Ride to Rajasthan - I

Part I - Kota

               I wrote this part at my hotel room in Kota. I visited the Garadia Mahadev temple today, because I had seen it in a Rajasthan tourism ad. I used to think that it was exaggerated in the ad, but I was wrong! The place is magical, but what makes it better is how you get to the place. Before we get into the details, there was a day and a half of bike riding that preceded my visit to Kota.

Route to Kota

               On Friday, the 15th of December, I had my stuff packed and bike cleaned before I started for work. At 4 PM, I left office, loaded the luggage on the bike (camera, guitar and one more bag) and started for Surat, my halt for the night. It was 270 kms from office, and getting out of the city traffic took me an hour. It was much easier as I reached the Gujarat highway.

               I reached Surat at 9 PM, but finding my hotel took me another half an hour. ‘Yash Dormitories’ was a hostel-type place, well-maintained and cosy, and very close to the Surat railway station. I slept by 10 PM after having a light dinner. There were three other people sharing the room with me, but I didn’t start a conversation since I didn’t want to stay up for long.

Bed Tea
               I was up by 430 AM the next day, and ready to leave by 5. The weather was cool, not very harsh, and riding was fun. Although I had to cover around 800 kms that day, I maintained a decent speed and seemed on course to reach Kota by 530 PM. But then, I decided to leave the highway when GPS showed me a shorter route – BIG MISTAKE! I was going in circles for more than an hour, and getting of the place took me another hour. And no network meant no more GPS for directions. After asking a few people, I reached Udaipur.

               There was slow-moving, heavy vehicle-traffic on the Udaipur-Kota highway at the beginning. There were still 270 kms to go. But after around 20 kms, the traffic thinned out, and the road turned out to be a beauty! I halted twice, once for refuel and once for tea, before reaching Kota at 8.30 PM.

Peacock
               I had booked a room at Hotel Gokul, near the railway station. I got a free upgrade, since the room I’d booked wasn’t available. Although small, the room was neat, and had a bed that I could jump on! I slept peacefully. 


The jump shot
  The next day, I checked with the hotel staff about Garadia Mahadev temple. He said it would be around 130 kms. I checked my map, showed 30 kms! I packed my camera and accessories and followed the map instructions. I reached a place where there was no road, it was more of a dirt track. Standing on the foot pegs of the bike, I was gliding over the track! 4 kms later, I was on the highway again. I had to leave the highway again to get onto a broken tarmac road, through a forest. I wasn’t sure what to expect, there was nothing in the vicinity except for the dry grasslands and shrubs, and I wondered if the map was wrong again. But I reached a point where they issued tickets for visiting the place, and I was reassured that I was on the right track. Ticket cost was Rs. 105. Another 10 minutes through the forest, and I started to see the valley, exactly how it was in the ad! Only this time, it was much more real, and much more beautiful! I was running out of adjectives.

Garadia Mahadev
               I set my bag down, and just sat there for a while, registering the landscape that I had stumbled upon! I walked along the edge of the cliff, and there were a lot of birds there. In some time, quite a few tourists arrived at that place, so I rode along the cliff, into the forest to find a quieter place. I went far enough so that others couldn’t get there. Solitude! After getting photographs, I returned to Kota again, halting along the highway to click pictures.

As soon as I reached the city, disaster struck! Flat tyre, and I was dragging 180 kgs of metal around the streets looking for someone who could fix the puncture. By the time I reached the shop, the damage had increased. There was a screw the size of my pinky finger stuck in the tyre. The guy fixed 7 punctures and advised me to get a spare tube as a precaution. In the evening, I went around the market place for a walk, and try out the street food. Poha-jalebi, gajar halwa, pakodas and chai were my dinner. After returning to the hotel, I packed my stuff to leave for Chittorgarh the next day. 

The next day, continued..

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