I have always wanted to see three things of nature as I've grown up. The first was ocean. I was able to see the Arabian Sea when I had come to Bombay as a teenager. It was great to have the moist and salty wind at your face. The next was snow. During my trip to US, one day while I was chatting on yahoo, suddenly I realized that the weather monitor in the messenger window was showing that it was snowing in North Wales. I jumped off the bed and opened the window to find tine snow particles floating down from above and the parking lot before me was covered in a white bed spread. It was an amazing experience as I rushed out in -2 degrees C to enjoy my first snow fall. The third was my trip to the Thar.
The slick 8 lane highway between Delhi and Gurgaon ends at Manesar and then you have a 4 lane road all the way to Jaipur which does no justice to the traffic on the road. But I find it strange that even in the interior parts of Rajasthan we have good roads. What ever be the reason for their great condition but they significantly eased our road trip of roughly 1400 KMs. (wow!!)
I left Gurgaon at 4-5 PM on Friday and reached Jaipur (Gujjar ki Thadi) at around 10 PM at night. Thereafter I was picked up by my firends. and we drove towards Jaisalmer vi
a Jodhpur. I slept half the way, and woke up to see my friends having milk from a sweet shop. Unlike at my place every other guy in Rajasthan seem to wear huge colorful turbans. Possibly because of the intense heat in these parts of the country but it puts up a nice picture of "Incredible India !!". On our way we stopped in the morning, near a road site tea shop. One of my friends wanted to catch some sleep on the charpoy. Seeing the sleeping bag, a kid burst into a infectious laughter, and saw all of us ROTFL.
O
n our way somewhere we had realized that the driver we had hired for the trip was driving very rough, and Rahul was particularly concerned about his new pajero. :) Apart from that we were not having the same level of discussion we would have had if the driver hadn't been with us. So while eating great parathas, at one of the omnipresent dhabas along the highway we decided to get rid of the gusy and asked him to pack up and leave. (I sincerely felt very relieved when we just had 3 close friends in the car. Prior to that the discussions had been very cold.) We went further on our journey and reached pokharan. We stopped at a roadsign and took a picture, just to remeber the place where Buddha had smiled. I took a pic of the mile stone that said " Pokaran 0 KM" so that some day when I narrate about my travelogue to people I have evidence.( That's my idiosyncrasy :). We had a great desire to get ourselves clicked in the pit of the blast. But unfortunately no body is allowed to go near 'shakti sthal' (name of the blast site). Nevertheless we went ahead towards Jaisalmer. One thing about the road side view that came as a surprise to me when we were moving from Jodhpur to Jaisalmer was that Rajasthan is not all desert. Even in Jaisalmer district you will find fields which grow mustard.
We next arri
ved at Jaisalmer at around 12 PM and found the it looks all yellow. This yellowish hue to the city comes primarily due to the use of sandstone for construction purpose. The Jaisalmer station looks more like the set of film theatre. We ate at the Trio hotel . The food was not much to boast about. One special thing that I had there was 'sangri ki sabzi' which was nice. We loitered around for some time and got ourselves a booking at one of the camping places at the sam sand dunes. While on our way we came across the Wind Energy farms set up by Suzlon. Each one of those windmills cost upto 2 Crores (INR) and generates 40K worth of electricity everyday. That essentially means a breakeven in 2-3 years! Not bad at all. ( I wonder at the might of human imagination where we can make pots of money from even barren lands.)
Reached the Sam sand dunes at around 4 in the evening and straight to the dunes. Contrary to one's perception, sam dunes are far removed from the actual Thar. They are more like a picnic sp
ot for people who want a sandy experience. 
The actual Thar starts 3-4 KM from the Sam sand dunes. And if you want to go there you need a permit from the army. We had great 3-4 hrs. there and as the shadows grew longer we receded to our tents. At night we had a great get together, camp fire and folk music organized by the Organizers. We were pleased to find Vishal Bharadwaj with us. We met him and appreciated his work.
We had planned to get us early in the morning and go again to the dunes. But then you know. Plans are plans. We slept through the morning and got up at 8-9ish and headed for the dunes. Rahul wanted to test the four wheel drive option of his pajero. So we went to the dunes by his vehicle. It was doing fine, except at one point of the incline we felt that the car was tilting sideways. Quickly retraced our path and landed ourselves on are relatively flat dune. We spent some time there and then headed off to Jaisalmer city. On our ways, we also visited the famous Jain temples of Jaisalmer. I have seen the images of the interiors of the Jain temples in one of my ICSE history, but it is only when you see them in real you come to admire its true splendor.
Thereafter we started back towards Jaipur. It was a long journey back home with all the fun filled memories. It is great to go on 2-3 day weekends. You can see a lot and feel rejuvenated. Lets hope we see more of them soon.
The slick 8 lane highway between Delhi and Gurgaon ends at Manesar and then you have a 4 lane road all the way to Jaipur which does no justice to the traffic on the road. But I find it strange that even in the interior parts of Rajasthan we have good roads. What ever be the reason for their great condition but they significantly eased our road trip of roughly 1400 KMs. (wow!!)I left Gurgaon at 4-5 PM on Friday and reached Jaipur (Gujjar ki Thadi) at around 10 PM at night. Thereafter I was picked up by my firends. and we drove towards Jaisalmer vi
a Jodhpur. I slept half the way, and woke up to see my friends having milk from a sweet shop. Unlike at my place every other guy in Rajasthan seem to wear huge colorful turbans. Possibly because of the intense heat in these parts of the country but it puts up a nice picture of "Incredible India !!". On our way we stopped in the morning, near a road site tea shop. One of my friends wanted to catch some sleep on the charpoy. Seeing the sleeping bag, a kid burst into a infectious laughter, and saw all of us ROTFL. O
n our way somewhere we had realized that the driver we had hired for the trip was driving very rough, and Rahul was particularly concerned about his new pajero. :) Apart from that we were not having the same level of discussion we would have had if the driver hadn't been with us. So while eating great parathas, at one of the omnipresent dhabas along the highway we decided to get rid of the gusy and asked him to pack up and leave. (I sincerely felt very relieved when we just had 3 close friends in the car. Prior to that the discussions had been very cold.) We went further on our journey and reached pokharan. We stopped at a roadsign and took a picture, just to remeber the place where Buddha had smiled. I took a pic of the mile stone that said " Pokaran 0 KM" so that some day when I narrate about my travelogue to people I have evidence.( That's my idiosyncrasy :). We had a great desire to get ourselves clicked in the pit of the blast. But unfortunately no body is allowed to go near 'shakti sthal' (name of the blast site). Nevertheless we went ahead towards Jaisalmer. One thing about the road side view that came as a surprise to me when we were moving from Jodhpur to Jaisalmer was that Rajasthan is not all desert. Even in Jaisalmer district you will find fields which grow mustard. We next arri
ved at Jaisalmer at around 12 PM and found the it looks all yellow. This yellowish hue to the city comes primarily due to the use of sandstone for construction purpose. The Jaisalmer station looks more like the set of film theatre. We ate at the Trio hotel . The food was not much to boast about. One special thing that I had there was 'sangri ki sabzi' which was nice. We loitered around for some time and got ourselves a booking at one of the camping places at the sam sand dunes. While on our way we came across the Wind Energy farms set up by Suzlon. Each one of those windmills cost upto 2 Crores (INR) and generates 40K worth of electricity everyday. That essentially means a breakeven in 2-3 years! Not bad at all. ( I wonder at the might of human imagination where we can make pots of money from even barren lands.)Reached the Sam sand dunes at around 4 in the evening and straight to the dunes. Contrary to one's perception, sam dunes are far removed from the actual Thar. They are more like a picnic sp
ot for people who want a sandy experience. 
The actual Thar starts 3-4 KM from the Sam sand dunes. And if you want to go there you need a permit from the army. We had great 3-4 hrs. there and as the shadows grew longer we receded to our tents. At night we had a great get together, camp fire and folk music organized by the Organizers. We were pleased to find Vishal Bharadwaj with us. We met him and appreciated his work.We had planned to get us early in the morning and go again to the dunes. But then you know. Plans are plans. We slept through the morning and got up at 8-9ish and headed for the dunes. Rahul wanted to test the four wheel drive option of his pajero. So we went to the dunes by his vehicle. It was doing fine, except at one point of the incline we felt that the car was tilting sideways. Quickly retraced our path and landed ourselves on are relatively flat dune. We spent some time there and then headed off to Jaisalmer city. On our ways, we also visited the famous Jain temples of Jaisalmer. I have seen the images of the interiors of the Jain temples in one of my ICSE history, but it is only when you see them in real you come to admire its true splendor.
Thereafter we started back towards Jaipur. It was a long journey back home with all the fun filled memories. It is great to go on 2-3 day weekends. You can see a lot and feel rejuvenated. Lets hope we see more of them soon.
