So with this blog I assure that you can get best of Rajasthan... Enjoy the reading...I know its very big, but covering 10 days of lovely journey need that....
Started from: Bangalore (21st Dec 2015)
Gang: Me, my Wife and 7 years old Son (It's one more challenge to take my Son for such a long trip)
Number of Days: 10 Days, 9 Nights
Mode of travel: Bangalore to Jaipur up and down in flight. From Jaipur used Swift Desire to travel.
Total KM traveled: Excluding Journey between Bangalore and Jaipur, We traveled 2200 KM in total !!!! (Now you know why I said its a big state)
Places: Jaipur, Bikaner, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Udaipur, Ranthambore, Back to Jaipur (All places are well connected by highways)
Travel Agent: Deejohn Holidays. We got this agent from Travel Triangle. He arranged the hotels, Car and planned our trip.
MAP
Here is the Story....
Day-1: Place: Jaipur / Hotel: Arya Niwas
Flight reached Jaipur at sharp 8:30am after 2.5 hours of journey. Cab was ready to pick us and dropped at our Hotel. Got freshen up and started our Side seeing at 11am.
Our First place to Visit was Amer fort/Amber Fort. Palace is the on top of the hill. You can go to top near main gate using steps, Car, or using elephant Ride. Yes that was really nice to take elephant ride to top. Took a local guide who charged Rs250 and few parts of the fort. Getting a nice guide is a matter of luck :( ...And we were little unlucky with that. Actually you can try audio guide which is just Rs.150 which may give more details. It almost took 2 hours to see this magnificent fort. Amba mean mother and hence the name. This fort was initially started by Raja Maan Singh at 16th Century. Later many decedents extended this palace. Mainly Sawai Jai Sing did so many improvements to this palace. In his time only, JaiSing left this fort and moved to Jaipur city where he built pink City in Jaipur city. They moved out of this fort due to water problems.Few best place in palace to check out are
- Courtyards: Entire palace divided in to 4 Courtyards. Each courtyard have special items to look for and created for a purpose.
- Gates: It mainly have 2 gates called as Sun gate and Moon Gate based on the direction they are at sun path. From Elephant and walk you reach Sun gate. From Car you reach Moon gate.
- Sila Devi temple: Nice small Devi temple with nice carved Silver door.
- Sheesh mahal: Built at 1727. Entire room is decorated with small mirrors. Long back Queen wants to see stars, but king didn't like her to sleep in open area. So he created this place, where at night just using small lights reflects through hundreds of small mirrors and looks like starts. Place to place is connected with a very narrow caves so that it helps to counter attack if some one attacks the fort.
- Maota Lake View: This the water source for entire fort and have a beautiful garden. There is no entry to this place rather you get a beautiful view from this palace only.
Almost took 2 hours to visit this palace and we are tired completely.
Quick Local Tips:
- Better go for audio guide which gives more details. As you may get a fake guide most of the times with less information.
- Reach this place morning before 11 or after 4 to get the elephant ride. Costs around 1100 per elephant. 2 people with kid can sit on it.
- Do not do any shopping where guides take you to local handicraft shops near fort where you are cheated for sure.
- Better go for audio guide which gives more details. As you may get a fake guide most of the times with less information.
- Reach this place morning before 11 or after 4 to get the elephant ride. Costs around 1100 per elephant. 2 people with kid can sit on it.
- Do not do any shopping where guides take you to local handicraft shops near fort where you are cheated for sure.
- If possible plan to visit this place at 4pm so that you can see the light and sound show at 6pm...I heard it will be very nice and informative...
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| View Of Amer Fort from down |
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| Moon Gate Entrance |
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| Maota Lake and Garden |
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| Sheesh Mahal |
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| Courtyard 4 view |
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| Ganesh Pole Entrance |
Jalamahal:Stopped at this place in return from Amer fort. Nothing to see, just a small palace in center of lake. No entry to this place. Took few photos. Its already 2pm and we are too hungry. Got in to some hotel and done with Lunch.
Shopping:
Our Cab driver took us to "Shree Neelakanth Export" shop near airport stating it's a factory outlet. So we visited this place and did the shopping. Later we realized this is fraud place. Prices are double the local markets and they even tell that they can courier the items freely to your home. You may end up in damaged product also. After selected the item, they tell that it needs some extra stitching before they give you where they basically dupe you with some other product. We took courier option to avoid carrying with us. Sadly at delivery we have paid 300 Rs as shipping charges. There are big fraud money maker company, do not go to this shop. Every cab driver takes to this places as they get huge commissions.
So Best place for shopping is local Bazars. We did our shopping at Bapu bazar. It was an Amazing street with so many things to choose... Items you mainly get are...Quilts...Rajasthan is famous of these low weighted quilts which are soo soft and very less weight (100 grams) and still protects from cold. You get quilts from starting Rs.300 to Rs.5000.
Our Cab driver took us to "Shree Neelakanth Export" shop near airport stating it's a factory outlet. So we visited this place and did the shopping. Later we realized this is fraud place. Prices are double the local markets and they even tell that they can courier the items freely to your home. You may end up in damaged product also. After selected the item, they tell that it needs some extra stitching before they give you where they basically dupe you with some other product. We took courier option to avoid carrying with us. Sadly at delivery we have paid 300 Rs as shipping charges. There are big fraud money maker company, do not go to this shop. Every cab driver takes to this places as they get huge commissions.
So Best place for shopping is local Bazars. We did our shopping at Bapu bazar. It was an Amazing street with so many things to choose... Items you mainly get are...Quilts...Rajasthan is famous of these low weighted quilts which are soo soft and very less weight (100 grams) and still protects from cold. You get quilts from starting Rs.300 to Rs.5000.
Quick Local Tips: Bargain badly here. Atleast start from 50% price and end up at max 75% of price. Or move on next shop. Even before u leave the shop, they will call you and accepts you price :) ...
Choki Dhani...
Finally checked in to this place at 6pm. To see entire Rajasthan Culture at one place, this is the best one. They Charge Rs.900 per head which is too Costly. Food is pathetic. But you have so many things to enjoy there like local magic shows, Traditional dances, puppet shows, traditional music stalls, camel/elephant/horse rides...Again you may have to pay Rs.10/20 for few rides and games.
By 9:30pm we are completely down with many things we did. Back to hotel and had a nice sleep.
Day-2: Place: Jaipur / Hotel: Arya Niwas
Done with nice breakfast and started the day at 10am. It's actually little late. better start at 8am only. Our first stop was Birla Mandhir.
Birla Mandhir / Lakshmi Narayana Temple:
Regular Birla Mandir like i have seen at many places. Idols of Lakshmi Narayana was awesome. Sat inside temple for little prayer. Very calm and peaceful. Spent 30 min here with few photos and left...
In every palace you can easily find if this belongs to king or Queen. In all locations where Queen live, you can see all windows with small holes. So that she can see others rather others can';t see her. What a fate...Even being Queen, she don;t have right to come out freely...Up course this is same story of women till today where they are always confined to some places only....Even many tourists there didn't find this strange as such...Also every king have many wives, but only one will be official and not sure what they call rest :)
City Palace: This is just behind this Hawa Mahal. Better walk down or try local rickshaws for max Rs.30. We took one rickshaw where old man was cycling. With in few mins, we felt our self so bad him pulling us...Stopped immediately and paid his tariff and walked. One side, tourists are cheated in thousands and this side a common old man pulling rickshaw for just Rs.20...
Ok... coming back to city palace, this was build by Sawai Pratham Singh after moving from amber fort to here due to growing population and water shortage at amer fort. Its basically now a Museum hosting old kings items...Inside this palace you can see Mubharak Mahal (built in islamic style, now hosts royal Costumes), Chandra Mahal, Pritahm Niwas chowk, Diwan-I-Khas, Maharani Palace etc.... Almost spent 1 hour in this place.
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| Northeast gate of peacock inside Pritam Niwas Chowk |
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| Chandra Mahal |
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| Lotus gate inside Pritam Niwas Chowk |
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| Weapons display |
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| Laghu Samrat Yntra |
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| Sun Dial |
Quick Local Tip:
Its a must to take a guide here... If not, u end up in just seeing some walls and pillars..
Getting restaurants here is little difficult.. Found a small restaurant by name Kailash. Food was really good but close your eyes a bit for hygiene. In many placed of Rajasthan, hygiene is last thing people maintain.
Done for the day... And done with Jaipur...We were tired and went to hotel at 4pm only and took rest....
Missed few places like zoo, Musium which came in our way many times , but covered almost all important one.
Day-3: Place: Bikaner / Hotel: Hotel Sagar
Due to some issues with Cab and driver we requested to change the Cab. With this journey start time got delayed and started at 11am. Reached Bikaner by 5pm.
National Research center for Camel: We went to this place directly even before going to hotel as they close it by 5:30pm only.
This is place to see everything about Camels. We spent almost 30 mins here... Saw how they grow Camels, Different breads of Camels, Camel Dairy. We even Drank Camel Milk :) They say its rich in Calcium. It tasted almost like Cow milk with very little difference. Here you can also get flavored milk, Coffee, tea, ice cream...everything made up of Camel milk :)
You can even buy Camel products like leather bags, wearable using teeth, bones etc... There is only one shop and price wise they are good.
Checked in to Hotel. Hotel was Awesome built on traditional Rajasthani style...Food was also great...I strongly prefer this hotel...
Day-4: Place: Bikaner, JaiSalmer
Started our journey at 8am only from the hotel to our first place.
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| Karni Matha temple |
Karni Matha Temple (Bikaner): This place is 25KM away from Bikaner. It was too foggy and road was hardly 2 meters visible. So took long journey time. This is a small temple and but have a uniqueness. The special here is RATS. There are hundreds of rates all around the temple. Even touches and tickles you while walking. Even with so many rats, there is no foul smell. It was so thrill to see so many rats... People bring food and milk to offer the rats...
Karni is female sage be-leaved to be incarnation of Durga Goddess.
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| Rats drinking milk inside temple |
Junagarh fort: This was also nice palace build by king Roa Bika in 1478. Here you get a guide as part of ticket only. The Palace guide picks the batch every 1 hour once and explains entire palace. We really enjoyed the palace.
Checked out from beautiful hotel and started journey by 11am. Reached Jaisalmer by 6pm.
It was too dark already and hence just stayed in the hotel itself. Hotel we choose was Himmathgarh Palace. Hotel was again very beautiful, but amenities are very bad. Bed was very thin, some issue with hot water that day (imagine the day with out hot water at 8degree temp), No room heaters, Very bad, torn quilts...Sleep was horrible.
Quick Local Tip:
Make sure you reach this place as first thing in morning to avoid too much crowd and long waiting for next batch to go inside.
Day-5: Place: JaiSalmer / Hotel: Country Side Desert Camp
Checked out from terrible hotel at 9am only and went to see main fort of Jaisalmer.
JaiSalmer Fort: This is one of the largest fortifications in world where defeating this fort is almost impossible. This was built by King Rawal Jaiswal in 1156. You may have to take the guide here as there are many items to see inside the fort. Its not just a fort, rather a big city itself on top of hill with few main places to see. It almost took 2 hours to see all places. Important places includes... 5 Jain temples, Museum, Kings Palace, Queen's Palace, View point to see a nice view of Jaisalmer city.
Do not miss the shopping (little cheep and you can do big bargaining), Awesome jaisalmer lassy.
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| For view from down |
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| View Point |
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| Jain temple |
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| Queen Palace |
Desert Camp at Sams Sand Dunes: This is around 50KM from Jaisalmer town. This is in Thar desert and there is a huge sand dunes and place name is called as Sam. We reached there by 2pm and checked in to our Desert camp, Country side Desert Camp. This Camp is just walk away to Sam Sand Dunes. This desert tents have just basic amenities. Anyway, what else you can expect in this desert. Govt allows these tents in winters only. It will be 50+ temp during summer and its impossible to leave here. As we traveling in peak winter, it was too cold where temp reached almost 6degree at night. It was too cold at night. But you get nice quilts to manage that cold.
Evening we went for Camel ride. Hotel guys pushed us for morning ride, but we did not accept it. Evening will be very good time for ride. Mornings are too much cold.
As soon as we checked in to tent, had lunch and took some rest.4pm we went to sand dunes. Hotel guys arranged a camel ride on desert. But it was a small ride, later we payed Rs.900 and extended it to a long ride. After camel ride, took few photos. Sat on sand and relaxed and enjoyed an awesome sunset. It was soo beautiful to see this sunset sitting on sand with cool breeze touching you, free sand flowing in your hands.
One more thing to try here is Racing on Camel. They talk for racing where Camels runs very fast and that will be awesome....
Later in camp they arranged Rajasthani traditional music and soon moved to Bollywood DJ. We danced for some time and had dinner and slept at 10pm. Few were dancing till midnight.
Quick Local Tips:
- These desert camps are over crowded in peak seasons due to limited camps allowed. These guys takes over booking than the tents they have. And finally tried to manage based on money people pay. So make sure your booking in confirmed by them with proper voucher from camp guys, not from agents.
- Prices for camel rides varies a lot from time to time. Evenings are costly and early mornings are cheep.
- Don;t get the Camel as soon as you reach there. Spend time there, then many camel persons will come and ask you and then bargain. Ask exactly how much time, where they take you and fix the price. Just for example, same ride few people pay Rs.200 and others pay Rs.2000 also :( Be careful
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| Desert Camp |
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| Camel Ride |
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| Beautiful Sunset |
Day-6: Place: Jodhpur / Hotel: Chandra In
Started the Journey early 8am only as we have a long journey to go. Reached Jodhpur around 2pm. Completed the lunch on the way only. Checked in to hotel, took some rest and started the side seeing at 4pm. It was already too late but wanted to cover as much as we can as we are not staying next day here.
Mehrangarh Fort: This is one of the largest forts in India built by Rao Jodha in 1460. Little history of this fort is... Long back Jodha saw this hill and decided to build a fort here. But there was one person by name "Cheeria Nathji" was living here. Solders forced him to go out of hill and then he cursed the king to have his kingdom suffer a scarcity of water. Later he told that if they bury a live man, then this curse will not be affected. Later a man by name "Raja Ram Meghwal" came and told king that he accept for this. In return he wants his family looked after by Rathores. You can see the place till today where he was buried.
Here you can take a lift to go top of hill, and then see the entire fort coming down. Or you can walk up. We bough the lift ticket and almost spent 30min in queue waiting for lift. Rather we should have taken steps where we go top in less than 10 mins :( Try for audio guide to know the history more. The readings from internet was more than enough for us and didn't took any guide as such.
Over all we spent 2 hours in fort and enjoyed the place. It was almost 6pm and dark. So checked in to hotel.
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| Mehrangarh Fort |
City market / Clock Tower: There is nothing there to shop..it's a local shops for local people here. But you can see a nice clock tower with changing lights at night...Do not follow google maps to reach here...We did that mistake and entered narrow roads...Roads are very very narrow where only 1 car can go at a time...
As we came late on Day-6, we could cover only one fort. So today we have to cover few more places before we travel to Udaipur. So we started side seeing at 8:30 sharp. Our first stop was "Jaswant Thada". This place is on the way to fort only.
Jaswant Thada: This is a cenotaph located in Jodhpur. Its a burial ground for ruler of Marwar. It just took 20 min to cover this. As we came 9am, we were the first one to enter this place and we could take pics with any disturbance.
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| cenotaph |
Umaid Bhavan Palace: This is one of the largest private residence. Part of this place is managed by Taj Hotels. It was built on 1943. There was a sever dough in Jodhour where people were suffering a lot. So to create employment King decided to build this palace. Spent almost Rs.11 Million on this providing employment for 3000 people. This is treated like a great thing. What a fun!!! he could have used this money in investing in other things like education, farming, generating new businesses rather constructing a palace for him...
On the way to Udaipur, we visited Rankpur Jain Temple.
Rankpur Jain Temple: Even before you reach this temple, Rankpur forest starts here. While traveling inside the jungle, you reach this temple. This is one of the biggest Jain temples in world. Its very huge. Its an awesome place and delight to photographers covering every part of temple. Takes at least 2 hour to see in detail. There are 1444 pillars in this temple each with different style.
Finally reached Udaipur at 5pm. We didn't want to miss the boating in lake pichola at sunset time. So we directly went to lake before checkin to hotel.
Lake Pichola: This is an artificial lake constructed at 1362. name after a village name Pichola. Water used for irrigation and drinking in olden days. There is some confusion on the boat pricing. It was written as Rs.400 as least price for per person but at ticket counter we got ticket for Rs.125. The boat accommodated 20 people and took us for nice 20 mins ride. It was really an awesome place to hangover. Its nothing great about boat ride, but the views you get during ride are too good. Even sunset was good. During this ride we saw full view of city palace which is visible only from boat ride. Done with ride and we were happy that we didn't miss this place at sunset time.
You can try rope way here but it was too late for us. Did some shopping, ate some street food, spend time sitting on lake side, walking and finally left to hotel to rest for the day.
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| City Palace view from lake |
Day-8: Place: Udaipur / Hotel:Hotel Dayal
Yesterday night spent good time in google maps to decide what to see and how to reach to avoid all narrow road. Woke up early and got ready early for a full day side seeing to cover Udaipur as much as possible. Our first stop was jagadish mandir.
Quick local Tip:
Roads are very very narrow in these places. So better park your car and prefer auto rickshaws. After covering near by places by walk or by rickshaw you can go to next set of places.
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| Jagadish Mandir |
Bagore Ki Haveli: Reached here with just 5 min walk at 9:15am. On the way found so many small shops for shopping but prices were little high. So Jaipur local bazars were best place for shopping. Again this place in on banks of lake pichola. From outside, it looks very regular small palace but we actually spent good time inside. As they say this palace was neglected and un-maintained for many years. later some govt org did the restoration work of it.
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| Watching dance in Royal Durbhar with Kings :) |
Later there are many rooms displaying how royal ladies spent their times, traditional instruments, indoor playing, copper vessels, hukkas, jewellery boxes etc. Also one specific room have display of turbans where they showed hundreds of different turbans and explains who will wear what based on their status, caste in those days.
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| Peacock made up of glass mosaic |
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| Big Turban |
City Palace: This is again just 5 mins walk from Bagore Ki Haveli in narrow roads. The entry tickets to this palace was very costly and highest among all palaces we visited in Rajasthan. Its Rs.250, 100 for Camera. This time we took audio guide of worth Rs.200. Started walking inside the palace listening to the audio.
This Palace was build over 400 years by different kings. It was built in Rajasthani and Mughal architectural styles and top of hill to get a full view of city. There are many things to see in this palace. Important one are paintings which explain kings day to day life.
It was heavily crowded where we need to wait for some time moving from one place to other place. There is nothing great to see here. Hardly i got a good place to take a photo other than a front view from outside.
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| Krishna Vilas |
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| Place where King sits and have his breakfast looking at Sun |
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| One of the painting showcasing war scene |
We are tired now where time is already 2pm. Came out of palace and started searching for food. All restaurants are highly priced. Finally one decent and clean one. Done with lunch. Our driver parked vehicle inside the palace and we started driving to next place. Our next place was garden of Maidens.
Garden of Maidens/ Sahelion ki Bhari
This was created for 48 young women who accompanied by princess of Udaipur as part of her dowry. There is 1 pool and a fountain in the middle. This nothing great actually. It's a small regular garden. That too compared to our Bangalore gardens, this looks very small. You can even skip this place.We were feeling very tired and slept on grass for few mins and left the place. It was already 4pm and our next spot of Shilpagram.
Shipagram
This is place dedicated to rural arts and crafts where people display and sell their crafts. There is small museum also to show case the lifestyle of folk and tribal people of the region. This place gives a platform for tribal and rural people to show case their talent and also sell their products.This is little out of city, about 3km drive.
There was some Mela going on that week. So there were hundreds of shops displaying a huge collection of crafts. Its not only from Rajasthan but from different part of India. Few stalls even from south India. Prices wise not too high but we can bargain a little.
With this we completely tired of walking ...
Lake Fatehsagar
One the way back to city we hit this place. Like in lake pichole, you get a nice boat drive. As it was already 6pm, we missed it. Any way, we spent 1 hour walking on side of lake on cool breeze. Enjoyed the time. Also memorized few moments of last 8 days journey....
Day-9: Place: Ranthambore/ Hotel: Onkur resort
Started our journey early 8am as we have long drive ahead. Reached Ranthambore by 3pm. Ranthambore's only thing to do is Tiger Safari. This is one of the biggest national parks in india situated in Sawai Madhopur district. This wild life sanctuary is famous of tigers. Entire park in divided in to 10 zones and you will do safari in any one zone at a time.
So saying this, only thing running in our mind is Tiger Tiger Tiger. We were very eager to see Tigers in wild.
They allow safari for only 2 times, morning and evening. Evening safari starts by 4pm and we were already late. Anyway we booked for morning slot. So spent time in the resort only and had nice dinner and slept...
Day-10:
Early morning woke up at 5am and got ready for Safari. They told Morning safari start at 6:45am. But we were waiting for our Canter till 7:30am. Finally our canter came and picked us. We were assigned at Zone-6. This is random assignments. As we enter inside the forest, our eyes were eagerly searching for tigers.
By the way, we have 2 options for safari, Canter and Jeep. In Canter 20 people can sit and with out roof. So everybody will get a nice view of 360degree. And also as we are at top, view will be more. They charged me 1400 per pack. Another option was Jeep where only 4 people can sit. Advantage with this is, they can take you little inside the forest as they don;t need any big path. They charge around 1800 per pack. Few people claim with jeep chances of seeing tiger is more but that false. In side forest, our canters and jeeps were traveling together and trying to find tigers. Also in jeep you can;t see faraway. We choose Cater.
Spent almost 3 hours roaming all over. BAD LUCK :( we couldn't spot any tiger. Later we came to know that tiger spotting a matter of luck and hardly few people see it. With out seeing any tiger we came back to resort. We asked everybody and no one was lucky to spot any. But only 1 group spotted at zone-2. And they said that, it's their 5th safari and finally they saw tigers... Ummm I don;t think its worth spending so much money for many safaris just to see 1 tiger and that to matter of luck.
We have been many safaris like in Bannerghatta, Kabini, Bandipur at south. All were awesome, at least we can spot many deer and few elephants. If lucky cheetahs and tigers can be spotted. Even if you don;t spot any animal, the nature and thick forest will be a feast to enjoy. Here its mostly grass lands and very few small trees.
Quick Local Tips
- Do not go with hotel guys for booking. They charge you heavily. There are many booking counters outside. Go to them and bargain. I heard few people even paid just Rs.800.
- I also see one counter little faraway. It looks like standard govt counter. People were in queue for tickets. You can try there for better deals.
- Do not pay drivers thinking that they take you right place to see tiger... They also have to search and its matter of luck. May be at the end you can pay Tips...
- Carry a waste cloth to clean the seats... They were very dirty and they do not clean...Full of mud..
Finally done with breakfast at 10pm and packed our bags at our last destination and started journey back to Jaipur at 11am. Reached there by 1am.
Again directly went to Bapu Bazar and did some more shopping and reached airport by 5pm. Back to Bangalore at 12 midnight.
With this, we are done with trip story....Thanks for reading....By the way here the highlights of trip which we liked a lot...
- Amer Fort in Jaipur
- Tasting Camel Milk in Bikaner
- Karni matha temple for rats
- Desert Camp on Jaisalmer
- Camels rides in Thar desert
- Puppet show in Udaipur
- Lake pichole ride n Udaipur.
