor and twist the throttle to its fullest, and feel the engine come alive and just keep rising from 6000 RPM. The first time I got my motorcycle (Pulsar 200) to 115km/h, the second 119 km/h and the third 120 km/h.
Once we were out of the Jaipur bypass, we stopped to dehydrate, rehydrate and have a smoke and give our behind a well deserved rest. I feel by the end of trip that my behind will be hard enough to make leather products. Back on the road again we headed towards Ajmer which was around 150- 170 km away, after covering 2/3rd of the this stretch, Archit starts to feel sleepy to so we pull into a Cafe Coffee Day of all places on the highway, about 70 km from Ajmer. We drank a few coffees and caught 20 winks which did the both of us really good, then had 2 espresso shots and were back on the road and next stop was Pushkar , and we were making goodtime. We left around 130, and after the national highways finished, the road to Pushkar were via the state highways, which were single lane all the way to Pushkar.
Although 20 km from Pushkar the road began to get interesting, filled with dips and crests, curving along the harsh landscape, we started to feel alive on the motorcycles. Finally at around 345 we reached Pushkar, we checked into the Pushkar Inn near the lake, then got something to eat and then just collapsed for about 2 hours.
Day 2, 11th March 2009: In Pushkar
After a good night’s sleep, I woke up around 10 AM; I woke up to Holi in Pushkar. Once all the morning business was done, we decided to go out and see what Holi would be like in Pushkar. It didn’t take long, a few hundred metres from the hotel we got surrounded by little children who started throwing gulal at us. Once we were coloured, we headed down the street towards the town square, and on the way there we were bombarded with more gulal and water colour. We soon realised we were getting closer to the town square, because slowly we could start to hear the unmistakeable beats of psy trance. When we reached the square, there was a huge cloud of pink mist just hanging in the air from the ground till about 20 feet up. People were dancing like mad and throwing colour on everyone who passed by, be it Indian or foreigners, even at times tearing peoples shirts off and dowsing them with even more colour. Archit got his shirt torn off as well in his relentless yet futile quest for bhang lassi. Soon after we left the madness behind and headed back to the hotel to get a bite to eat, after which we decided to explore Pushkar by foot.
Funky Tree outside sunset cafe
We reached a place along the ghats where there was a bridge we had to cross to get to the other side, and had to take our shoes off in order to cross. So in good spirits we did, and soon realised that the stones of the bridge were burning hot, so hot that I did end up burning my foot, which now has turned into a nasty boil. We walked a bit more through the village and headed back to the hotel after about an hour’s walk because I couldn’t walk anymore on account of burning my foot.
After chilling out for about an hour or so we decided to go for a ride around and outside Pushkar for a little while, so we got on our motorcycles and headed out on the road towards Merta city. It was beautiful sweeping, smooth road through the desert and the Aravali hills, where we stopped a couple of times for a photo op of our bikes along the landscape and sunset.
The open road
After an hour’s ride the sun began to disappear behind the hills and slowly started to turn the bright yellow sky into a gradient of pale orange to blue, we took this as our cue to head back to the hotel and chill out.
Panoramic view from sunset cafe of Pushkar Lake
Day 3, 12th March 2009: Pushkar to Jaisalmer- 480 KM
The day began again at 4 AM as we had to leave early to get to Jaisalmer before sunset, luckily we slept early the previous night and managed to get a few hours of good sleep.
After we packed, we left the hotel at Pushkar at 530 AM, and headed towards Merta City, from where we decided to take the back roads through numerous villages and small towns, so as to avoid the highway which was a longer route. Driving through dark roads which were sweeping along the landscape, we got pretty far before I realised that I need to refuel, luckily we found a petrol pump which had extra premium which was open before sunrise. I refuelled about 14.2 litres for a full tank, which meant that my fuel consumption was about 31.2 KM/PL. THATS NOT GOOD AT ALL. Although that was probably because on the highways to Pushkar, I got a bit throttle happy. Anyhow we got back on the state highway where it had gotten really cold, even colder than the Delhi- Jaipur route. We kept heading out along the deserted roads, where on either side was the desert which was lit up brightly by the moon which was which was still out in all its glory.
After riding for another 20 minutes, I saw probably one of the most glorious things. Since we were still riding just before sunrise, suddenly dawn began to break out. On a completely deserted road, the moon still shines bright in front of me, and behind me the first rays of light of dawn begin to break, turning the sky to a light blue to orange. With the darkness of the night in front of me, I glanced into the rear view mirror and saw the sun rising up from behind the horizon, while the moon was still out in front of me. I felt like I was riding through a dream, and it’s something I’ll never forget.
Once this moment passed, I focused my attention back on the road and we soon moved off the state highway and onto the village back roads. And my god was it terrible, it’s like they smoothened the entire road and then smashed it to bits every 50 metres or so, it’s like the road couldn’t make up its mind whether it would be smooth or broken. After about 2 hours of riding through this we finally made it back onto the state highway, although I think it took us 2 hours to get there because I think we took a wrong turn somewhere, but luckily ended up back on the main highway.
At this point we stopped at a dhaba for a little while because we were both knackered and in need for chai and a bit of rest for us and our motorcycles as well because I’m pretty sure that the shocks got a pretty good thrashing on the road. We got up after 15 minutes and were back on the road and eventually reached Jodhpur, the ride was pretty ordinary since they were big highways. We stopped over at the RTDC in Jodhpur where we cleaned up, ate and rest for about an hour or so, it took us nearly 6 hours but we made it there. At around 12 we left and the temperature just soared up, and it became blisteringly hot, it took us about half an hour to get out of the city and we headed towards Pokaran to go to Jaisalmer.
Lone and hot road to Jaisalmer
The ride here was a hard one, hotter than hell, covered by sand on both sides with mostly dry shrubs and dead trees and no shade since the sun was directly overhead. After 2 hours of this heat, it started to get unbearable, we stopped a few times to stretch our legs and rehydrate ourselves on account of the heat. Soon I wanted to give up and head back to Jodhpur as the heat was getting too much for my body to handle. But my annoyance and anger got the better of me and I said **** it, let’s keep going. We kept going on in that heat for a while, so we wanted to stop and get our tyre pressure checked because of the heat, but strangely no petrol pump between Jodhpur and Pokaran could give us any air, either because their compressor wasn’t working or they didn’t have the right nozzle for our motorcycles. Once we reached Pokaran we finally got our tyres checked and drank about 2 litres of water each.
At this point the heat began to get maddening, enough was enough, I grit my teeth, tightened my wrist and gave my motorcycle all she had, and did she respond. Pokaran to Jaisalmer is about 110 KM, which we managed to cover in about 1 hour 10 minutes. While we were on the road, I could see huge windmills, I thought I was getting delirious because of the heat, then I realised they were the wind turbine farms outside of Jaisalmer. About half an hour after the wind farm we were at the fort gates, we were at Jaisalmer.
Day 4, 13th March 2009: In Jaisalmer
Friday the 13th, thought it was going to be a bad day for us, but things didn’t turn out that way. We woke up relatively ok around 10, and decided to go check out Jaisalmer and the fort, we got out of the hotel and started walking around through all the narrow alleys where we would get lost but then find our way out again towards the fort gate.
We found the fort eventually, but before we went in, Archit decided to have bhang which he finally found. The shop was a government authorised bhang shop where you could get bhang lassi and bhang cookies, and it turned out to be the same shop that was featured on the TV show ‘Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations’ on Travel and living. And like they showed on that show, they had various potency levels of bhang, the strongest being “Super Duper, Full power for 24 hour, No Shave No Shower”. After he drank his lassi we headed towards the fort through the first gate into a huge courtyard, which led up to another gate. The entire fort was made of yellow sandstone, which was glistening in the bright yellow Rajasthan sun.
Jaisalmer Fort
We kept walking until we reached a smaller courtyard, which was in the main square of the fort, from where all the hotels and restaurants started along with families living there who have been here for generations.
Silohuettes
Alleys of Jaisalmer Fort
Stallion of the Desert
Old Meets New
We picked one alley and just started walking and getting lost, where we saw people who still live in the fort, and have been living for a while now, and how the old has fused with the new, and how they live their entire lives there. Got many nice pictures there, with a mixture of dark alley shots to brightly lit up sandstone. The fort itself was quite small as we walked around it in about half an hour or so.
Since the fort visit was short lived, we headed back out of the fort for some lunch at a rooftop cafe just outside the fort. We sat there trying to figure out what we could do the next; we figured we could go see the sand dunes, which were just 40 KM outside of Jaisalmer. I didn’t feel like driving that distance at the time because my behind was still recovering from yesterdays 13 hour ride, so we asked a few taxi and jeeps and they said 800 to take us there and back. Since this was out of the question, I reluctantly decided to drive there and back, so we set off around 430 to make it in time for the sunset. We were headed to an area called Sam dunes, most of the way there it didn’t look like the dunes were anywhere close, since there were only dry shrubs and bushes all around. After about 45 minutes we reached the dunes, all we could see were dunes just rolling over each other for miles. Once we parked our bikes, we were surrounded by a horde of children, all trying to convince why we should go with them on their camels, the amount of noise sounded worse than a fish market.
Desert Panorama
We picked our guides, both of whom were children, and headed towards our camels, and were soon up on them and I had forgotten how uncomfortable these things used to be. Once on the camel, I started chit- chatting with my guide, and he told me that the camel I was on was a racing camel which races every year at the Desert Festival in Jaisalmer. A fact I learned moments later, when my camel for no reason and out of nowhere just bolted like a bat out of hell. I can safely say that my balls will never feel the same again, but it wasn’t all bad since I wasn’t suffering alone, Archit too was having his own set of problems in his nether region. He told his guide to slow his camel down since his family jewels were getting crushed on account of his tight jeans, the camel guide said, and I shit you not, “Jeans bhi bahut tight aur camel bhi bahut tight”. We burst out laughing after we heard this, and is probably the coolest line I’ve heard on this trip.
Desert Sunset
After an hour’s ride on the camels we got off and lay down on the dunes and just watched the sun as it started to set in the horizon over the dunes, just like in the movies. Once the sun jus reached the horizon we got up and headed back to the hotel on our bikes, with the sun setting right behind us.
Day 5, 14th March 2009: Jaisalmer to Ajmer- 485 km
As everyday began for us at 4AM, why should this day be any different, so we packed up and left the hotel by like 5AM. On the drive out of the city, I saw the windmill farm again, only this time I could see its blinking lights putting on one last show for us as we rode out. This time it wasn’t as cold in the morning as it was during the previous few days, although don’t get me wrong, it was still quite chilly for us on our motorcycles. We stopped about after an hour’s ride at a small village and had chai with the locals who were sitting around a small fire and invited us to sit with them. After we warmed ourselves up we pushed on towards Ajmer via Jodhpur, and about after 15 minutes the sun started to rise, and it looked absolutely gorgeous over the desert landscape. Saw this as a good photo op moment so we stopped again for about 5 minutes or so.
Desert sunrise
The road forward was desolate as in the drive to Jaisalmer, but was slightly better as it wasn’t that hot. We soon came across a desert market where they were selling everything from different coloured turbans, to chillies, massive wooden doors and utensils. We found a shop at the end of the market which was selling knives and swords, native to Rajasthan, so we picked up a knife each for ourselves which we would have to get sharpened ourselves since they only sold them with dull edges.
After riding for about 4-5 hours we finally reached Jodhpur, where we made a pit stop at the RTDC, for about an hour or so to rest and replenish ourselves. We got back on the road and headed towards Ajmer, and this time took the right road instead of the village back roads, which we had taken earlier on our way from Pushkar. We Eventually Reached Ajmer, and there isn’t much to write about the ride because after 1500 odd kilometres, the highways tend to get a bit redundant and boring.
We entered Ajmer city and headed towards Dargah bazaar, where we stopped at a hotel for the night as we were heading back to Delhi the next morning. After resting for about 2 hours, we headed out to see Ajmer Sharif (AKA Dargah Sharif), which is supposed to be the holiest ground for Islam in India as I was told. We went through the narrow streets of the market, which was completely reminiscent of Chandni Chowk, until we reached the large wooden and silver gates of Dargah Sharif. We covered our heads and went and gave darshan in the tomb, and it was packed with people all coming to pay their respects and get blessings from Khwaja Muin- Ud- Udin Chisti, in whose honour the tomb was built.
Once we were out of the Dargah, we headed out for some street food, and found an awesome kebab guy around the corner, where mutton seekh kebabs were 5 rupees each and they were brilliant. We got a few more packed and took it back to the hotel to eat, after which we called it a night.
We left the next morning for Delhi around 9 AM, there isn’t much to write since it got pretty boring on the ride, and all we did was try to make good time. We reached home in south Delhi around 530, we would reached sooner, but we stopped quite a bit on the ride back to just chill out on a chaarpai under a tree.
Day 1, 10th March 2009: Delhi to Pushkar- 408 km
4 AM the alarm rang to what felt like a complete sleepless night. Probably because it was, we (archit & me) went to sleep around 1130 the previous night, spent the entire night tossing and turning. It’s hard to fall asleep early when your body clock is accustomed to sleep around 2- 230 in the morning. Despite all this we managed to get about 2 hours of shut eye.
Once the initial shock of waking up at 4 AM sinks in and the light in the room is turned on, everything soon falls into place. With our eyes burning, we managed to get ourselves out of bed, one went to the bathroom the other (myself) went to make chai. After about an hour we were ready to leave, at 5 we carried our bags down and strapped them down to our motorcycles, said bye to dad and we were on our way.
We decided to head through MG road towards NH8, roads were empty but bad as usual. The morning ride seemed fine at the time, pleasant weather, cool breeze made it feel like a good day to ride. We headed down DLF and turned off at IFFCO chowk onto NH8, and that stretch of road is probably the most beautiful stretch of tarmac I’ve ever seen in many cities. We zipped down the highway all the way to Manesar, saw a few strange and a few bad accidents along the way caused by truckers, which forced traffic from our lane onto the incoming lane on the highway, as our lane was blocked because of the accident. Once that stretch was over, we moved onto the right side of the the highway and things were all good again, only for a while though.
Once we were out of Manesar, the temperature just dropped like no one’s business, and the pleasant breeze I felt a while ago started to feel like gale force icy winds. For about 2 hours we rode through this, barely carrying enough warm clothes thinking that “we were going to the desert, it doesn’t get cold there in the day”. After about 2 hours at around 730 we stopped for chai as our bodies we demanding warmth from some source. Once we stopped it was still so cold that it felt like my balls were going to shrivel up and fall off and my nipples got hard enough to cut glass.
First stop: Too cold to ride
My Baby
Once we were warmed up, we got back on the road and just kept riding keeping an average speed of about 70 – 80 kmph. Since this was the first long distance trip for the both of us, we decided we were going to drive with our heads and not adrenaline. About 2 hours in I started to feel very sleepy, to a point where I almost shut my eyes for 2 seconds. I just had to pull over, got off and washed my face a couple of times, smoked a few cigarettes and everything was fine again.
Pretty much from this point (100-150 km from Delhi) to Jaipur, it gets pretty standard driving on the two lane highway. Since it was quite a drab, a few times on empty stretches the both of us would duck our heads behind the visor and twist the throttle to its fullest, and feel the engine come alive and just keep rising from 6000 RPM. The first time I got my motorcycle (Pulsar 200) to 115km/h, the second 119 km/h and the third 120 km/h.
Once we were out of the Jaipur bypass, we stopped to dehydrate, rehydrate and have a smoke and give our behind a well deserved rest. I feel by the end of trip that my behind will be hard enough to make leather products. Back on the road again we headed towards Ajmer which was around 150- 170 km away, after covering 2/3rd of the this stretch, Archit starts to feel sleepy to so we pull into a Cafe Coffee Day of all places on the highway, about 70 km from Ajmer. We drank a few coffees and caught 20 winks which did the both of us really good, then had 2 espresso shots and were back on the road and next stop was Pushkar , and we were making goodtime. We left around 130, and after the national highways finished, the road to Pushkar were via the state highways, which were single lane all the way to Pushkar.
Although 20 km from Pushkar the road began to get interesting, filled with dips and crests, curving along the harsh landscape, we started to feel alive on the motorcycles. Finally at around 345 we reached Pushkar, we checked into the Pushkar Inn near the lake, then got something to eat and then just collapsed for about 2 hours.
Day 2, 11th March 2009: In Pushkar
After a good night’s sleep, I woke up around 10 AM; I woke up to Holi in Pushkar. Once all the morning business was done, we decided to go out and see what Holi would be like in Pushkar. It didn’t take long, a few hundred metres from the hotel we got surrounded by little children who started throwing gulal at us. Once we were coloured, we headed down the street towards the town square, and on the way there we were bombarded with more gulal and water colour. We soon realised we were getting closer to the town square, because slowly we could start to hear the unmistakeable beats of psy trance. When we reached the square, there was a huge cloud of pink mist just hanging in the air from the ground till about 20 feet up. People were dancing like mad and throwing colour on everyone who passed by, be it Indian or foreigners, even at times tearing peoples shirts off and dowsing them with even more colour. Archit got his shirt torn off as well in his relentless yet futile quest for bhang lassi. Soon after we left the madness behind and headed back to the hotel to get a bite to eat, after which we decided to explore Pushkar by foot.
Funky Tree outside sunset cafe
We reached a place along the ghats where there was a bridge we had to cross to get to the other side, and had to take our shoes off in order to cross. So in good spirits we did, and soon realised that the stones of the bridge were burning hot, so hot that I did end up burning my foot, which now has turned into a nasty boil. We walked a bit more through the village and headed back to the hotel after about an hour’s walk because I couldn’t walk anymore on account of burning my foot.
After chilling out for about an hour or so we decided to go for a ride around and outside Pushkar for a little while, so we got on our motorcycles and headed out on the road towards Merta city. It was beautiful sweeping, smooth road through the desert and the Aravali hills, where we stopped a couple of times for a photo op of our bikes along the landscape and sunset.
The open road
After an hour’s ride the sun began to disappear behind the hills and slowly started to turn the bright yellow sky into a gradient of pale orange to blue, we took this as our cue to head back to the hotel and chill out.
Panoramic view from sunset cafe of Pushkar Lake
Day 3, 12th March 2009: Pushkar to Jaisalmer- 480 KM
The day began again at 4 AM as we had to leave early to get to Jaisalmer before sunset, luckily we slept early the previous night and managed to get a few hours of good sleep.
After we packed, we left the hotel at Pushkar at 530 AM, and headed towards Merta City, from where we decided to take the back roads through numerous villages and small towns, so as to avoid the highway which was a longer route. Driving through dark roads which were sweeping along the landscape, we got pretty far before I realised that I need to refuel, luckily we found a petrol pump which had extra premium which was open before sunrise. I refuelled about 14.2 litres for a full tank, which meant that my fuel consumption was about 31.2 KM/PL. THATS NOT GOOD AT ALL. Although that was probably because on the highways to Pushkar, I got a bit throttle happy. Anyhow we got back on the state highway where it had gotten really cold, even colder than the Delhi- Jaipur route. We kept heading out along the deserted roads, where on either side was the desert which was lit up brightly by the moon which was which was still out in all its glory.
After riding for another 20 minutes, I saw probably one of the most glorious things. Since we were still riding just before sunrise, suddenly dawn began to break out. On a completely deserted road, the moon still shines bright in front of me, and behind me the first rays of light of dawn begin to break, turning the sky to a light blue to orange. With the darkness of the night in front of me, I glanced into the rear view mirror and saw the sun rising up from behind the horizon, while the moon was still out in front of me. I felt like I was riding through a dream, and it’s something I’ll never forget.
Once this moment passed, I focused my attention back on the road and we soon moved off the state highway and onto the village back roads. And my god was it terrible, it’s like they smoothened the entire road and then smashed it to bits every 50 metres or so, it’s like the road couldn’t make up its mind whether it would be smooth or broken. After about 2 hours of riding through this we finally made it back onto the state highway, although I think it took us 2 hours to get there because I think we took a wrong turn somewhere, but luckily ended up back on the main highway.
At this point we stopped at a dhaba for a little while because we were both knackered and in need for chai and a bit of rest for us and our motorcycles as well because I’m pretty sure that the shocks got a pretty good thrashing on the road. We got up after 15 minutes and were back on the road and eventually reached Jodhpur, the ride was pretty ordinary since they were big highways. We stopped over at the RTDC in Jodhpur where we cleaned up, ate and rest for about an hour or so, it took us nearly 6 hours but we made it there. At around 12 we left and the temperature just soared up, and it became blisteringly hot, it took us about half an hour to get out of the city and we headed towards Pokaran to go to Jaisalmer.
Lone and hot road to Jaisalmer
The ride here was a hard one, hotter than hell, covered by sand on both sides with mostly dry shrubs and dead trees and no shade since the sun was directly overhead. After 2 hours of this heat, it started to get unbearable, we stopped a few times to stretch our legs and rehydrate ourselves on account of the heat. Soon I wanted to give up and head back to Jodhpur as the heat was getting too much for my body to handle. But my annoyance and anger got the better of me and I said **** it, let’s keep going. We kept going on in that heat for a while, so we wanted to stop and get our tyre pressure checked because of the heat, but strangely no petrol pump between Jodhpur and Pokaran could give us any air, either because their compressor wasn’t working or they didn’t have the right nozzle for our motorcycles. Once we reached Pokaran we finally got our tyres checked and drank about 2 litres of water each.
At this point the heat began to get maddening, enough was enough, I grit my teeth, tightened my wrist and gave my motorcycle all she had, and did she respond. Pokaran to Jaisalmer is about 110 KM, which we managed to cover in about 1 hour 10 minutes. While we were on the road, I could see huge windmills, I thought I was getting delirious because of the heat, then I realised they were the wind turbine farms outside of Jaisalmer. About half an hour after the wind farm we were at the fort gates, we were at Jaisalmer.
Day 4, 13th March 2009: In Jaisalmer
Friday the 13th, thought it was going to be a bad day for us, but things didn’t turn out that way. We woke up relatively ok around 10, and decided to go check out Jaisalmer and the fort, we got out of the hotel and started walking around through all the narrow alleys where we would get lost but then find our way out again towards the fort gate.
We found the fort eventually, but before we went in, Archit decided to have bhang which he finally found. The shop was a government authorised bhang shop where you could get bhang lassi and bhang cookies, and it turned out to be the same shop that was featured on the TV show ‘Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations’ on Travel and living. And like they showed on that show, they had various potency levels of bhang, the strongest being “Super Duper, Full power for 24 hour, No Shave No Shower”. After he drank his lassi we headed towards the fort through the first gate into a huge courtyard, which led up to another gate. The entire fort was made of yellow sandstone, which was glistening in the bright yellow Rajasthan sun.
Jaisalmer Fort
We kept walking until we reached a smaller courtyard, which was in the main square of the fort, from where all the hotels and restaurants started along with families living there who have been here for generations.
Silohuettes
Alleys of Jaisalmer Fort
Stallion of the Desert
Old Meets New
We picked one alley and just started walking and getting lost, where we saw people who still live in the fort, and have been living for a while now, and how the old has fused with the new, and how they live their entire lives there. Got many nice pictures there, with a mixture of dark alley shots to brightly lit up sandstone. The fort itself was quite small as we walked around it in about half an hour or so.
Since the fort visit was short lived, we headed back out of the fort for some lunch at a rooftop cafe just outside the fort. We sat there trying to figure out what we could do the next; we figured we could go see the sand dunes, which were just 40 KM outside of Jaisalmer. I didn’t feel like driving that distance at the time because my behind was still recovering from yesterdays 13 hour ride, so we asked a few taxi and jeeps and they said 800 to take us there and back. Since this was out of the question, I reluctantly decided to drive there and back, so we set off around 430 to make it in time for the sunset. We were headed to an area called Sam dunes, most of the way there it didn’t look like the dunes were anywhere close, since there were only dry shrubs and bushes all around. After about 45 minutes we reached the dunes, all we could see were dunes just rolling over each other for miles. Once we parked our bikes, we were surrounded by a horde of children, all trying to convince why we should go with them on their camels, the amount of noise sounded worse than a fish market.
Desert Panorama
We picked our guides, both of whom were children, and headed towards our camels, and were soon up on them and I had forgotten how uncomfortable these things used to be. Once on the camel, I started chit- chatting with my guide, and he told me that the camel I was on was a racing camel which races every year at the Desert Festival in Jaisalmer. A fact I learned moments later, when my camel for no reason and out of nowhere just bolted like a bat out of hell. I can safely say that my balls will never feel the same again, but it wasn’t all bad since I wasn’t suffering alone, Archit too was having his own set of problems in his nether region. He told his guide to slow his camel down since his family jewels were getting crushed on account of his tight jeans, the camel guide said, and I shit you not, “Jeans bhi bahut tight aur camel bhi bahut tight”. We burst out laughing after we heard this, and is probably the coolest line I’ve heard on this trip.
Desert Sunset
After an hour’s ride on the camels we got off and lay down on the dunes and just watched the sun as it started to set in the horizon over the dunes, just like in the movies. Once the sun jus reached the horizon we got up and headed back to the hotel on our bikes, with the sun setting right behind us.
Day 5, 14th March 2009: Jaisalmer to Ajmer- 485 km
As everyday began for us at 4AM, why should this day be any different, so we packed up and left the hotel by like 5AM. On the drive out of the city, I saw the windmill farm again, only this time I could see its blinking lights putting on one last show for us as we rode out. This time it wasn’t as cold in the morning as it was during the previous few days, although don’t get me wrong, it was still quite chilly for us on our motorcycles. We stopped about after an hour’s ride at a small village and had chai with the locals who were sitting around a small fire and invited us to sit with them. After we warmed ourselves up we pushed on towards Ajmer via Jodhpur, and about after 15 minutes the sun started to rise, and it looked absolutely gorgeous over the desert landscape. Saw this as a good photo op moment so we stopped again for about 5 minutes or so.
Desert sunrise
The road forward was desolate as in the drive to Jaisalmer, but was slightly better as it wasn’t that hot. We soon came across a desert market where they were selling everything from different coloured turbans, to chillies, massive wooden doors and utensils. We found a shop at the end of the market which was selling knives and swords, native to Rajasthan, so we picked up a knife each for ourselves which we would have to get sharpened ourselves since they only sold them with dull edges.
After riding for about 4-5 hours we finally reached Jodhpur, where we made a pit stop at the RTDC, for about an hour or so to rest and replenish ourselves. We got back on the road and headed towards Ajmer, and this time took the right road instead of the village back roads, which we had taken earlier on our way from Pushkar. We Eventually Reached Ajmer, and there isn’t much to write about the ride because after 1500 odd kilometres, the highways tend to get a bit redundant and boring.
We entered Ajmer city and headed towards Dargah bazaar, where we stopped at a hotel for the night as we were heading back to Delhi the next morning. After resting for about 2 hours, we headed out to see Ajmer Sharif (AKA Dargah Sharif), which is supposed to be the holiest ground for Islam in India as I was told. We went through the narrow streets of the market, which was completely reminiscent of Chandni Chowk, until we reached the large wooden and silver gates of Dargah Sharif. We covered our heads and went and gave darshan in the tomb, and it was packed with people all coming to pay their respects and get blessings from Khwaja Muin- Ud- Udin Chisti, in whose honour the tomb was built.
Once we were out of the Dargah, we headed out for some street food, and found an awesome kebab guy around the corner, where mutton seekh kebabs were 5 rupees each and they were brilliant. We got a few more packed and took it back to the hotel to eat, after which we called it a night.
We left the next morning for Delhi around 9 AM, there isn’t much to write since it got pretty boring on the ride, and all we did was try to make good time. We reached home in south Delhi around 530, we would reached sooner, but we stopped quite a bit on the ride back to just chill out on a chaarpai under a tree.
.....and why does archit sound so desperate for bhaang in this ride???dont tell me that it was one of your motivations to hit rajasthan
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