Day 3 - Nathdwara - The time to seek blessings

After a complete rest day in Udaipur, we were all charged up to continue with our riding pleasures. You can't cage a wandering bug for long, sooner or later it will fly into the air.

We left in the morning around 10:30am after a heavy breakfast, planning to be back for lunch by 2:30 or so. The drive to Nathdwara was exciting. We first drove through the ghats which were surrounded by nice views. Pity it does not snow here. Then we descended onto the plains and followed the twists and turns. There were a few dhaabas and many alcohol selling signboards en route. Funny as it may seem, can't rule out folks taking a break to have some medeira before they seek darshan at the temple. In a way, its like having a bachelor stag party before jumping into the marriage fire! He! He!

Anyway, we continue on our two laned undivided highway tracks. Petrol Pumps were quite few but thankfully 60 odd kms is hardly any reason to get jittery aboout. We passed Eklingi which is bang on the main road itself and trudged along. Now we had every reason to get anxious as we were told that the temple dwar closes at 12 and its was getting close to 11:30 already and we were quite a distance away. Speed driving does not quite help because there is quite some traffic on this route.

We managed to enter the Nathdwara town around 11:40 and just hoped we made it in on time. Without maps, its left to the local assistance for guidance. The cop at the main road bang in the center of the intersection could not even hear our queries in his numbskull. After wasting 5 more minutes in trying to get a local to guide us, turns out we had to take a turn right where the cop was standing. Some mental swearing and we moved inside the tiny temple town. Passing through the narrow lanes with the clock breathing down my neck, we managed to reach the parking lot near the temple which was a big maidan with lots of room. A quick parking and we literally sprinted to the temple. At the gate you have to surrender all your stuff- the cellphones, camera, slippers etc.

Once inside, there are two separate zones for men and women. After spending a few nervous moments, we were reassured by the junta who were waiting there, that the temple is still open and doors will open soon.Phew! What a relief. There are no queues here; just plain old simple gate crash pushing and shoving to the altar. Not before long, the Pearly Gates opened and the mass of humanity rushed inside to have a view of the divinity. The funda inside is like this; There is the deity idol of Shrinath-ji, then there is a space about 4-5 women wide, stuffed like sardines and then there is bi-sectioned male zone with the front part for ephemeral devotees who want the darshan and move on after a few seconds and back zone where folks could brave the squeezes from all sides and yet manage to concentrate and pray as well. The men on the back came in 'ALL' sizes only; all pot bellied sumos who were compacting each other that their faces literally turned divine red. Did join them for 5 mins there and conveyed my thoughts to the Lord in a brief concise summarised form. Having made those senior executive presentations, it was a breeze to get my job done with this Seniormost Supremo.

Later, outside, after gathering all our material possessions from the counter, we did some nick-nack shopping for my daughter and had some wonderful kesar masala chai. The chai wala,quite a big stall on the right, a lil ahead of the sandwich-chaat walla joints, is a fundu guy and do have a sip from his creations.

Back in the car and we left Nathdwara around 1:15 pm. Once on the highway back, the keeda(worm) strikes. I ask my navigator," Isn't the Haldighatti about 15 odd kms from the highway?, Chal lets go there na.". Ok she says and we take the right turn detour after asking 3-4 locals. The road to Haldighatti is a village type road; single laned but fairly well tarred. Of course, I was hoping not to run into lot of village goats. Seeing the roads, I prayed that the Jaisalmer-Ahmedabad is not like this. Luckily no scares and we reached Haldighatti safely.

There are two parts to the Pratap Memorial here. Atop a hillock is a vast platform constructed on which there is a statue of Maharana Pratap on Chetak. Apparently, this is the exact spot where Chetak died in battle after rescuing his master. The road gradient was very steep and my car stalled to generate some anxiety for the family with the reverse roll. But the roll was arrested and first gear pushy driving ensured we reached near the top of the hillock. See pics of car and me there.
The second part was a memorial museum which has an audio visual multimedia presentation as well. They also have shop counters to sell local produce and sovenirs. Had lunch at the eatery there and at 100 bucks a thali, we had our first Dal Bhatti and Dal Bhatti laddoos in Rajasthan. Food is good and that is the only decent city standard eating option in the whole drive on SH 76.

We left by 3:00 pm and hoped to get a darshan at Eklingi shrine on our way back. High hopes! Reaching the temple at 4:00 pm we were told that the temple does not open till 5 pm. Not willing to hang around for one more hour and knowing we can do the visit again on our way to Kumbalgarh, we left for Udaipur right away and reached by 5:30ish, followed by chilling out with the family.

The Rajasthan Adventures - Udaipur conquest. - Day 1

Its a little past 0230 hrs on a Wednesday morning and not a twain was awake in the vicinity. The only hustle bustle happened to be on the third floor of a building. Mine.

All of us are very excited on setting out on our much awaited travel plans. We look forward to those rare vacations that come far and between, that the very thought of doing one just drives us wild with excitement.

Fast Rewind... Planning had been on for over 3 weeks tying up hotels and train reservations. Then one fine Saturday, two weeks into the D-day, the head honcho(Me :-) ) gives more food to the niggling thought of driving it down as opposed to the train and taxi modes. Team BHP forum has been very instrumental in honing my thoughts and assisting me with very minute details that can put anyone who want to drive in India at ease. Road maps, accommodation experiences, which roads to take and what to watch out, all available at the click of a button.
My ladyship is not very enthused at the driving plans and thinks skeptically that this hangover shall pass. Two days down, she realizes its for real and the bubbling energies just cannot be quelled.

Fast forward... Present day 18 Nov.. The morning saga was as efficient as one could imagine. Hats off ito my ladyship who took care of many minute packing details. After all there was a 5 year old and a 70 year old in the tow as well. We planned to leave at 4:00 but instead left at 5 am instead.

The sky was still dark and roads illuminated by the halogen suns. The weather was cool and less sultry. The ride to Thane and Ghodbunder was a breeze. Our first pain came a little after the Ghodbunder toll point. An overturned truck had caused a jam and inconsiderate drivers jumped the lanes and were creating a mess.. Half hour wasted and we were on our way.
Past Manor, we saw the twilight on the horizon. Such a wonderful sight it is to behold the glimpses of the first rays of the sun overpowering the blanket of the darkness.

Around 8:30 our stomachs, which were loaded with short burn fuel, started reporting that we are going to have major depletion of energy sometime soon. That calls for a pit stop. We had this very detailed trip logs by fellow bhp-ian(hvkumar), which mentioned a Woodlands and Fortuna hotel in Vapi. Now what we missed out on , was that the Woodlands was on the opposite side of the road! So here we are on the highway, and the wife nudges me with "There there there" And I am saying "Where where where?" while holding wheels steady at 70kmph. Turned out that, that we had to do a U turn ahead, come right back to the 4 way intersection and take a service road to get there. After a sumptuous and delicious madrasi breakfast and system downloads, we set out again. This time the rejoining the highway was just as circuitous as the exit from it. Taking the service road again, u turn into the Mumbai bound lane and then u turn at the 4 way intersection, saw us finally back on route. Wasted about 4 kms in that dilly dallying!

We started this new habit inspired by many of the BHPians who were kind enough to maintain a trip log with great information on mileposts, times, road condition and features like petrol pumps, hotels and flyovers en route. Having benefited from the help of other members’ efforts, we felt naturally motivated to maintain our own trip logs, verifying and augmenting the information already on hand. Sunita would meticulously hunt down every petrol pump and hotel on the way and log them diligently for future reference. Its amazing what information can do on a road trip like ours.
Coming back on track, we cruised along the highway under thick truck traffic conditions. Thankfully, we did not encounter any cattle crossings. Surat Bharuch, Ankleshwar all zipped by precisely like the log references we had. By Vadodra, the car’s appetite for fuel started coming around and our hunt for HP power kept our adrenalin up as no decent pump of any company showed up in almost 30 kms of driving. So we decide to deviate from our path and go into Vadodra. O our dismay we are just riding right into the city and still no pump in sight. At a local enquiry, we came to know there is a Shell pump further down o our path. We shelved the notion of HP Power fuel and decided to go for the Shell Premium. After all Betsy(my car J ) was also on vacation na.. so she must also have the local flavors and variety too na.. Ok .. fuel loaded and we check the air. The fella reads the first tire and says 23! I am like “What the f**** ? How did this happen?? “ I had filled in nitrogen and that’s supposed to maintain very steady pressure and cooler temperatures! So I decide, I need to take a second opinion. Drive into a IOCL pump and the tire fella is missing. So it’s a do-it-yourself now. Check the pressure in another tyre, again around 26 psi. Now, I call up my guy where I fill NO2 and ask him and he says ya the pressure can drop if you run on rough roads. So I fill up regular compressed air and after spending close to an hour, re-enter the highway.

As we enter the expressway, we goggle up our sandwich lunch en route and cruise along easily at 100km. Suddenly the wife, the rookie driver, asks me if she can hold the wheel for a while. Now most people would imagine it to be similar to a guy asking another guy for a dig at his favorite robot toy. But for me, it was more on the opposite. My heart and brain suddenly got derailed at the notion of what would happen with her behind the wheel and I blinked an eyelid or a homely buffalo decide to switch the sides of the highway for a different gourmet meal. After all the grass is greener on the other side na..So I let her let loose her imagined fantasies of driving on the fast lane. Seeing her gain some confidence in getting her driving skills in order, was giving me some hope and Mungeri Lal type sapne of a co-driver on future wild driving tours. A few moments later, my visualization was summarily suspended, by the wife’s enquiry “ Did you see that? I touched 120kmph!” And I said, “Of course I did,love. My heart rate is synchronously matched with the speedometer and I felt this sudden Schumacher like Mach 3 surge. Are you planning to have him for a guru gantal for model driving? ”. After about 90 kms driving, I relieve madam’s quest and take over the reins.
Past the expressway, the roads ahead are good. Till halfway to Himatnagar, the road became like a two lane old type highway with numerous intersections. A tea break on the outskirts of Himatnagar, at Ashirwad hotel was good. We ate a very different kind of pattice which had the goodness of different kinds of cereals interspersed with potato filling. We left the place by 5:30 pm and it began to get darker and soon nightfall had arrived. We were still about 100 kms from Ratanpur and about 170 kms from Udaipur. By all estimates, it pointed to no less than 3 hours more for driving.

Night driving has its aye-sayers and nay-sayers. I subscribe to both. Night driving is quite safe if you are alert, don’t doze off behind the wheel, stick to lane discipline and drive on divided roads which have sufficient barriers to block oncoming headlight glare from the lanes across. I decided to do easy driving and stuck to a 50kmph constant. Little did I know that we would be going through couple of mountain ridges en route. Exciting and a learning experience as well. It was quite safe actually, since it was a 2x2 divided highway. Hats off to the NHAI and their GQ and EW initiatives.

I was keen on rekindling my memories of similar trip that I had undertaken with my friends some 12 years earlier in the winter of 86. As we passed Ratanpur, the entire intersection at the border wore a very modernized pathway look with neat RTO areas and no obstruction to traffic. The RTDC Midway motel resort, where we had the craziest adventure of our lives, then, had not changed one bit. Still had the oldish rustic look. Moving on, I wanted to stop by at Rishabdeo as well. During that earlier famed trip, we discovered this 14th century temple by chance while chatting with the chai tupri owner where we stopped for a tea break. Revisiting the place made me realize that our country and rural landscape is truly changing. In twelve years, the little hamlet now had conrete dumped roads in comparison to dusty kucha roads earlier. Had a good darshan and made our offerings remembering all my friends with whom we had that wonderful trip. Nostalgia, doesn’t smell like it used to !

It’s a little past 8 pm and we were still about 70 odd kms away. My confidence in my abilities for night driving increase and I am now doing 70 kmph comfortably. The truckie driving have been given a bad repute and it is largely a concoction of old drivers who lived in the pre GQ era who had to deal with undivided roads and constant incoming glare. In reality, I have observed that truckies stick to their lane religiously except for passing. They however give little indications of their intent though. But never had a problem with them anyway.

Turning into the Udaipur city, armed with maps from yahoo and another source, we thought it should be quite easy. After all how big a city can this be! Wrong. One wrong turn and you are on your own trip, as we discovered. Finally, after some 20 mins of getting lost and re-directed, we finally reach Sunita’s aunt’s house around 945pm.

What a day it has been!! Thoroughly enjoyed it. 16 hrs of journey and covered 800 kms. In 1998 did a 16 hr drive from Chicago to New Jersey and covered about 900 miles! For a nation of 60 odd years old, we are not very far behind a 400 year old developed country! Are we???
Trip logs and photos will follow soon.