A Trip To Cherish With My Gal Pals!
The best trips are those that happen without too much planning. The trip to Rajasthan I recently took with my school friends is proof of that. In November 2022, a few of us happened to catch up at a housewarming ceremony. What started as a casual talk to go out of town soon turned into reality, thanks to our enthusiasm. They say one should strike when the iron is hot; this is exactly what we did after the initial chat. Not wanting the idea to fizzle out (as it usually does), we planned and booked the holiday within 3 weeks!
Rajasthan is huge and has so much to offer. We knew we would not be able to cover too many places if we wanted a true leisurely holiday. After adding on friends who were interested in the trip, we chose to do two of the big cities and cover two smaller ones en route, based on inputs and requests from the group.
The trip started with an early morning flight from Bangalore to Jaipur. In keeping up with our foodie spirit, we polished off a homemade picnic breakfast at the airport! We landed in Jaipur on a cloudy gloomy day and checked into our hotel just before noon.
Day 1 - Jaipur
Since it was well past 1 pm by the time we started from our hotel, we decided to first energize ourselves with some food to help us with the sightseeing. Wanting to taste the local food, we stopped at a street food joint and enjoyed a hot meal of samosas, kachoris, and pakodis with hot tea & flavored milk. With a happy tummy, we set forth to explore Rajasthan!
Amer Fort was our first stop & it was my first experience of a fort in North India. Though I have been to Red Fort in Delhi, I couldn’t explore it much as it was at night. I loved the quaint, paved roads leading uphill to this fort. Inside, the architecture was breathtaking. Huge, intricately carved archways showed off a style that was touched by both Persian and Indian influences. Places inside like the Sheesh Mahal have so much thought put into their structure that you are bowled over by the little things that one kept in mind those days. It is mind-blowing to think how lamps and mirrors were used not only for light but to also heat the place on cold nights. And the airway-waterway systems put in place to handle the heat during hot summer afternoons make for a good study in engineering as well. The windows from the fort wall give you breathtaking views of the city sprawling below. The melodious music drifting in from various street musicians sitting across the fort only added to its charm.
En route, we found hawkers selling a variety of stuff from accessories to curios to paintings. The trick is to know when to bargain and how much because sometimes they are so reasonably priced that it would take away from any profits of the seller to give it at a lesser cost.
We stopped by Albert Hall for a quick visit and did not spend much time there as we were tired after our flight and all the walking around the huge fort. This is the Government Museum and houses many paintings, artifacts, and pieces of jewelry.
Next was a brief stop at Patrika Gate. Since it was at night we were able to enjoy a view of arches with lighting. This is a nice place to relax and we found many joggers too enjoying their exercise in the crisp fresh air.
We decided to call it a day and ate a simple but yummy dinner of hot khichdi to make up for all the street food that we kept munching throughout the day.
Day 2 - Jaipur
After a sumptuous breakfast at the hotel, our first stop of the day was Hawa Mahal. It is built of pink sandstone. One can take pictures of this from the exterior itself, which we too did! Then we walked inside to the Zenanas. The little separate spaces for each of the queens, decorated with colored glass were lovely. Many films have been shot at this location too!
From here we walked to Jantar Mantar, which was at a short distance. Again, the engineering and science of those times and how accurate they are to our modern version is amazing. We looked at the various sundials and understood how the study of hours, minutes, and seconds were divided. We also looked at the zodiac dials and marveled at how they were built for the relevant zodiac sign to show the shadow of the sun as it changes over the different months of the year.
After spending an hour here, we visited the City Palace. We almost skipped this because we were hungry and tired after walking all morning. After a discussion outside the ticket counter, we decided to only visit some of the exhibits and the courtyards. And man am I glad that we did! This is where the Royal Family lives. Inside, we saw some beautiful paintings & photographs depicting the bygone era, looked at the weapons on display, and clicked some Instagram-worthy pictures too!
After about 1 ½ hours inside, we were very hungry even to walk to the parking and find our van. So lunch was masala noodles from a roadside stall with many cups of hot masala chai in kullads.
It was early evening by then and we decided to go shopping in Bapu Bazaar! This bazaar has many shops selling costume jewelry, footwear, clothes, and much more! I bought a lovely reversible cotton jacket that would be ideal for the cool Bangalore evenings, some lovely juttis, and a few cotton shirts from my father and husband! You can bargain in many of these shops – go ahead and test your skills and walk away with your loot for the best price! Tired but happy, we hauled our loot back to the hotel in rikshaws as our van could not be parked close by.
After resting for a while, we were ready to explore again – this time we decided to visit Choki Dhani as we had heard very good reviews. It is a theme restaurant that is modeled on a Rajasthan village and serves authentic Rajasthani food! It is a good place for one to spend a couple of hours and enjoy a staged rural setting. There is an entry fee that covers the dinner too. There is a little artisan market, live roti counters for tasting, storytelling, fun activities, puppet show and so much more! After enjoying the ambiance, we then headed to the central hut to have the HUGE dinner that was served in leaf thalis. It was a good end to the day.
Day 3 - Pushkar
The next was Republic Day and we aimed to check out before noon. After an R-Day Spl Tri-Color breakfast, we visited some shops close to Hawa Mahal and bought ourselves colorful lehariya skirts. We had already planned to wear similar clothes on any one day and had carried white tops. These colorful skirts complimented the tops beautifully. I also bought some gifts for my girl gang back home.
We then headed to Pushkar and reached the desert for a Camel Ride by around 4 pm. While me and some of the girls opted for a cart, 2 more adventurous souls rode on the camel! It was a fun experience to get down and walk in the desert sands and sip chai from kullads to the accompaniment of some local music! We didn’t realize how the time flew by and then scrambled to head back to the city as the whole point of visiting Pushkar was the temple.
It has the world’s only Brahma Temple where he is worshipped as the main deity. Legend has it that Lord Brahma was cursed by his wife Saraswati and hence there are no other temples dedicated to him. Though we missed the evening aarti at the sarovar, we were able to perform a small puja. We were the last ones to leave and it was dinner time. We had heard of a famous paratha place called Lalaji Ke Parathe and wanted to try it. We enquired around the local shops and headed towards the place on foot. The town around the temple is old and has narrow paved roads, flanked on either side by shops. It happened to be the wedding season and we had to weave through 3 barats, amidst all the band baja. It was a fun experience. We arrived at the end of the road and didn’t find any shops that were selling parathas. Looking around, we saw a dimly lit cart selling food. Going closer, we realized that this was the famous Lalaji rolling out his variety of parathas! From mushrooms to jalapenos and mixed vegetables, there were many unique ones. It was worth the walk and wait. The dinner was yummy!
We were staying at a heritage haveli that was converted to a hotel and that night we actually felt the cold – it was around 8 degrees! We all huddled in one room, catching up on gossip and laughing away till 3 am, sipping on hot premix teas.
Day 4 - Nathdwara
We had a long day of travel to Nathdwara, so we started early. In Nathdwara, we visited the world’s largest Shiva statue which was opened to the public just a couple of months back but couldn’t go up as there was a lot of crowd. We then visited the Srinathji Temple, which apparently is a very important one for Gujratis and Rajasthani’s. The temple is open briefly only for 8 darshans a day. With multiple entrances, there was some confusion about where to go. Luckily for us, a guide suddenly appeared and thanks to him, we had a good darshan as well as learnt the history of the temple. The road from the temple to the parking place is filled with little eateries and shops, and one can get clothes and costume jewelry for very reasonable prices. We reached Udaipur and checked in to the hotel and called it an early night.
Day 5 - Udaipur
The day started nice and bright. We decided to visit the City Palace, which probably was one of the mistakes that we made while planning the dates. It was weekend and also the prince’s birthday and was very crowded. Even the boat ride to the Lake Palace had a wait time of over an hour. Due to this, we didn’t enjoy it as much as we would have. As this was our last day of the trip we had worn our colorful lehariya skirts and we got so many compliments from strangers. Each time, it pepped us up. We learnt the beauty and positive impact of paying compliments to strangers – I am sure I will now pass it on and tell someone if I love what they are wearing. Of course, in true girl gang style, we shot a little reel too! The sights and exhibits were wonderful though we were tired after an entire day in the sun.
We then went to the Karni Mata Temple, which also had a wait for the cable car ride up to the mountain. Just when it was our turn, there was a sudden downpour. However, once we reached the top after the rain, the night view of the city was spectacular.
Day 6 - Udaipur
Since we lost a lot of time the previous day, we decided to check out early and visit Sahelion Ki Bhadi en route to the airport. Though not a large space, it is a pretty garden and one could imagine the princesses playing there with their friends. Since we had about an hour at hand, we decided to do some last-minute shopping! Unfortunately, many shops were closed as it was a Sunday. We still managed to find a tiny shop that sold lovely Bandini sarees and I bought a couple of them for me and my mother.
With our lovely purchases and even more beautiful memories, we headed to the airport to come back home. While all of us were classmates in school, not all were part of the same friend group and had drifted apart over the years. Though we reconnected around 10 years back, we only caught up briefly over breakfasts or lunches. This was a very different experience for each of us and we opened up to one another. Things we didn’t really know about each other, surprised us. As the group came together for one last selfie at the Bangalore airport, we each knew that a special bond was created on this trip!
Though the experience at large was wonderful, there were some misses. We could have done a slightly stricter itinerary and covered a few more places if we were a bit more disciplined (but we were trouble makers in school too 🙂 ). Also, none of us checked the baggage allowance and unnecessarily spent extra on couriering our purchases! We could have also checked for crowds on weekends and maybe planned those days better. These are pointers for our next trip, which hopefully happens this year end. We plan to start a kitty so that we can pool in funds for the trip!
While we did the air travel booking ourselves, we booked our hotels and van through Rajasthan Touring. While there were some problems with the hotel at Udaipur, the services were otherwise good. We got a spacious 12-seater van, and a very good driver Mr. Kuldeep Singh who safely ferried us across cities over 6 days. Sharing a few contact details below, in case anyone is visiting Rajasthan soon.
- Rajasthan Touring : +91 9351549292 Ranveer Singh (who coordinated with us) & our driver Kuldeep Singh +91 8619501370
- Guide at Nathdwara Srinathji Temple : Naresh +91 90793 05028
Here is hoping that this post inspires people to travel and reconnect with old friends!
This blog post is part of the blog challenge ‘Blogaberry Dazzle’ hosted by Cindy D’Silva and Noor Anand Chawla in collaboration with Make a Wish Box.
Love the colourful skirts! Amazing girls trip!
☺️Gala time with gal pals… Happy times with school buddies after school days come back again, we had a lot of time to cherish our school days, understanding each other, konwig each others likes & disikes to some extent, did a lot of shopping & Vasu U have penned it all… yes ! We shall have some more of fun in the yeas to come… Hifi !!!! 🙌 Keep rocking till then… 🤘
I love this all girls’ trip! I have been to Jaipur many times but not seen Patrika Gate. I would like to go to Nathdwara too.
Such a detailed and beautiful blog. You have totally nailed it by capturing every minute detail.
While being part of this wonderful trip I doubt it will ever fade from my memory, but I am sure it will energise me and make me happy reading this blog anytime down the timeline in future!
Hope this blog motivates anyone reading this blog for planning a trip with their gal pals.
I read the blog with great excitement since Sowmya had already shared her experience to a large extent. How you all made this happen right from a small trigger at a chance occasional meeting to the full execution of this whole trip is commendable. So 3 cheers to all of you ! I have experienced 1st hand, the amazing organising and leadership skills of Padmaja in many of the trips we have done together with our respective families. I am sure each one of you had your own excellent contribution to this trip. The blog is well articulated peppered with witty phrases and lovely photos ! Can’t wait to see you all go on your next and next and…..
I too planned a trip with my best friend few months back for rajasthan but that could not happen as we both were ill. But through your blog I get to travel and take a tour for my most favorite place of visit. The airport picnic which you wrote gave me a huge emotional blast of those days when I and my friends used to execute such plans .
Wow… School gang I can imagine how much you all enjoyed. Love the detailed post and pictures. I like your picture collage theme. Thank you for details. It will surely help.
My first ever and most memorable trip with Gals Gang. Yes we all made our dreams come true.😎 It was an incredible experience that I will never forget We created a history in our school group and want to make more and more such trips. 👍🤗Dear Vasu, thanks for publishing such a beautiful writeup with colourful pictures.👏🙏😍 I enjoyed reading your blog not once but many times. 😄 Let’s create more such memories dear girls. Loads of Love to our Galsgang!🥰
Travelling with friends is real fun and you get the chance to enjoy some special moments which you cherished for long. Secondly Rajasthan itself is a royal state in every sense, be its culture, hospitality, food, handicraft and many more are there to mention. I am lucky to visit all the places that you have explored during your girls gang trip and each one gives you a vibrant feeling when you roam in the cities. If you are a person who loves photography then here you will get ample scope to sharpen you photography skill. Udaipur is my very recent visit. But I am hungry to explore Jodhpur and Jaisalmer…. waiting for my time. I just loved the way you penned down the itinerary of 6 days tour of Rajasthan. Its enough to give a prospective traveller to plan their itinerary for their upcoming Rajasthan Trip.
Trip with friends, sounds like you had lots of fun. I loved your pictures. I have visited Rajasthan but only covered Jaipur and pushkar. Hoping to explore other places soon. Lovely article with colorful pictures. I must say you chose the right time to visit Rajasthan.
Rajasthan is a beautiful and vibrant state and I can see that you girls chose the best places to visit. Looks like the perfect trip full of food, shopping and sightseeing!
Lovely to see u enjoying with your friends. Even we go but a group of over 15. Rajasthan is such a vibrant place. I was there in 2020. You all look radiant.
I enjoyed reading your post. I love the variety of posts I get to read on your blog. We have been planning a trip to Rajasthan. I am surely going to refer to your post before we make an itinerary. Thanks you for sharing.
Jaipur is for long pending ek din for sure it will happen n ur post is definitely add a few more reasons to visit it. Thanks
Love how detailed this is and filled with great info about things to check out- I have done some of these but will use this as my guide the next time I plan a visit
Rajasthan is indeed extremely beautiful and your post brought back memories of my trip. I loved the smiling faces and the colorful attire. I am an advocate of SOLO trips (a break from family) and your post reminded me of myself.
It is always such a treat to travel with the girl gang. Enjoyed reading your travelogue. Personal travel stories are so much more useful than pitches. Mom and I have been planning to travel to Rajasthan for a while now. Filing this for reference.
Udaipur , Jaipur are all full of palaces and cultural heritage. And it was great to read about the places in my bucket list.
Rajasthan has been on my bucket list for ages…somehow not able to make it. Thanks for the detailed post, with pictures that add beauty to it.
Wow… The school gang I’m sure you all had a great time. My parents were stationed there for six years, and I saw all of the places you named. That is a detailed post with stunning photography.
This week’s Blogaberry Dazzle is fodder for my travel plans 😀 Rajasthan is on the cards too, and I’ve found another well-written post for reference 😀
This would surely be a fun and memorable trip with your gal pals. So many wonderful places explored – Udaipur is my favourite of them
That’s such a fun trip! Being in Delhi, Rajasthan is the most frequented state for us. We have explored the lengths and breadth of this colourful state .
Wow, what a set of colorful and happy pictures from Rajasthan, especially the one from City Palace. Choki Dhjani has been one of my favorite Rajasthani Restaurant for its experiential dining options. Your itinerary is also very doable and enjoyable for those who are planning to visit Rajasthan. Loved reading your experience here.
Jaipur is my favourite city for sure. I have been there almost 8 times and everytime I discovered a new face of the city. Amer, Nahargarh are the perfect to go at anytime. Your post reminds me my days of Rajasthan.
Oh! A girls trip! This is surely one of the things I would like to do with my friends (I only have a handful which are mostly from my highschool). It’s lovely seeing you experience this! I can see that all of you had a great time! Lovely places you’ve visited! Such an experience!
Trip with friends to a place like Rajasthan is like gold. I like your picture book style photos and the write up is detailed. The extra tips are a bonus. Your post brought back memories of my trips from yesteryears.
Your post has come at the right time as I am planning to take a trip to Rajasthan in March and your concise guide is prefect as you can cover major places in six days which is the maximum leaves I can manage. Bookmarking your post!
Amazing Pictures Girls. We have been to Udaipur, Pushkar and Alwar. Each and every place we visited was worth visiting, even the unknown sights like that Balakila and Pandupur Hanumanji temple. Must visit for sure
Lovely pictures seems that you has an amazing time. I have visited Jaipur in my collage days and not ahain. But your post made that strike again to go along with my girl gang.
Travelling with our girl gang is utter fun! I’ve been to Rajasthan more times than I can count because of its proximity to Delhi, but it was fun reading about your girl trip. And you all do look lovely in your Leheriya skirts!