Jaipur – The pink city

If you have read my wish list of the places to visit, Jaipur was one of it. And I managed to plan a trip in the month of September. It was a four days tour and I also visited the Agra for a day. More about Agra in another post.

In Jaipur I stayed at The Palms Hotel. The hotel is located in good area of the city very close to the Raj Mandir – A well known cinema theatre. The hotel was not exactly the best one. The service was not as expected. You may want to check the review at this site.

I reached Jaipur at around noon and after a brief nap was as good as new. Soon I was out to explore the place. After a brief walk I was in front of the much talked about theatre – The Raj Mandir.  I was advised by a good friend to check out this theatre and so I went ahead and booked tickets for Dabangg. Once inside I was impressed by the Raj Mandir, one has to consider the fact that this theatre was built much before the concept of multiplexes was introduced in India. The chandeliers, the decorative pieces, the lightings… all of this really made it worth the view.

Next day we proceeded for site seeing and for that purpose booked a cab for the day. I think it was good deal at 1.2k for an AC indica. Our first stop was at the Hawa Mahal. The structure is right on the main road. Though our driver said there is nothing inside, we went in and climbed till the top floor. One can see the Jantar-Mantar from Hawa Mahal.

The next stop was at Jantar-Mantar. This huge astronomy observatory was built under the regime of Maharaja Jai Singh II between 1727 and 1734. One of the Yantra (Instrument), Brihat Samrat Yantra, here works on the principle of sundial and can give time to the accuracy of 2 seconds! You may want to know more about it please check the Wikipedia link.

Amer or Amber fort is about 12 km from Jaipur. Out of that 3-4 km stretch of road is not very good but at the time the repair work is in progress so it should be ok in another 3 months or so. Apart from that the drive was quite good.

I can only wonder what they might be cooking in this huge vessel.

  

On our way back we stopped at the Jal Mahal. I am told that till some days back the visitors could go inside by boats however now that service is no more available. The view of Jal Mahal at the dusk was awesome.

As the day was coming to end we decided to do some shopping. Please bear in mind that many shops here will declare that they are the government shops. However I have learnt (the hard way) that apparently government gives the contracts to the shops to sell the local articles but they are not 100% govt. shops. The prices are on higher sides. For example the shop right in front of Jal Mahal, it is a huge establishment which sells gift articles, jewellery, sarees, dress materials etc. But the prices are quite high. I guess the travel agents prefer it for the commission they get from the owners. Anyway I found that the better way to shop is to check at least 3-4 shops before deciding the right place.

The following day we went to the city all by ourselves by the autorikshaws which are very easily available. We enjoyed the shopping and also viewed a show at the Birla Planetarium. We did some experiment with food and tried our hands at the daal-baati-churma. Must tell you that it is such a wholesome meal that even after 4 hours I was feeling full :)

However I think I would visit Jaipur one more time to check out the places after studying them in more details. Also I have missed out some sites like the Nahargarh fort, Jaigarh fort and Gaitore. They certainly call for another trip.

Things to consider
Study about the place and its custom. At Albert hall museum one can buy tickets for 5 other places at concessional rate. This not only saves money but also saves time which otherwise would be spent in standing in queues.

I would advise to take a guide at places like Jantar-Mantar. I could not get good guide at Amer fort but if you could get some one, please try it. And fianally check out the links below for more information about the beautiful Jaipur.
http://www.rajasthantourism.gov.in/Destinations/Jaipur/AboutJaipur.aspx
Links courtesy Mr. Shiv (Post about wish list)
http://www.jaipurtravel.com/about_jaipur.htm
http://www.jaipur.org.uk/

What to eat
Daal Baati Churma, Malpova at Rawaat Sweets

When to visit
October - February

What to shop
Bandhani dresses, Traditional Sarees, Laakh jewellery (Bangles) at Chhoti Chopdi and Badi Chopdi, The puppets

Minimum stay duration
3 days

Jejuri, Narayangaon and Balaji

It has been long time that my family wanted to visit the Khandoba of Jejuri, Datta mandir of Narayangaon and the Balaji temple. I had been to Balaji temple last year and I was quite impressed by the cleanliness and the automosphere of the location. When I say balaji temple I mean the one which is near to Pune. With the help of google and few friends we chalked out the path so as to cover all these places in one go!

 

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We started at around 9:30 in the morning. Our first stop was at Balaji temple. This temple is developed and managed by Venkateshwara Hatcheries. It is located at a very scenic place. Everything is well managed and it is said to be the replica of the Balaji temple of Tirupati. I have not been there so I cannot judge. We reached there at around 11am. After darshan we decided to have our lunch at the temple itself. It consisted of rice and sambhar and was very well prepared.

Then we started for the Narayangaon. It is famous for its Datta Mandir. The temple seems to be renovated and is right on the main road passing through the village. You have to be lucky to find the parking space by the road. There was no crowd on the day of our visit so we had good darshan of lord Datta. This is the first temple where I saw ek-mukhi Datta. The road to Narayanpur was very beautiful, more so since it had rained for a few days before our journey. All over there was greenery.

We did not spent much time at Narayangaon and proceeded to Jejuri. I had been to Jejuri long time back during my college days with my friends. Once a sleepy village is now a bustling small town. One can drive in the four wheeler right till the base of the temple. There are many private parking spaces available for some fee. I parked my car as near the temple's base as possible :-). One has to climb about 150 steps to reach the Kandoba's temple. On the way one can see the huge statue of Umaji Naik. This temple is actually a fort on which Shivaji Maharaj met Shaji Maharaj after a long time and at this place they worked on various war strategies against the Mugals.

Jejuri is also known for the deepmalas. There are more than 100 deepmalas on the way to the temple. These are made up of solid rock and were used in olden days to put in earthen lamps. For reasons not known to me at this temple the devotees diplay their devotion by throwing fine turmeric powder and pieces of cocunut and chanting "YelKot YelKot JaiMalhar". I do not know the reason or root of this traditioin. If you know about it, you are welcome to share it. Make sure that you do go up the stair case on the side of the temple. From top one can see the beautiful water bodies around the temple. This site is not to be missed!

 

After Khandoba's darshan we started on our way back to Pune. The return journey was through Hadapsar so though there was traffic the distance was less. Have you been to these places? What was your experience?

Paris - A business trip

In june I had to go to Velizy, France for a business trip. But there was only one problem... no two... nah three... or may be more. The first one - my passport was about to expire. I applied for it's renewal at the regional passport office. In first instance itself I managed to submit all the necessary documents. And then started the long wait for the passport to arrive. After 30 odd days I still had not received it. I checked the status on the website of passport office and for next couple of days I observed that the status was same. And next day early morning of I went to the passport office only to be sent back with a status that my application is at police station. The police station of course has not received my application and thus started my running from police station to the passport office and then back. The least that I can say about the passport officials is that they were least helpful and illogical in their approach. The system could be hi-tech, the office could be computerized, but in the end it is the mindset of the officials that can improve the efficiency of the office. There could be 100 reasons to say NO to improvement but only one strong boss to turn around an organization.

Finally after n number of round to police stations and passport office, I received my passport. But then the appointment to the France consulate for getting visa was not available! Now this is the 'office' where the applications are moved in very efficient manner. However I must say that my travel office really tried their best and got an appointment for me... just a day before my flight. And thus I got my passport stammped with the France visa!

I was packing my bags on saturday, the same night on which I was to fly to Paris, I got a call from office. Some data which I had to take along with me had some problem. Once again I was shaken. I rushed to office and in another 3 hours or so got everything under control. In the mean time called up my wife to pack whatever she thinks is appropriate and I dd not regretted that... :-) Then I rushed back in time to say good bye to my family and of I went to the Mumbai airport.

The flight was good and landed on time in the fashion capital of world - Paris! The weather however was quite bad... it was cold and raining. Very unexpected in June. Visited the Musee the Louvre, Trocadero and Eiffle tower on sunday. Could not go up the Eiffel due to the chilling wind and the rains. Interestingly there was a big screen put up at the Trocadero for the football world cup. The football fever was in the air.

Monday - first day of office at Velizy was good. Met all my colleagues after a long time. The conference for which I went there was on the next day. Everyone was putting in all there efforts to make it a success. The conference was excellent and very knowledgeable. I also got opportunity to meet experts of various fields. Meeting and hearing the views of customers from all over the world, getting to know their perspectives was altogether a different experience. Most importantly I conducted a session in this conference and it was very well received and appreciated... Making it worth all the troubles!