If you are travelling to India, and travelling to Rajasthan this might be useful for you. I am dividing this road trip into a couple of episodes, which I will post in a few episodes and you have to read my rendezvous.
I am a girl consumed by wanderlust. No, don’t get me wrong, most of you might ask me what wanderlust means. The word derives its origin from a German word which means a very strong or irresistible impulse to travel. If you dream of backpacking through Bhutan, you have wanderlust. We loved the German efficiency of the word so much we borrowed it for our own English language. With a word like lust inside it, wanderlust really captures the dreamy passion that travellers share. So this is the word that best describes me, I too have an undying thirst for travel, to explore new places and experiment with the food cooked and eaten by locals of these places and once you've got wanderlust in your blood, you've got it for life; it goes with you to your grave. And this is a thirst, a hunger that can neither be quenched nor satisfied.
I must thank my darling husband who is an avid traveller just like me and shares my belief that life is very short so we want to see the world as best as we can. We both share a love and a passion for travel and visiting new places discovering their food and enjoying life and the good things in it. We strongly believe that travel is a great way to de-stress & chill & relax, when you are tired of the madness of this city, with its traffic problems, with its long office hours, with your nagging bosses, and spouses and colleagues, so we simply pack our bags and head out.
I had wanted to do a road trip for long, and I mean really really long, especially with me on the steering wheel. I have been driving for about 6.5 years but I can certainly defy the perceptions of all men about Lady Drivers. And I certainly mean that in a good way, I am an experienced driver, and if I might add, quite a good one as well. Besides driving daily for 3 hours to and fro from work, the only highway experience of driving I have had in the past is may be a Delhi-Chandigarh run 3-4 times or may be a Delhi-Sikhar drive once (about 4 hours from Delhi where the famous Khatushyam ji temple is located).
At first my husband did show his reservations about taking a 2000km drive and he told me it will be very tiring and he made me redo our itinerary atleast 4-5 times and made me shrink it only to 5 places – Jodhpur, Kumbhalgarh, Haldi Ghati, Udaipur & jaipur. Even though I was heart broken that I had to take out Jaisalmer and Chittorgarh from my road trip, and also that I had to shrink it to 8 days from 12, I was still excited about the idea that I was taking the lead in the road trip.
I did the hotel bookings, got my car checked and was all geared up (hoping that Google Maps will be our Good friend on this trip) to begin the 1900 - 2000 km drive. We began the road trip at 7am from Manesar from my sisters place on 24th November and I head straight straight on NH-8 doing the second thing I do best – DRIVE (the Ist thing being Cooking / Eating).
DAY -1 – DELHI – JODHPUR—
Roads from Delhi to Jodhpur are fantastic, there is a great 3 lane highway until a little ahead of Ajmer towards the way where one has to take a detour towards Jodhpur. From there the not so good state highway starts which is a little bumpy and we reached Jodhpur in about 9 hours where as the Mandor Express takes 10hr and 30 min to reach Jodhpur from Delhi. I drove nearly 450 kms from Manesar and my husband drove another 125kms. We reached Jodhpur at around 4.30pm, after only stopping once in between for about 45 mins for breakfast.
Google Maps failed us, and honestly, I think they are so flawed, that we could not locate our hotel for nearly 1 hour. Finally we checked into the hotel and I needed a big mug of Masala Chai to revitalize my broken back after the 450km long drive.
Attaching the pictures only of the broad 3 lane highway at most places on NH8, and some places where the highway is primarily a state highway and is single lane.
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