Glimplses of Royal Land – Journey Begins

I love the architecture of forts, places and temples. I always wanted to visit in my lifetime and see the gigantic forts and beautiful palaces. To do this in India, I could not have chosen a better place than Rajasthan. To fulfill this dream along with my other 2 friends, we booked hotels, vehicle for a total period of 13 days in December 2004.

Totally 7 (3 families) of us started on this journey from Bangalore. We reached Delhi by flight as late as 1:00 p.m. We would have reached Delhi by 9:00 a.m if not for the fog. When we landed in Delhi the pre-booked Qualis was waiting for us. We got into the vehicle and stared moving towards Shekawati region in Rajasthan. On the way we had lunch at the road side Dhaba and reached Mandwa by 8:00 p.m. We could not see any place on the way, as it was getting late and dark. We checked-in to the Mandwa Haweli, and after refreshing we had good dinner. This is our first taste of Rajasthani food, and it was really good. After dinner we strode through the village and it was full moon day. There was no electric power in the village at that point, but from what little we could see that night, we knew next day morning will be exciting.

The Haveli had the electricity and we had good sleep to finish our first day on the trip. Next we will explore the Shekawati region.

Distance: Delhi ---> Mandwa is 257 kms

P.S: December is the month when lot of tourists land in Rajasthan. So if you really want all the arrangements to be done properly this has to be done before October end.

India Travel

In India, when we have good amount of money to spend on vacation, we usually think about various travel destinations like UK, Switzerland, France, Italy, Singapore, Malaysia, etc., One item that is common in these destinations is none of them are in our country.

We very coolly forget the rich heritage and architecture that our own nation has in store for us. We all know only one tourist location in India that is Taj Mahal. Apart from this we also have rich heritage of forts, palaces, place of worship (temples, churches, mosques), wild life, waterfalls and museums.

In earlier days it was considered very difficult to travel across the country on your own. This is not true any more. One can arrange the accommodations, vehicle for travel on their own and visit any place that he wishes to see. I agree we all desire to see the outside world and one should not miss this. But also spend some time on enjoying rich heritage of our country and give at least equal importance if not more.

Happy traveling.