Desert Safari

There was a time when Diwali (the Hindu new year day precisely) was the opportunity to meet all our relatives & friends for whom we had no time throughout the year & was the greatest festival of social networking. In those times telephones were a luxury & all social gatherings were physical only. Those meetings had its own charm as we could not personally meet as frequently. 

But now after voice/video calling reaching to all the corners & classes of the country, the appeal of those meetings is lost & the festival is forgotten. So now everyone has a different agenda to spend the mini vacation of Diwali. And as I never had any agenda, It has always been difficult to spend time during these group of festivals. 

Anyway, this Diwali I was conscious of the upcoming holidays & had made up my mind to have a getaway tour. So, I joined a package tour of Jaisalmer as a solo traveler & what follows is the story of this Diwali Getaway. 

Sam Desert Evening scene

Jaisalmer city is very interesting for people loving historical places but for fun loving people it may be quite boring to spend a day in Jaisalmer. Golden colour is what you can see all around the city. Jaisalmer fort - a UNESCO world heritage site, Mandir palace - a nice palace where movie Sarfarosh was shot, few Havelis with beautiful stone carvings - all are made with yellow stone which is the colour of Jaisalmer & was the colour of our hotel room too.

Mandir Palace

Bada baug

Jeep & bike rides feel almost like a rollercoaster ride but they end too soon. A partial solar eclipse was our bonus package as we got to see it from desert. I couldn't capture it on camera but it did show up on my arm by reflection or something.

Sam Desert

Solar eclipse

The war memorial of Longewala, Tanot mata temple & Ghadisar lake in Jaisalmer were visited the next day but most of the day was spent in bus playing childish games. Boating & laser show were enjoyed by few, I made shopping trip outside the lake but found nothing special to remember Jaisalmer by.

Ghadisar Lake

Anyway the days away from home are always memorable & this Diwali will surely be remembered as a fun Diwali.

Mumbai local

          Travelling to new places is the hobby I am focusing much more in past few years so when this opportunity came for an official visit to Mumbai, I grabbed it with both hands - both figuratively & literally with as it involved carrying one suitcase with equipment.

          There's nothing special to talk bout the journey or the job I went for so I will go straight to the Vashi railway station from where I caught my first Mumbai local train. It was very easy to get on board compared to what I had imagined & was both cheaper & faster compared to the taxi ride I opted to reach early. The struggle to get home is real in Mumbai & I got to experience it this time. It took all the three modes of commute - train, rickshaw & taxi - plus one & a half hour through the evening life of Kurla, Sion & Dadar to reach my hotel. Finally I found the bed to let my body to relax after a tiring day.

          Now the job was over but it was already 7 pm so the idea of experiencing Mumbai's night life was dropped & I headed to the nearest bar to taste something new. This time I opted the Old Monk rum to find out why its liked so much by the three idiots from five point someone. The dinner was bad so the next best thing was a good sleep.

          Saturday began late at around 7.30 as I finished the sleeping quota of previous day. Now was the time of sightseeing to make the tour more fruitful. As I have about 4 hours to pass, I decided to explore more of the Mumbai local & reached Andheri in a flash. The Juhu beach is surrounded by costly hotels & residences of very rich & hence the whole area is totally clean, the atmosphere is completely peaceful. Anyway I always find myself at peace on the beach. And as memorabilia of this tour, I got myself clicked by a professional photographer.

          So here I decided to wrap up the impromptu tour of Mumbai & reached Vile parle via rickshaw to catch local train to Mumbai Central. But there was yet another lesson (very much) due to be learnt - the difference between MMCT & CST which I learned the hard way. I boarded the train to CST instead of MMCT & realized it only after almost reaching there. It was already afternoon & about an hour & half remaining to board train to home so I panicked as usual & caught taxi from to reach one hour before.

          As always, about one hour was spent in the railway premises. It was my first journey on a Rajdhani train, second one on the double decker superfast & both way the refreshments were the only good thing in the otherwise tiresome journey.

Art of Loving

          Considering the fact that love is life, here I have avoided the obvious title for this story but it is almost there.

This was a weekend getaway on a riverside ashram just outside my city. The name itself was a major motivation to join this program - happiness program. Anyway I never expected it to make my life happy magically but I knew that a weekend away from city in the wilderness can only be better than struggling to pass time in malls or multiplexes.

The Friday evening long drive began at home & reached the end of the city, crossed picturesque river Mahi on NH-8 & in the last lap, crossed muddy farm roads leading to the Ashram. Not much was there to do except from getting settled in our rooms, having Sattvic dinner & enjoying Satsang music.

Sleeping late is also a kind of happiness for many but you have to sacrifice it for the happiness program of life. Anyway for past many years my morning starts around 5 only so I was ready in time. Early morning, trees all around the ashram & a river flowing nearby - it can't get any more refreshing than this & I could easily forgot about my morning tea which wasn't to be available till 8 am.

There's no need to tell anything about the program as it was just perfect. Most importantly one comes to know that we have been searching happiness everywhere in the world but the key to happiness is within us.

Drenched Adventure

           I like the monsoon very much, I like the aroma of wet soil after the first rain, I like the romantic atmosphere that monsoon brings, but I don't like to get wet & stay wet for long & that's what got to me on my very first trekking adventure.

Now as the April tour of Mount Abu wasn't as delightful as expected, I jumped onto one Saputara trekking adventure. The Saputara trekking camp was just another weekend getaway for me & I never intended to do actual trekking there. But I oversighted the fact that summer was already over & in July it rains almost all day in Saputara.

      The adventure began in a very cheerful & lively fashion as it was mostly filled with youngsters who played music all night & set the tone for the time ahead. Night journey was sleepless as usual for me but being a sitter bus it was sleepless for my back too.

     Anyway this being an adventure trip with very reasonable charges, I was quite prepared for some ups & down. The breakfast from the host came late but it was worth the wait & helped me forget the painful night. The first destination was Table point which actually turned out to be dining table point with almost everybody having hot Maggie noodles. 

It was drizzling in the morning & felt pleasant too but actually the rain gods were just getting settled on the pitch & began to score rapidly just after an hour in the field. The youth was mostly happy & managed to hold the field. I was completely drenched under my raincoat but looking at the young, cheerful (some of them beautiful too) faces, I kept going on & faced the rains bravely.

    I didn't want to quit & I didn't for about an hour, but my body was shivering & my feet got cramped - it was like bathing for hours & then not having towel to dry yourself. So I & some other young boys who shared my feeling started walking for shelter & landed heavily (due to wet clothes) on our seats in the bus. Thus concluded our pre-lunch outing which was meant to be a glimpse of the hills & a taste of trekking.

      Lunch was good but the atmosphere was still the same and I felt like having a second breakfast. we were just chatting & relaxing in the tents after lunch & suddenly it was almost evening as we had no reference of sunlight.

      The Sunset point visit was an action replay of morning tour - hills, rains & hot bowls of Maggie were again the stars of the show. The only exciting moment was someone offering me to click my photo in the otherwise boring evening.

Sunset point walk

       The day had very few moments when my clothes were dry but the nightmare was yet to come & that too without sleeping. The tragedy in the tent was our own fault actually as our group which was full of youngsters entered the tent without drying & made all the beddings wet. It was a long sleepless night which took ages to get over.

     Even though the situation was miserable, I never thought of quitting the trip until I felt sore throat in the morning. That & the news of flood situation in many parts of state were enough to quit & get back to home as soon as possible.

    Thankfully the misfortune didn't extend to the journey back as I got an SUV ride at a reasonable price. Thus my first adventure trip ended with a dull climax.

Back to school after 14 years..

     I have always been fond of remembering past days especially good ones & the following story is about going 14 years back down memory lane. The occasion was official but the feeling was almost-not completely-like having a vacation in country side.

      The training cum exam was planned to be an exciting get together of our batchmates & that was a nice change from the past tour when I was the only one from my state. But my approach towards studies was almost as casual as it was in the year 2008. (The story is available on this blog with the title 'India Dekha' inspired from MP tourism ads)

      Meeting long lost friends on the train was the only excitement on the otherwise boring train route to Jabalpur. I still can't believe that all of us are past 40 years of age & most have teenage kids. But that's what life is - you keep thinking, planning, preparing, shaping, designing, organizing & it just happens. Anyway it was officially acknowledged that the tour is supposed to be a refreshing break in addition to the learning & we were excited for the additional part.

          Now compared to the previous one this was a very short one & there was no scope of going for tourist attractions. Anyway we managed to arrange a trip to Bhedaghat which is quite close to Jabalpur. I was about to revisit the thrilling ride on very calm, very deep waters of Narmada surrounded by marble rocks. But this time the boatman was trying to fill the boat just like a shuttle rickshaw & that spooked me so I decided to skip the boating adventure & went off to capture the beautiful surroundings with the Sunset setting. Dhuandhar fall was also visited before concluding the trip.

        

          A striking realization that hit me on the way back from Dhuandhar / Bhedaghat trip was that Jabalpur is much more than the cantonment area we relate it with.

Mount April in Abu

                 Here it is - story of another solo adventure - short weekend trip to a hill station for a change. After Daman - 2019 and Diu - 2021 trips, the next destination was supposed to be Goa but as it is not suited for a short/solo trip, I zeroed in on Mount Abu as my summer interlude.

               As usual, there was about an hour of extra waiting at the pick up point for the sleeper bus followed by sleepless, uneventful journey. It was well past my breakfast time & the bus stopped right in the snacks zone. There I had a satisfying breakfast of Meduvada with tea to begin the adventure on a tasty note.

DAY 1

Entering Abu at Sunrise

          Reaching the hotel was not so pleasant experience as It didn't look like it looked online & also it cost me 200 Rs. to travel the 1.5 km distance to the hotel, maybe that was the fixed charge of a jeep there. Anyway after a wait of about an hour I got my room to freshen up & to look forward.

          By the way, this story is being written in December 2022 & I feel like I cannot recall minute details of the trip. I do remember that the first thing the hotel manager offered me was an activa to move around the places in and around Mount Abu. The hotel turned out to be less beautiful than expected & the manager was friendlier than expected but in a shady way.

          My first visit on activa was to the Delwara Jain temples which have beautiful, intricate marble carvings but only for our eyes not for our cameras. The summer is not severe here but still it was quite hot to move around in the afternoon so I decided to rest in the afternoon & move out in the evening.

          The Sunset point is worth a visit & its a perfect place to pass a complete evening with picnic like feel, many picturesque viewing points & an added attraction of horse riding. The horse ride was less than 1 kilometer but while riding I thought about my muscle power against the horse & I stayed terrified the whole distance imagining it going out of control of the walking driver! The thrilling ride & beautiful clicks of Sunset summed up the evening for me & I headed back to my hotel. On a different note, I encountered the three girls who had come to stay in my hotel the same day, even though the attempt at conversation was failed but it did feel good to have a go at it.

Sunset Point - Mount Abu

The famous Nakki lake was also visited on my way to Sunset point, felt sad to not have a partner for boating & moved ahead after having a tea.

DAY 2

          Riding Activa to Delwara temples through the curvy, sloping mountain roads was thrilling but I opted to ride safe for the more distant places & so hired a Taxi the next day. Guru shikar was the farthest in my list & that was our first stop. I never enjoy climbing mountains to reach temples of never before heard of deities but it was easy to climb & I came down fast to go for the next place.

Next was the Lover's point which is more suitable for holding hands & looking in to each other's eyes than to love making as it is kind of flat open top area of the hills. Also, it is the shooting location of one of my favorite music albums Qayamat se Qayamat tak. Presently I have only myself to love so I captured few more selfies & left.

          The final site was Achalgarh fort & Achaleshwar temple & as the fort is not allowed to visit I started to climb towards the temple. On the way up I saw a portrait of a queen in a handicraft shop & bought one as a memorabilia of the trip, not much in Abu was remaining to be seen anyway.

The afternoons here were cooler than home but not so pleasant as you may expect from a hill station. So rest was all I could do after lunch up to evening.

          Now the evening time came again & I had already completed my to visit list so it was up to Nakki lake & Sunset point to give me some quality time. Here I got myself clicked by a professional photographer and that was all there for me to do at Nakki lake. At the Sunset point I explored few more view points & captured beautiful images after having a nice evening snack.

And last on the to do list was a bar visit in a costly hotel. Drinks were good but here also my age old wish to ask someone "your place or mine" remained unfulfilled.