Yesterday we left Agra and started our drive to Delhi we had decided that on our way to Delhi we will drive through Mathura and ten to Brindavan before we hit the Yamuna Expressway.
At Mathura we made it to the Krishna Janma Bhoomi (the prison where Krishna was born) cars are not allowed near the entrance to this shrine so Aanand stayed back in the car trying to find a place to park. Mahalakshmi and I went on and were accosted by a few touts who promised to take us through the VIP gate and give us VIP darshan etc. We brushed them aside and went on, a while later we found that we knew very little about the shrine or how to get inside there were no signs and no information anywhere to guide us. We fell into the hands a of a tout who took us on saying that he will take us in no time through the VIP entrance and when we went there we found that everyone was a VIP and there was a very very long queue waiting to get in. Seeing this he said that he would take us through another entrance at which time we said enough is enough and walked away. On the way out Mahalakshmi asked a policeman the best way to get in and he said all we had to do was wait in the queue and go in and there is no problem at all, in fact the inside is easy to navigate. Not convinced we walked away and while we were walking to the car we noticed that the main gate had opened and people were going in. We rushed and packed our cameras mobiles into my handkerchief handed this over at the safe keeping counter and charged in. In a few minutes we were as there was not much of a crowd at this gate, as it had just opened. We walked over to a shop which accepted to take care of our footwear and once this was done we rushed to see the jail whee Krishna was born. The building was new and was constructed to give one the feeling that he was going into a dungeon and there it was a shrine in the room where krishna was supposed to have been born, whether this is true or not is a big question but what can one do against faith? We saw, we wondered ad were out, back to the shop to pickup our shoes and off we went to the car. The shop which had taken care of our shoes did not take any money for this little service, in fact they flatly refused.
By this time we realised that we were late and would not be able to make it to Brindavan, so we decided to drop the idea of Brindavan and started for Delh, we did stop over at one of the exits for some food.
It took us over 1.5 hours to get away from mathura, the very narrow roads, crowd and the not so helpful GPS conspired and worked against our desire for a fast and easy exit from this town.
Once we hit the Yamuna Express Way we were happy. The very broad roads, no traffic coming from the opposite side enabled us to move on at high speeds, 120 and no need to slow down. We reached Delhi in record time and reached our Hotel The Manor, the hotel is run by the same people who run The Habitat and The Manor boasts of one of India's top class restaurants "Indian Accent" a must for anyone interested in gourmet food.
We left early in the morning and drove down to Jaipur. At Gurgaon we had to stop on the highway for a short while to meet Rtn. Dr Nischol Pandey who was driving there to meet to shake hands with us. We did just that said our goodbyes and went our way. We had booked ourselves into The Jaipur Club, we had stayed there earlier when the rooms had just been renovated and when we checked in yesterday I was shocked, the room was something like one of the Lodge rooms that you see in tamil cinemas close to a railway station? All the soft furnishings were dirty and stained and we would have fallen il had we stayed there. Luckily we found ourselves room at the SMS Taj which was closeby. On the way to our newly found Hotel we stopped over at a Reliance Fresh to buy some snacks, milk, rice and curds - ha ha we make rice for the journey and have curd rice for lunch everyday we travel. When we came out o the store we found that the police had wheel locked the car, again luckily we found their number on the windshield and they came in soon as we called. The Rs 200 that I paid was well worth the trouble that otherwise we would have to go to before we went to our hotel. The hotel was great and the Rajasthani thali we had for dinner was good. We did decide to stay on for another day here as Mahalakshmi was not keeping too well, her cold was bugging her. But, no rooms available.
We started our journey this morning at about 10AM with a packed breakfast with us. With a packed breakfast and lunch we were set to drive with little time wasted on lunch and breakfast. The breakfast we had in the car to save time and kept going,the light falls early here in the North and I do not want to drive after dusk.
A few hours after we started and on NH79A I stopped at a roadside Dhaba which caters to lorry drivers for a cup of tea. The dhabba was furnished with Charpoys on which men were sitting and having their breakfast (lunch?) I shall publish the pictures that I took here on my blog http:/mindonedge.blogspot.com
The road was patchy at points and this slowed us down but we did manage to keep a respectable 60Km average through our our trip today.
We stopped for lunch at a Banyan tree on the side of the road and adjacent to which were a few shrines to some hindu gods which I was not able to identify, thanks for some shade and privacy we had a quick lunch and were off in a short while.
A few hours later we were driving through a small town or a village when Mahalakshmi noticed swords being sold on the roadside shops, we pulled over so I could buy one. On inquiry we were told tat peoplebuy these swords for use in religious ceremonies and weddings and the like, the Rajputs are a warrior clan right? We negotiated a price purchased a sharp sword, threw it into the dicky and were off.
Reached Udaipur at 5 PM, checked into the Hotel and then took a Uber to look around. This evening we had dinner at Natraj Dining Hall which serves a phenomenal Rajasthani Thali and in my opinion much better than the ones we get at Rajdhani in Chennai. we had gone looking for some handloom block print shirting material which we did not find but the thali was worth the trouble of having got out of the Hotel this evening.
Tomorrow we look around Udaipur and then we are off to Baroda.
We have covered over 4000 Km on our trip so far and have yet another 1600 or so more to go before we reach our destination - Bangalore.
With so much driving to do there is not much of photography being done. Yes I do use my phone to take the pictures and my trusted very small handy Kodak also comes into use. The only time I used my Nikon DSLR was in Varanasi.
Sometimes I just want to experience all there is around me and not be bothered with photographing it
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