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Hi guys
Am going on a road trip to Rajasthan starting 04sep11 to 22sep11 in my Indica.
bom 550 amd -1 night
amd 231 mt.abu -1 night
mt.abu 169 udaipur - 2 nights
udaipur 255 jodhpur - 2 nights
jodhpur 267 jaisalmer - 2nights
jaisalmer 333 bikaner - 1 night
bikaner 188 mandawa - 1 night
mandawa 183 jaipur - 4 nights
jaipur 148 pushkar - 1 night
pushkar 206 chittaurgarh - 1 night
chittaurgarh 427 vadodara - 1 night
vadodara 421 bom

Any inputs/advice welcome

I suggest you should considering Abad-Udaipur, Udaipur-Mt Abu, Mt Abu-Jodhpur. Also 2 nights may not be needed for Jaisalmer. If you start early from Jodhpur, you can reach Jaisalmer well before noon (250 km). Spend the rest of the day checking out the fort, Patvo ki Haveli etc. Evening you can book yourself into any desert camp and enjoy rajasthani folk music and food with a bon fire and spend the night in a tent. Next day you can proceed for Bikaner.

If you are a fast driver, you can target to hit Udaipur on day 1 itself (about 750 km) unless you need to stop at Ahmedabad. Start early from Mumbai. After Vapi, till Udaipur, the road is in excellent condition.

Thank you Sandy.
Shall consider the options you have given.

Some more places for you to consider:
Nathdwara temple - 55 kms from Udaipur
Ranakpur - off the route from Mt Abu to Jodhpur
Deshnoke Karni Mata (Rat) Temple - on the way from Jaislamer to Bikaner

Are you sure you want to spend a night in Pushkar? You can ideally leave Jaipur early morning, reach Pushkar in 2 hours, finish darshan and go on to Chittorgarh (take the Pushkar-Ajmer-Nasirabad road).

Have noted your suggestions Kumar.
Plan to spend a night in Pushkar because I would like to visit Ajmer also.
Could you also tell me how this route from Udaipur to Jodhpur be? http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Ud...UgQ&mra=ls&z=8
If I take this route I will not be backtracking right?
As have already made bookings in Udaipur and MT.Abu and any change in dates involves 25% penalty

We did a similar circuit from Hyderabad,details are available on this travelogue http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...than-m800.html

I do not think Pushkar & Ajmer are worth an overnight stay(with all due respects to the temple & the dargah,but the places are just so sad and bad and dirty! and so are the hotels)I would second HVK's view of leaving Jaipur by 6 to reach Pushkar by 8,darshan and leave Pushkar back to Ajmer by 10 and then continue onwards to Chittor via Nasirabad-Bhilwara to reach Chittor by 4-5 in the evening.Excellent roads.

Please note that while coming from Jaipur do not take the roads which point for Pushkar on NH8.That bypass road to pushkar is not complete and after a while you wouldnt see roads.It is plain and simple to go via Ajmer to Pushkar and come back to Ajmer.Takes hardly 20-30mins from Ajmer to Pushkar and excellent roads.

Also why dont you start from Jaisalmer instead ,it would make a perfect circle and you wouldnt retrace any of your paths.While coming back,you could spend a night at Chittor and then come to udaipur and then drive back straight to Mumbai from Udaipur.

Also 4 nights in Jaipur IMHO is going to be way too much(unless you have something specific in your mind).Jaipur is an urbanised polluted city with congested roads and the typical commercial touristy touts all over.Not an enjoyable place definitely.(Do not want to sound biased but thats the fact!)

Reduce the number of nights by 2 at Jaipu,would be more than sufficient,and instead stay more number of days at udaipur and jaisalmer.Lovely places both.

Thank you Ranjit for your inputs. Will see how I can incorporate your suggestions. Have to stay in Jaipur for a longer time since I have a friend there who has insisted I spend as much time as possible there :)

If its a friend visit,then its a different story:thumbs up

This is the route I'd suggested

Mumbai, Maharashtra to Vadodara, Gujarat - Google Maps

Also you could easily do BOM-Mt.Abu on day 1 if you start early from Mumbai.Target to cross Ghodbunder by 530am and you should be ok.Ahmedabad-Mt.Abu is just 4-5hours and good roads,around 240 kms via Mehsana.4 laned for most parts of the route.

Again accomodation options are average in mount abu

Good road from Udaipur to Jodhpur. Though going on Udaipur-Abu road is fantastic and from there you could go to Pali (take a right before Abu road) and thence to Jodhpur.

Do post lots of pictures ;-)

Magiceye,

My two cents:

a) Udaipur - One full day apart from day of arrival. You can keep another day to explore Nathdwara and Devigarh as well.

b) Minimum half a day for Ajmer/Pushkar. No need to stay.

c) Highly recommend that you should visit Ranakpur - the largest jain temple - and Kumbhalgarh - longest fort in the country and in lighting looks awesome at night - on the way to Jodhpur from Udaipur. Both are outstanding places you should not miss. I am attaching pictures. The first four are of kumbahlgarh and last two are ranakpur. The drive to Ranakpur is through forested Aravalis and very pleasing. There are good saty options in Kumbhalgarh.













d) You dont need one day in Jodhpur. Three hours is sufficient as the only place to see is fort. This can be done on the way to Jaisalmer.

e) What is the reason for staying in Mandawa? You can see havelis in shekavati within few hours and drive down to Jaipur. Unless you have specail reasons to stay, no need to stay in mandawa.

f) Four days in jaipur is too much. Two days is maximum you can spend there.

g) I would recommedn you to revsit the plan and the spare days you get may help you to include places mentioned above as well as Ranthambore as well.

Are you sure about spending a night at both Pushkar AND Chittorgarh?

During our Pune-Gurgaon road trip, we started off from Udaipur in the morning, spent ~4hours at Chittorgarh and reached Ajmer at 6pm. Went to Pushkar in the evening, stayed the night over, visited the Dargah in the morning and set off for Gurgaon.

About Nathdwara, consider it only if you're a temple fanatic. There's utter chaos in that place and the crowd is a like a directionless mob.

You could take a look at this :

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...ml#post2334378

Thats a good suggestion. Only hitch is that it skips Jodhpur. The Mehrangad and Umaid Bhawan Palaces are worth seeing when on a tour of Rajasthan. Suggest a slight modification - Abad-Mt Abu-Jodhpur-Jaisalmer. Rest itinerary remains as suggested. You will have to retrace a small stretch on the Jodhpur-Jaisalmer stretch but I guess it would be worth it.

Fully agree with that. Had been to Nathdwara few months back. The temple has specific timings thru out the day when it opens for darshan. So every time, it opens there is a mad rush to get inside. After all the jostling, you hardly get few seconds for darshan. Ofcourse, you can engage a guide who will give you a tour of the entire temple premise and show you the various places (the kitchen, the store, Lord's Chariot etc) but it all depends on your interest. Also the place is not high on cleanliness.

About 30kms from Udaipur is Eklinji Mandir. You could visit that sometime during your stay at Udaipur.

Also, if you like/enjoy visiting places with a cultural twist, do visit Shilgram.

Yep Sandy is spot on. I did the mumbai-udaipur-chittorgarh-kumbalgarh-jodhpur-jaisalmer-ahd-mumbai trip in Nov 2009. You can definitely do the mum-udaipur in a single day. we left at 5 am and made it by 9 pm with some good halts ( abt 4-5 hrs). Mt Abu, not sure. Roads are beautifully smooth esp the Rajasthan side after the border over the hills etc.

Second HVK here.. also check out Rishabdev ( a lil before Udaipur) and Eklinji (en route to Nathdhwara) temples too. There is a Pratap Memorial at haldighati where valiant Chetak died and the story is fascinating to hear, thats an off shoot from Eklinji (16 kms). But if you plan Udaipur-Kumbalgarh (like I did ) Pratap memorial at Haldighati will be on your way. Else Udaipur-Nathdwara(30kms)-Eklinji(13km)-Haldighatti(16km)-eklinji-udaipur.

EW expressway from Udaipur-Chitorgarh is an awesome speed thrill zone. But make sure you have good brakes and definitely watch out for the herd of goats crossings out of nowhere!

Must have changed. I still dread the drive from Kumbalgarh to Jodhpur.Roads till the highway was like driving in mumbai and then once on the highway, you will feel the need to be a Schumacher to dodge the billion odd truck traffic on that stretch. That leg is as congested as the Vasai-Vapi stretch in the early morning.

Also, Osian is a good place for temples and the Bishnoi life is also a tourist attraction these days.

IMHO, you have a really long driving and perhaps I would suggest some changes.
Start Mum-Abu-Udaipur-Chitorgarh-Jaipur-Bikaner-Kumbalgarh-Jodhpur-Osian-Jaisalmer-Khuri-Palanpur-Ahd-Mumbai route.

I have posted my travel details, trip logs in the travelogue section :-) Glad to help. http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...lmer-back.html

I will never forget my pitstop at a BP petrol station between Kumbalgarh en route to the highway to Jodhpur. As is the custom I follow in Mumbai, I offered the attendant a tip for filling air in my tyres. He politely refused. Saw the 5 buck coin and thought maybe he felt it was a pittance. So added one more 5 buck and stretched it out his way, to which the man happily refused me saying "Nahin, Nahin sahab, ye to seva hai". Stunned.
These are the stuff that you will return with.

Inputs? ? ask our dear human GPS. and great freind HV Kumarji.He can tell you from each and every turns ,U bends,steep climbs, on way dhabhas,hotels,motels if any ,best petrol pumps,toll nakas,etc etc.:D.
HV Kumarji here is another request pls attend to it....