At a distance of little less than 300 km Jaipur happens to be the
perfect destination for a quick holiday. Since my gang of friends are stationed in Delhi so Jaipur is the perfect weekend getaway. When I shared this travel idea with my friends
they really got excited.
So the planning for trip Jaipur began. Since three of my
friends are from Delhi itself we decided to do a road trip.I was to fly down
from Ahmedabad to join my friends for this wonderful trip.For me Delhi has its
own charm so it would be a double treat for me. I searched various Domestic Airlines that I
could take and found the 22.40 Indigo
Airlines flight to be
suitable. Even though there are a number of direct flights between Ahmedabad
and Jaipur and even my friends could have taken a flight to Jaipur and the
group could have met up there. However we chose to go by car as we wanted this to be a memorable road
trip.
I checked the weather of Jaipur for the next few days and
found it would be mostly sunny and warm. So when it came to making our packing
list we made sure to include
Sun Shades
Sun Block Cream
Caps
Umbrellas
Since it was going to be a road trip I got my car serviced
about a week before our actual date of travel. I ensured that a thorough check
of the car involved checking and topping up of the battery water. Coolant and
the car air conditioning. I also double checked that the tool kit was present
and it included the jack and the spanner.
Meanwhile we started looking
for a hotel and after much deliberation decided to book one that was in the
heart of the city and had quite a few tourist attraction in close vicinity of
the hotel.
For us the road travel took a little over 5 hours. The Delhi
Jaipur road is very smooth and well laid out.
It has 3 tolls between Delhi and Jaipur. Along the way there
are plenty of places to stop and take refreshments. All these stopovers make
the road trips that much more fun.
Just a day prior to our departure I got the fuel tank filled
and the air checked in the tyres including the stepney .
We had started about 6 in the morning and reached Jaipur around
11.30 AM.
We straight away went to our hotel and checked in. After
settling in we rested a while and then headed for lunch. By the time we
finished lunch it was 2.45 PM. We took some rest and by 4 PM we headed towards
the nearest market.
For the first day we wanted to cover the Johri Bazar so we
strolled in the area after parking our car and in the evening we headed towards
LMB or Lakshmi Mishthan Bhandar for a hearty meal.
By the time we headed back to our hotel the days driving and
all the excitement of traveling in an all boys group had begun to take its toll
and we were already feeling sleepy so we straight away went to bed.
Day 2
We had a breakfast and headed towards the airport as Rajesh
our friend from Mumbai was to join us. We brought him back to the hotel and
after his check in we headed towards the Hawa Mahal. We were quite intrigued by
the variety of handicrafts ,puppets and colorful bags that were on sale at the
local shops.
Our next stop was Jantar Mantar that is very close to the
Hawa Mahal.
By this time it was mid day and all this roaming about made
us quite hungry so we decided to have lunch at a local restaurant and had our
fill of Dal Bati Churma a local Rajasthani Dish.
Post lunch we went to Amber fort. It is a big fort and it
took us a couple of hours to explore it. At around 7 PM we attended the light
and sound show at the Amber fort.
On our return we stopped at the Jal Mahal and enjoyed the
view of the well lit structure in all its glory.
Day 3
It was time to do some shopping so we headed towards Bapu
Bazaar. This is a old style market with all sorts of shops lining both sides of
the road. One can buy all sorts of things here from clothes, handicrafts,
eatables and traditional Rajasthani foot wear .
It is a place where you would find both the locals as well
as the foreign tourists shopping side by side.There are plenty of choices to
suit every kind of shopper.
With bags full of shopping we headed to the local restaurant
and had some more local Rajasthani food .
In the evening we went to one of the numerous malls and we
had our dinner at the food court there.
Next day we checked out of our hotel room and started our
journey back to Delhi.
