Bikaner - Daal Kachoris and 360 Cenotaphs
Days: 2, Total Km: 1000
Gurgaon - Till Kotpulti via NH8 - Right towards Udaipurwati on SH - Opening at Sikar - Sri Dungarpur - Bikaner via NH 11 [450km]
Stay at Bikaner
Bikaner - NH 11 till Ratangarh - right to Churu on NH 65 - SH to Jhunjhunu - Bagad - Chirawa - Rewari - Gurgaon
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November is the best time to travel around northern India. And we want to make up for the lost time this year. So this weekend we plan to do one trip to Rajasthan. Since most nearby parts are already done many times over, we decide to go further North and cover that one apex of the Rajasthan triangle that is not yet covered - Bikaner.
We leave early on the Saturday, around 6:30am, since Bikaner is far and we do not know the condition of the roads. We pay the customary visit to the Manesar McDonald's for breakfast. By 8am we are near Behror and encounter a massive traffic blockage - mostly due to some construction work - a true heart-stopper. Miles and miles of vehicles, mosly trucks, are immobile. We drive in the wrong direction, do all sorts of stunts that can be termed illigal in most parts of the world and finally cross Behror, only to get stuck in another enormous fix-up in Kotputli!
At Kotputli, we are only too glad to leave the NH and take the state highway to Sikar. The road is busy, but is winding, has nice Aravali moutains in the backdrop and generally has a character. I finally get in the mood of the trip. We stop by at a local dhaba to have daal kachoris, which are oily but tasty. Our travel is now slow but fun. Thus winding our path through the backwaters of Rajasthan, we reach the town of Sikar.
In Rajasthan, different towns have different specialities. Sikar is a town of schools and colleges. At Sikar, the road opens up onto a newly made highway - NH 11, which is awesome in most parts. Long stretches of clean, smooth surface road, with very little traffic. I take the car to top 150kmph. Yellow mounds of sand on both sides, occasional shrubs, dark tar road in the middle glistening like a snake in the sun -- It is quite a sight.
We reach Bikaner entry (Sagar road) by 3pm, cross a very beautiful Christian church to the right and enter the area around the roundabouts near the zoo. These are nice, with water fountains and stone sculptures. We decide to see around the town first, move towards the Junagarh fort.
You can drive right past the main gate of the Junagarh fort, through the arches, and park inside. There is an entry fee, and it takes about an hour to see the fort. Some parts of the fort are quite nice. The best is the view of Bikaner you get from atop.
But overall it is rather disappointing after one has seen Jaipur, Jodhpur and Jaisalmer. Here, everything looks quite phony - as if not original, but made for the tourists for a fee. For instance, there is an old four-wing aircraft in the museum. For a moment I am excited, but then find out that it is an assembled model from broken remains of two different aircrafts. What a shame!
We move to Lalgarh palace - rather new and modern. This is about 3km further North away from the city, towards Ganganagar. Part of the palace is converted to museum, a part is given for tourists and a part is still used by the royal family. The museum is interesting in parts (!) and houses some of the items of daily use of the maharajas and maharanis. There is a strangely designed soup spoon with a half lid on top. It was used by an earlier maharaja, with huge moustaches, to ensure that he can have the soup without wetting the ‘whiskers’.
Day 1 - Evening:
Further ahead on the same road, we find a good hotel - Basant Vihar Palace. It has a nice Haveli feel to it. The rooms are clean and cozy. So we call it home for the night. Having dumped our bags in the room, we head towards the city center in search of the local flavors. We cross the fort once again, and enter the busy part of the city. Our aim is the M G road, since this is you have all the shops. However, one cannot park the vehicle on M G road. It needs to be parked a kilometer before, near Ratan Bihari Park.
It is now evening by the time we park and move about. Ratan Bihari Park has a couple of temples, out of which Raj Ratan Bihari temple is highly recommended. We climb up the stairs, and hear someone singing bhajans to the deity, with a couple of townsfolk sitting around listening. It is a wonderful moment. I suddenly feel good about life. The main deity is a black marble statue of Krishna, which looks charming and playful. As we leave the temple, fully rejuvinated and at peace - with a unique prashad of bananas and pomogranade - I am sure that this is one of those moments that I will remember for a long time.
M G road is good for shopping jootis, shoes, clothes and knik-knak. We do that too, but we are now hungry (no food since the morning McDonald's) and we have heard and read much about the Bikaneri kachori - enough to draw us towards the center of the market where all the mithai shops are in a line. Arrays of freshly made kachoris, samosas, and mithai are on display and it is a wonderful medley of colors, smell and taste. The best among these shops is the Bikaner Mishtan Bhandar - near the railway crossing - which is where we have some lovely kachoris, aloo bondas and some very tasty mirchi ke pakore. There is also a small shop of Haldiram - yes, the same guys who have the Haldiram chain - but you will be surprised at how tiny this original shop is.
The traffic in such towns has its own rules, and sometimes I believe that there is a special school which teaches these rules, and has its own test. Especially if you plan to roam around the busy market streets – which is exactly what we are doing now – you need a distinction in this test, provided you are not on a suicide mission. For instance, contrary to logic, the vehicles drive right towards the poor person walking on the road - head on - rather than going away. Maybe the logic is that the pedestrians will anyway move seeing a vehicle coming head-on. I have yet to figure this out.
We walk around, chat with locals, buy some mithais, papads and generally have a relaxed time. It is interesting to see that the general stores here have dried vegetables - lotus stems, sangri (a local favorite, it is basically a shrub) and so on. There are quite a few shops of mithai and also restaurants offering thalis, but they are all vegetarian. Very few restaurants, even the ones in hotels (including our Basant Vihar) have vegeratian fair. After much search, we find that Karni Bhawan hotel, near Deen Dayal circle offers non-vegetarian food, so we get back to the car and head towards Karni Bhawan. The hotel has a restaurant, where we get excellent Laal maans (mutton curry) and ker sangri. We return to our hotel and before we know it, we are in the sac, beyond recall.
Day 2 - Return:
The next day morning, we have an excellent breakfast at the hotel - the chole bhature are especially nice, and so is the masala omlette (I only mention this so you know that you can get eggs in this otherwise-vegetarian place) - and move out by 9am. We trace our route back to the fort, then to Sagar road and thus towards the outskirts of the city. As we move out, there is a right turn that takes us to the complex of the famous cenotaphs.
November is the best time to travel around northern India. And we want to make up for the lost time this year. So this weekend we plan to do one trip to Rajasthan. Since most nearby parts are already done many times over, we decide to go further North and cover that one apex of the Rajasthan triangle that is not yet covered - Bikaner.
We leave early on the Saturday, around 6:30am, since Bikaner is far and we do not know the condition of the roads. We pay the customary visit to the Manesar McDonald's for breakfast. By 8am we are near Behror and encounter a massive traffic blockage - mostly due to some construction work - a true heart-stopper. Miles and miles of vehicles, mosly trucks, are immobile. We drive in the wrong direction, do all sorts of stunts that can be termed illigal in most parts of the world and finally cross Behror, only to get stuck in another enormous fix-up in Kotputli!
At Kotputli, we are only too glad to leave the NH and take the state highway to Sikar. The road is busy, but is winding, has nice Aravali moutains in the backdrop and generally has a character. I finally get in the mood of the trip. We stop by at a local dhaba to have daal kachoris, which are oily but tasty. Our travel is now slow but fun. Thus winding our path through the backwaters of Rajasthan, we reach the town of Sikar.
In Rajasthan, different towns have different specialities. Sikar is a town of schools and colleges. At Sikar, the road opens up onto a newly made highway - NH 11, which is awesome in most parts. Long stretches of clean, smooth surface road, with very little traffic. I take the car to top 150kmph. Yellow mounds of sand on both sides, occasional shrubs, dark tar road in the middle glistening like a snake in the sun -- It is quite a sight.
We reach Bikaner entry (Sagar road) by 3pm, cross a very beautiful Christian church to the right and enter the area around the roundabouts near the zoo. These are nice, with water fountains and stone sculptures. We decide to see around the town first, move towards the Junagarh fort.
You can drive right past the main gate of the Junagarh fort, through the arches, and park inside. There is an entry fee, and it takes about an hour to see the fort. Some parts of the fort are quite nice. The best is the view of Bikaner you get from atop.
But overall it is rather disappointing after one has seen Jaipur, Jodhpur and Jaisalmer. Here, everything looks quite phony - as if not original, but made for the tourists for a fee. For instance, there is an old four-wing aircraft in the museum. For a moment I am excited, but then find out that it is an assembled model from broken remains of two different aircrafts. What a shame!
We move to Lalgarh palace - rather new and modern. This is about 3km further North away from the city, towards Ganganagar. Part of the palace is converted to museum, a part is given for tourists and a part is still used by the royal family. The museum is interesting in parts (!) and houses some of the items of daily use of the maharajas and maharanis. There is a strangely designed soup spoon with a half lid on top. It was used by an earlier maharaja, with huge moustaches, to ensure that he can have the soup without wetting the ‘whiskers’.
Day 1 - Evening:
Further ahead on the same road, we find a good hotel - Basant Vihar Palace. It has a nice Haveli feel to it. The rooms are clean and cozy. So we call it home for the night. Having dumped our bags in the room, we head towards the city center in search of the local flavors. We cross the fort once again, and enter the busy part of the city. Our aim is the M G road, since this is you have all the shops. However, one cannot park the vehicle on M G road. It needs to be parked a kilometer before, near Ratan Bihari Park.
It is now evening by the time we park and move about. Ratan Bihari Park has a couple of temples, out of which Raj Ratan Bihari temple is highly recommended. We climb up the stairs, and hear someone singing bhajans to the deity, with a couple of townsfolk sitting around listening. It is a wonderful moment. I suddenly feel good about life. The main deity is a black marble statue of Krishna, which looks charming and playful. As we leave the temple, fully rejuvinated and at peace - with a unique prashad of bananas and pomogranade - I am sure that this is one of those moments that I will remember for a long time.
M G road is good for shopping jootis, shoes, clothes and knik-knak. We do that too, but we are now hungry (no food since the morning McDonald's) and we have heard and read much about the Bikaneri kachori - enough to draw us towards the center of the market where all the mithai shops are in a line. Arrays of freshly made kachoris, samosas, and mithai are on display and it is a wonderful medley of colors, smell and taste. The best among these shops is the Bikaner Mishtan Bhandar - near the railway crossing - which is where we have some lovely kachoris, aloo bondas and some very tasty mirchi ke pakore. There is also a small shop of Haldiram - yes, the same guys who have the Haldiram chain - but you will be surprised at how tiny this original shop is.
The traffic in such towns has its own rules, and sometimes I believe that there is a special school which teaches these rules, and has its own test. Especially if you plan to roam around the busy market streets – which is exactly what we are doing now – you need a distinction in this test, provided you are not on a suicide mission. For instance, contrary to logic, the vehicles drive right towards the poor person walking on the road - head on - rather than going away. Maybe the logic is that the pedestrians will anyway move seeing a vehicle coming head-on. I have yet to figure this out.
We walk around, chat with locals, buy some mithais, papads and generally have a relaxed time. It is interesting to see that the general stores here have dried vegetables - lotus stems, sangri (a local favorite, it is basically a shrub) and so on. There are quite a few shops of mithai and also restaurants offering thalis, but they are all vegetarian. Very few restaurants, even the ones in hotels (including our Basant Vihar) have vegeratian fair. After much search, we find that Karni Bhawan hotel, near Deen Dayal circle offers non-vegetarian food, so we get back to the car and head towards Karni Bhawan. The hotel has a restaurant, where we get excellent Laal maans (mutton curry) and ker sangri. We return to our hotel and before we know it, we are in the sac, beyond recall.
Day 2 - Return:
The next day morning, we have an excellent breakfast at the hotel - the chole bhature are especially nice, and so is the masala omlette (I only mention this so you know that you can get eggs in this otherwise-vegetarian place) - and move out by 9am. We trace our route back to the fort, then to Sagar road and thus towards the outskirts of the city. As we move out, there is a right turn that takes us to the complex of the famous cenotaphs.
The books say that the complex hosts around 360 cenotaphs. I do not think I counted those many, but indeed they are a sizable lot. They look like a plate full of momos from afar, if you will excuse my foodie temperament. Although the structures are a lot less impressive than what you find in Orchha (M.P.), the setting is quite enchanting.
Starting from the cenotaphs of early rulers (1700's) - which are nearer to the water body (Devi Sagar Lake) - these progressively chart the family tree and its branches of the royal family. There is also a temple of the sati - one of the last Sati of the family - which is highly revered in the area.
We start from Bikaner towards home around 10:30am. While returning, we decide to take a different route. So we leave the NH 11 - which has been an excellent drive (120km in an hour, beat that!) - about 20km after Ratangarh - and move towards Churu.
The road from Churu to Jhunjhunu is broken in parts, and although the drive is not painful, it is slower than earlier. Once we reach Jhunjhunu we move towards Chirawa. We take an unplanned stop at Bagad, and go inside the town, to check out Piramal Haveli - which is a Neemrana property. The haveli is quaint and the eight rooms of the haveli are nicely kept. The staff is quite hospitable and shows us around. We note this for a good hideout for a day or so, and move out.
Please note that you should not take the road to Delhi - since that will take you first to Rohtak and then to main city of Delhi. If you need to go to Gurgaon, you need to ask for Rewari. The road is busy and patchy in parts, and opens on NH8 some 20km after Rewari. We are thus in Gurgaon by 6:30pm.
Overall, a nice excursion. Of course I will prefer Jodhpur any day over Bikaner, but the road from Sikar to Bikaner is quite a find. And so are the khasta kachoris of Bikaner Mishtan Bhandar.
Regards,
- Shreekant
16 November 2009
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