Week 2: 15th Jan – 21st Jan – Dholavira to Nowhere to Jaisalmer !

15th January – Ride to Dholavira
3am, took a paracetamol for the fever, and took a while to sleep due to neet’s snoring! Finally woke up at 8:00am!

Madhu, Owner (one of the Madbulls) & I left Neet to himself and headed out for tea. Bhuj was dead at that hour. Even more so because of Uttarayan, the kite festival. Some chai, and soon we bade good bye to bhuj & madbulls by 1030am. 

Fantastic roads right upto Bachau and then we headed to Rapar.

The scenery was ever-changing. From barren, to small shrubs to whole fields of produce.

Caught sight of 3 neelgais, (cross between a horse and a cow)  on this route. We rode extra carefully as they were prone to dashing across the road the minute it saw or heard our bikes.  

Bullet Taxis utilise an Enfield Engined front end, modified to carry people across the country.

Every Taxi is beautifully decorated having their own personalities.

From Rapar we were  about 90 km from Dholavira.

 

We reached Dholavira by 530. We went up to the BSF post for permission to ride the rann. We were told that permission can only be granted from Khavda and not from here. 

He suggested we view the sunrise at the Karni temple. Behind which is only Rann.

We checked into Toran guest house. Left our gear and headed to the harappan site about half a km away. Sadly the place closes at 6 pm and we were too late

I had some chai, while the Neets went through the rigmarole of making their own smokes, all through with a lot of bickering.

 

Little did I know this was going to be the only “constant” of my entire trip with them!!

Back at Toran, we headed for dinner after 2 hours of unsuccessful night sky photography. The guest house was filled with teenagers on a field trip, and they had a bon fire on and the quiet night was disrupted by antakshari! 

 Sadly, the Beatles lost to the cacophony of the teenagers. and we called it a night by 11:30pm

16th January – Leaving Dholavira
The plan

6 am Depart.

7. 30: Catch sunrise at the Rann

8:30: Breakfast

10:30am: Reach Harappan Site

11: 30am: Leave For Patan

4:00: Reach Patan Stepwell.

Ride till sunset and stay at the closest place to kumbalgarh. 

Super plan… On paper!

Was woken up by Madhu at 6. I got ready sans bath and brush, due to lack of water at that hour!

Madhu zoned out soon after waking me up!. So much for leaving early. 

We went to karni temple for the sunrise and its proximity to the Fossil park. From the guest house it’s about 12 km. 8 km of tar road. 4 km of dirt trail.

Reached the temple, but the Border Security Force didn’t allow us in the Rann here as well.

Dejected, we took photos and headed to fossil park 

 

The Sun was up but it was still pretty early so not very hot!

The Fossil Park was a sight to behold. with Stone that looked like wood. And a desolate view, like being in a 80’s western movie set

On the return, the bigger Neet showed off his off-road skills. We reached the tar road a few minutes behind him and we met him stranded with his front tyre punctured!!

 

The longest tyre change in history

Madhu Changed the Tyre. Neet Looked on. I am taking pictures!

Time: 9:00am. Task – Change the tube in the Front tyre. Estimated – 40 mins. ACTUAL – 5 hours!!!

The front wheel was off soon, but the nearest puncture repair is 20kms away! 

The people around helped Madhu get the tube out, while I went back to get a new tube, and used the snacks I picked up in Ahmedabad as “breakfast”. 

Neet and Madhu tried fixing the new tube, with the help of some village youth. After much poking with the screwdriver, the tube finally fit.

As we filled air but soon realised that the new tube is also punctured. The only other option they now said is to take it to the repair shop 20 km away.

A few villagers that were watching us, suggested we let them try as they had patches (all this while!!!). They got to work and set it right in under 40 mins!

It was 2 pm. We reached Toran and had lunch. Checked out and headed to harappan site. We thought we’d do a quick tour but ended up looking at the awesome site for over two hours!

Amazed At the Technology of a life that was then!! IT felt as if we are just “learning” these things now!!

 

The rocks had sea shells fossilised on it. They show up when its splashed with a little water, indicating the ocean could have been closer to the site!

We were advised by the villagers to take the back roads to the highway to Patan avoiding 30 or 40 km and Rapar town. We went through some really good scenic stretches, amazed that even the back roads of Gujarat are well tarred , reached the highway just twenty minutes past sunset.

 

We halted at Radhanpur instead of riding through the night to Patan

We halted at hotel Prince palace on the highway at radhanpur. We got a three bed room and horrible but expensive chai, and a broken promise of hot water at 6 am the next day for Rs. 900 per room

17th January – Patan to Kumbalgarh
Left the hotel by 9am and reached Rani Ki Vav (The queens step-well) by 11:30am.  

We spent a quite half hour taking photos until we were ambushed by a gaggle of 50 girls from a nearby college. Couldn’t stand the cacophony so we left the place by about 1 pm to head to Kumbalgarh. Few more pictures!! 

Parted ways with the Neet brothers who had plans to head to Mount Abu, while i took the highways upto the turnoff for Sarya finally reaching Club Mahindra Kumbalgarh.

I was fighting the sunset and didn’t stop anywhere to take pics.

In hindsight, pics would have been awesome!! .. oh well, another day, another trip!! ..

Reached the resort and I was allotted a Swiss tent. Nice tent but canvas walls didn’t do much to shield it from outside temperature hovering at 8 degrees . 

Handed in a weeks Laundry and took my first bath in 6 days! What an awesome feeling! 

Headed to the restaurant with a feeling to get some nice rum before dinner. Turns Out, it’s a dry day due an ongoing election in the area. Spent half hour with Mr. Antariksh, chatting about his 1980 Enfield. 

Went for dinner and headed back to the room. After a twenty-minute wait for a heater, sleep came easily on the comfortable bed and I was out like a light very soon!

18th January – Adventure continues with a new Ride-mate!

Slept well after ages. A long bath and a luxurious breakfast followed. Navaneeth calls to tell me that Ravindra will be joining me for the Kumbalgarh to Jaisalmer stretch!

The day was pretty sunny so just rode up to the fort in t-shirt and jeans. The sunny stretches were very warm but that shaded stretches were very cold. It was quite the experience riding 10 kms in such fluctuating weather conditions.

No sooner I parked the bike, I heard the familiar sound bullet thumping down the approach. Ravindra had arrived.

There were no guides around and we were left to discover the place on our own.

The walls of this fort are second only to the great wall of china, and as far as we could see the ramparts rose and fell through the entire scenery in front of us.

It’s a HUGE fort and lots of history to it. Even without a guide it took a good two hours. Some more pictures.

 

We headed back to the hotel, and Ravindra waited while I finished the check out formalities.  

 

The staff gave us a shorter route to reach ranakpur. We saved ourselves an hour of riding and about 30-40kms. Although the road was rather steep and certain sections were pretty crumbly!

Ranakpur Jain Temple
Reached the temple and we were awed by the intricate carving of white marble temple. The pictures below are better than a thousand words!!

Lunch was Ghatia and chai at the Jain temple. We left at 6pm after waiting to meet with the Neet brothers who were also on their way to the temple! 

Had chai and parle g for breakfast at the this dhaba we saw and reached Jodhpur by 1130am

We opted to stay in Pali only as we hoped to check out the om banna temple aka the bullet baba temple Enroute jodhpur.  

Got a good room for Rs.2000. And spent another 300 for half bottle of McDowell rum. Our first drink in a long time.

All through Rajasthan, the wine sellers close by 8 pm. This was very odd for us and for most part we used to end up paying almost double for drinks everywhere! We left by 9am From Pali

19th January – Pali to Jodhpur
From Pali we left early planning to have breakfast on the way. We didn’t get any place open for breakfast.

We got to the OM BANNA temple, also known as the “Bullet Baba Temple”, took pictures and paid obeisance.

Had chai and parle g for breakfast at the this dhaba we saw and reached Jodhpur by 1130am

 

Jodhpur

Connected with Gaurav, a Friend from EDI, for Rooms at Jodhpur. All he knew were 4 and 5 Star hotels way beyond our budget!

Meanwhile used Google to find out some places and it suggested a haveli near clock tower. Found it and sent Ravindra to check for rooms as he is more picky about rooms than I was.

The rooms were at a negotiated price of  1500 but were not very good. 3rd floor rooms without a lift was not appealing especially with carrying luggage.

After much searching, we found a superb place . The Kuchaman Haveli heritage hotel. 

A Picture from the Company’s official page

We increased our budget to 2k and were very happy with our choice. We finished checking in and by 1.30pm we were done with brunch as well. 

Mehrangarh Fort

We headed to the Mehrangarh fort and the place was truly beautiful. Well kept and the audio tour we opted for was worth it!.

We got out only by 4.40pm and went to Jaswanth Thada which was apparently known as Taj Mahal of the east, made entirely of white marble.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5 pm is when all monuments close and we headed to the city to look for oil for Ravindra’s bike.

I called another friend, Vijay Gupta , to meet up and he asked us to come to another part of town. We finally found the place inside the heart of the city, and he met us there by about 6.30pm. He had only changed his weight.  And like me had Put on a lot more than his college days. Very happy to see him in more than ten years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

We were stuffed by 7 pm. We bade good-bye to him and headed back to our room. We were told not to miss the sight of the fort lit up and also was informed not to miss “lal mass” while at Jodhpur 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At 9:30pm we head to Pal Haveli an 18th Century Haveli, converted to hotel, and have just lal maas and roti.  

We missed the lit fort as we were late and the lights are put off by 9 pm. Back to the Hotel by 11pm, looking forward to next days ride to Jaisalmer… God, however, had other plans for us!! 

20th January – Jodhpur to Middle of Nowhere
7am was too cold!! So Left Jodhpur by 9 am and were at Mandore by 9:30am
Just at the turn off to the highway Ravindra’s bike stalled.

The bike would crank but not start. No amount of kicking or praying was helping. We called Prashant (Bangalore)  and Hari (Chennai) and they suggested it would just be a loose connection somewhere.

Meanwhile I called Pimpley, who connected me to the nearest Territory manager Deepak, who further connected me to Mr. Prakash, manager of the Jodhpur RE service centre. Mr Prakash assured us he would be sending his team “immediately”.

The two junior guys finally arrived by 1.30 and a brief check later diagnosed a faulty coil to be the problem and the bike needed to be carted to the service centre.

We found a guy who brought in a small three-wheeler tempo which was probably on its last legs as was the driver to take the bike to the service station for Rs. 300/-

We reached the centre in 20 minutes.

I thought it prudent to get my 6000 kms free service also done while Ravindra’s bike got fixed. They opened the job card, and after much cajoling they finally took the bike in for an oil change and general checkup.

The Service centre dismantled the tank and were fiddling with the coil, waiting for it to arrive from a nearby spare parts dealer. Hari and Prashi were convinced however that the coil was not the issue and asked us to request the service team to check the bike with another coil of some other bike.

It worked with another coil, and then they tried it with the same coil again, and miraculously that worked as well!!!

Having found a solution to a nonexistent problem, we asked them to refit the tank and take it for a test ride to ensure that all was well.

 Ravindra riled up as his bike tank got a small scratch during refitting. It had been spotless for the past two years!.

The bikes were ready and I paid for mine. They also furnished a labour charge bill for Ravindra’s bike for Rs. 400. He refused to pay as they had actually just wasted time and there was no problem with the bike. He was livid about the scratched tank and he refused to pay.

He Paid up after cajoling from Hari, who said that this would affect all riders needing support if he doesn’t pay and show him in poor light.

Meanwhile the service manager was busy talking to the RE customer service and the national service head and he presently came back to Ravi and said he need not pay and returned the amount. Oh WELL!!!

We finally started out by 5:30pm. We had about an hour of daylight left, so we decided to head to ossiyan instead of staying back at jodhpur

I really wanted to see the Jain temples there and Vijay Gupta suggested we stay at the Dharamshala at Ossian.

Ravindra put on his Microsoft map guide to get to Ossian while I followed him.

We rode till Balesar, as the roads were good, and we wanted to make time. Realised at around 8pm, that for some reason we were headed to Jaisalmer and not Ossian as we had put in the maps! We were 2 hours beyond Ossian, and we decided to camp at the next highway motel we get for the night.

We checked at Balesar and were informed that there were good hotels to stay on the road to Pokhran.

We reached a place called “Marwar” resort and restaurant. On approaching the place we found that the owner and his staff were generally hanging around outside. There were no customer and we were told it’s a new place and though the board outside mentioned “rooms/resort/restaurant” it was still only a restaurant.

We asked him for suggestions on places to stay and were told that all hotels up ahead would be in the 3  to 5 star category having rooms from 5000/- onwards.

We pondered whether spending Rs. 5000/- for a brief night would be worth it, or whether we should ride on to Pokhran

We informed the owner our budget of only 500/1000 per night and He asked us if we were ok to sleep in the restaurant he can arrange a couple of mats and a blanket and we can spend the night there instead.

We had dinner with the owner obliged us with some Royal Stag from his personal stash and after a heavy dinner we slept on Mattresses laid down on the restaurant floor.

21st January – Nowhere to Jaisalmer and An Adventure in the Desert

Woke up by 7am to a chilly morning. The Hotel Staff were already awake , though the owner was still asleep. I presume he had a lot more of the whisky before sleeping.

The weather was cold! but the morning Tea was hot!!  We paid 1700/- for the food and bedding and left by about 9:30am.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We resumed our journey and were in Jaisalmer by 12:30 just in time to see some of the madbull boys roll out of there on their way to Bikaner.

We needed to be at badal house, Khuri by 4pm. A close college friend, Darshan Mutha, was also in Jaisalmer with his family. We parked our bikes close to his cars and met up with him for a bit and then started our tour into Jaisalmer Fort. 

The palace was crowded and since it was the only “living fort” of the country it was pretty noisy and the structure was fairly dilapidated. We were not very impressed with anything in particular, after the beauty that was Jodhpur mehrangarh fort. We skipped the tour, and head to German bakery for grub. We bade goodbye to Darshan and collected our luggage from his car and headed towards badal house in khuri.

 

 

 

Ravindra’s dream finally came true, about seeing these cenotaphs, as he had seen them in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge..

 We reached Badal house, Khuri by 4:30pm. We were greeted by Badal Singh and offered a delightful cup of tea. It was surprising to see the cleanliness of the place. The place was extremely peaceful. I loved it and immediately regretted that we were staying for only one night.

The camels had been arranged were on their way. We got a call from the Neet brothers who were also heading into Jaisalmer from  Jodhpur for the camel safari experience. The preferred to join us as the safari was costing Rs. 600, vs the Rs. 1500 they had arranged for!

They called by 4pm & the brothers flew over Jaisalmer and were in Khuri by 5 pm! We greeted them at Badal house with a smile on our face and a bid a quite goodbye to the “quiet and peaceful” part of the stay in the desert!

Ravindra and I had both experienced staying / tripping with the Neet brothers and both of us were more keen on having a “quiet”  and “peaceful” stay in the desert watching the stars . But travelling with them one had to deal with their idiosyncrasies as well. They would argue about EVERYTHING and would want to do /stay / eat everywhere but on a “budget”.  They would stop every 50 odd kms for a smoke. While Neet smoked cigarettes, Madhu rolled cigarettes. So both would take an age!!   

It got so bad during my trip with them from Bhuj to Kumbalgarh that I gave them strict instructions. They can only stop for Cigarettes at a dhaba where there is chai!! .. that worked well, but for that leg I must have Overdosed on Chai!

The camels arrived by 5:30pm and we headed out 2 people on each towards the dunes. The handlers asked us if we wanted some  Tarrda (local alcohol). Made out of Sugarcane. Apparently costing Rs.300/- per litre. Very expensive so we ordered one litre between 4 of us.

We reached the desert and took some sunset shots.

 

 

Mounted the tripod for some night sky shots but couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to focus on the night sky. After much trial and error we gave up!

Sat down to drink and chit-chat while the handlers prepared some food. Ravindra suddenly had a craving for Eggs so he asked the handlers to arrange for a dozen. Eggs were arranged and we had boiled eggs with our drinks and we convinced Madhu to part with the methi khakhra he picked up in Bhuj. I promised him that I’d get him the same thing in Bangalore!!

Ravindra, on the other hand, was convinced that he was seeing Ostrich’s in the area. We had a good laugh as he was actually looking at our tripods. The Drinks were working!!

The handlers bought us a bottle of the Tarrda, we split half with the handlers. The spirit was strong and slightly sweet. It was so good, we got another half bottle, along with the rum we had brought for ourselves. 

There was a light smattering of rain which got us worried as we saw the “bedding” laid out for us. One Mattress for each of us on the sand and one thick blanket  for covering us from the elements and that’s all!!!.. The handlers assured us that it wouldn’t rain and if it did they had a plastic sheet to cover the mattresses.

 

We had a simple but delicious dinner of rotis and sabji, and decided to sleep by about 10pm. cooked onsite.

The Brothers and Ravindra had brought sleeping bags, into which they disappeared. I didn’t think it necessary to lug one along my travels, and hence mine I had left back home!  Little did I know…

Around 11pm it started drizzling and soon enough it was a proper shower. We woke up with Ravindra in panic mode. He asked the handlers repeatedly to get us back to base, and got even more frantic when he saw that the camels were nowhere in sight!!

Having little choice, the handlers huddled a little way away, in a black sheet of plastic, they threw us another big black sheet and went back to sleep. We tried to cover all four of us under one sheet but it wasn’t enough.

Soon it was only me on a wet mattress trying to sleep under a wet blanket.  With one neet on my left, snoring .. softly, compared to the motor that Ravindra was behaving like on my right!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Napped for a few minutes and opened my eyes at about 2am to a brilliant starry sky. It was like I was in a planetarium. A night sky that was glittering with stars, and desert was lit up like a marriage hall.. I Wanted to take pictures, but didn’t have the enthusiasm to do it in wet clothes and cold temperature. The pictures however are crystal clear in my head.. ( I have to tune out the snoring sounds though!!!)

Somehow got a few more winks, but nowhere near enough due to the wet clothes and the snoring bedfellows!..

The Boys wake up and start to pack their sleeping bags

Week 3, began the next day.. and the story continues…