rdb3

Not complete yet.. pics not uploaded..

The train reached Jodhpur at 5:30 in the morning. What an ungodly time to reach. Deepak had again arranged a guesthouse and a car, god bless his soul for that. We went straight to it and went to sleep. We got up at 8, got dressed and left for our city darshan. First stop Janta Mishtan Bhandar. Deepak treated us to some really awesome pyaj ki kachori and samosas. Then we had lassi which was more like shrikhand. Filled to the brim, we went to bus stop to get tickets for our onwards journey. Viraj, Vaibhav and Deepak would leave for home from Jodhpur and Sunil and I would go to Udaipur via Ranakpur and Kumbalgarh. We booked the next morning 5:30 bus for Ranakpur. There were also buses in the evening but we still had to see Jodhpur so couldn’t catch those. Next we went to the Mehrangarh fort. It was an imposing mammoth structure over the blue city of Jodhpur. One thing I liked was that there was a lift (you need to buy tickets for it) till the top of the fort. So you could actually go straight till the top and start you tour from there. We did the same. We explored each and every part of the palace, took lots of pics. After hours of roaming around, we left. We had lunch at a place called Pokhar which is right opposite the Janta Mishtan Bhandar. The Rajasthani food was really good. I had a mini thali which had gate ki sabji, paneer ki sabji, raita and roti. Deepak and Sunil also has thali’s. Vaibhav has haldi walle matter which was very tasty. And Viraj: rawa dosa!!! After once again testing the tensile strength of our stomachs we returned to the guesthouse. The light during the day was pretty harsh, so we decided to go to the Umaid Palace Hotel around sunset. This is a palace which has now been converted to a five star hotel. Visitors can see only a few parts of the palace. For the hotel you need to have an advanced booking. But once again we got late and by the time we reached Umaid Palace, the sun was already setting. Also the entry to the palace was closed for the tourists. This was something we weren’t aware of. The palace closes at 5pm. We were very disappointed. We dropped Viraj and Vaibhav to the station and then went to Kailana Lake. It was almost dark when we reached there. We went for a quick pedal boat ride around the lake and left. The last stop for the day was a place called On the Rocks which everyone had recommended was a good place for a drink. Before that we stopped at this juice centre which Deepak said was famous for its pinapple juice. Taking the first sip I could see why it was famous. The juice was really awesome. It even had ice cream. Then we went to On the Rocks. The place was an expected surprise. It has an American style décor. The ambience of the place was pretty good. The music could have been better had the DJ stuck to one genre. Deepak left after a few hours, Sunil and I sat there till the place shut down at 11. We had to leave the government guesthouse so we took a room near the bus stop. We walked back to the room and watched tv. We had to get up at 4:30. Pata nahi kaise uth payenge… one advice for booking room: check that if the bathroom has water, does the flush work and most important does the bathroom have sufficient ventilation… I slept at around 2am. Not a wise decision. But obviously I dint know how tiring the next day was going to be, or I would have slept at 9 pm itself..

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