Thejesh GN » Rajastan

From the streets of Jaisalmer

Thejesh GN — Sun, 10 May 2009 07:17:37 +0000

Jaisalmer is a beautiful city. I took sometime to go around in the city to feel the city. These are some pictures I took using my k750i mobile, mostly. This is a big post with lots of pictures. So get your big cup of coffee, Let us go for a walk.

We reached Jaisalmer early in the morning. We took a small hotel just outside the fort. This picture was taken from inside my hotel room.

The fort looks like a crown in the middle of the dessert. The actual city lives inside the fort. The entrance of the fort is very majestic.

Once you enter the fort on to your right is the palace. I don’t remember the name of the palace. But it was like any other palace except for the view from the top, of the city.

View from one of the windows in the palace. I like this view a lot.

This is how the city looks from the top. Lots and lots of boxes. This view must have been of great help during the wars. You can actually see houses beyond few kilometers with out binoculars.

Yet another look from the window. This is the other side from where we entered the fort.

Jaisalmer city inside the fort is very small. Its a living fort. We can see lots and lots of small streets filled with locals, tourists and cows.

These streets are major shopping places for tourists, specially foreign tourists.

Local musical instruments and petas seems to be hit amongst tourists.

Yet another view of a small street inside the fort. We walked and walked, for about 3 hours going around the city.

Local cloths too are hit amongst the tourist. This one specially can makes your boy friend look great.

Myself and Sandeep ( in the picture) also got some kurtas from a local store. We had to bargain as it was mainly aimed at foreigners. At last we got one each for about Rs.150/1

The land of kamasutra has its own answer to viagra.

Btw thats me. I really enjoyed walking around inside the fort. This post was written long time back, for some reason was in draft mode. I just clicked on publish today. There are 30 more posts in draft mode, I will try to publish one after other. I hope you enjoyed it.

Its meeting people which gives me kick

Thejesh GN — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 18:07:09 +0000

Yes, Its meeting the people during the travel which gives me kick. They are the best part of my travel life. Traveling alone gives you that rare chance of meeting strangers. Low cost student/youth hostels are the best place to catch other travelers. Its the best place to hear good stories at the cost of by two chai.

I met many on the road. A guy from England who was traveling alone in Asia taking off from his work. I met this high school teacher (don’t remember her name) from Finland in Udaipur. She introduced herself as the lady from land of Nokia. I had to tell her that I know Finland for a different reason! To my surprise she knew Linus and she started speaking about Indian IT personality who owns a big IT company in Bangalore. Being an Infoscion it was not difficult for me to guess . In Jaipur I met these two wonderful people on Govt bus stop. We traveled together the whole day. It was just pure fun to exchange our feels about each others nation (India, US and Italy).

One common question for any traveler from other co traveler was “Which are all the places (including countries) you been until now?” and one common answer from my side was “Well. Not many. Certainly less than your count”. Plans are being made to add some more countries to my list before this summer gets over :) I will write about it once I have something concrete.

PS: I wrote all this because Carlotta ( girl in the middle) sent me this picture which she took at Jaipur fort using timer.

When you jump

Thejesh GN — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 11:05:34 +0000

Picture: Taken by taken by Andy at Jaisalmer. From left its Boda, me and MK.

“If all my friends were to jump off a bridge, I wouldn’t jump with would jump first, I would be at the bottom to catch them.”
- Anon

Pushkar Fair – Mother of All Fairs

Thejesh GN — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 08:06:02 +0000

Note: Take a big cup of your favorite coffee. This post is long and full of pictures. It will take a while to load completely depending on you net speed.

Main reason behind my Rajastan visit this year was to attend pushkar fair. I started with my travel plans once I read about pushkar on an email list. Pushkar camel fair is worlds largest camel fair. A small city of population 14,000 boasts 200000 visitors during the fair. Around 50 thousand camels and other cattle are traded during the fair period. Pushakr fair shows what does it mean to be part pf Indian Holiday. Colorful crowd having fun with their family and friends involving lots of shopping. The fair goes for a week as travelers around the world join in the fun.

Pushkar fair or Pushkar ki mela is celebrated during the week of Kartik Purnima. Thousands of people take holy dip in the lake on kartik purnima. According to legend Brahma was on his way to search a location for his Yagna. During the search mission a lotus fell from his hand onto the earth and water sprouted from that place to form a lake. The lake has 52 ghats (one of them is brahma ghat) where pilgrims can perform their rituals. Pushkar boasts the only Brahma temple in the world.

For that one week pushkar is full of color. Its a dream land for photographer who wants to capture people and their mood. I had this very ordinary digital camera with 3x zoom (including both digital and optical). It was difficult for me to capture close ups. My best pictures are here.

Camels come from all over Rajastan to Pushkar. The rate of the camels vary from 5k to 25k.

Lot of fun competition happen during the mela. This guy won the mustache competition.

Its very common seen in pushkar. People are either checking out camels or smoking.

Mela is known for shopping. You will see hundreds of temporary shops being setup on the road side.

You will easily find hundreds of women smoking on the roadside. I had to get very close to her to take this picture. I was little scared but nothing actually happened. Then I figured out the easy way to picture is stand in the middle of the road against the flow. Click the picture as subject comes near to you.

Participant of dressed camel competition.

You can see families shopping either for kids or for camels.

Typical Rajastan family arriving to participate in mela.

How can there be a mela with out giant wheel and snake charmers?

And of course I had my own style

More pictures from pushkar.

This story is a part of my travel stories from Rajastan called StoriesFromRajastan. The places covered are Ajmir, Jaisalmer, Pushkar and Jaipur

Panoramic Photographs from Rajastan

Thejesh GN — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 12:09:09 +0000

Best way to capture scenic beauty of Rajastan is Panoramic photography. My regular digital camera did not have that feature. But you could take the pictures in series and then stitch them together to make them panoramic. But I wanted an instant panoramic picture. My k750i did a very good job. Click on the image for bigger view.

I dont know where I took this. I guess its Jaipur

This was in Jaipur ( Amber Fort)

This is Ana Sagar at Ajmer

This is again Amber Fort at Jaipur

Palace inside Amber fort Jaipur

This is Udaipur. Can you see the lake palace?

This story is a part of my travel stories from Rajastan called StoriesFromRajastan. The places covered are Ajmir, Jaisalmer, Pushkar and Jaipur.

Puppets’ performance (Kathputli) at Udaipur

Thejesh GN — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 10:27:30 +0000

Rajastan is known for puppets’ performance (Kathputli) accompanied by folk music. I was able to catch a glimpse of such a performance at Udaipur. Its usually performed on a small stage illuminated by incandescent bulbs. The performers are behind the screen (you can see their hand in the video). Puppets’ performance is usually accompanied by live folk music but in this case it was recorded music. After the performance the guy came out to show us some tricks.

Below is the video of of such a performance.

Not sure where I am going!

Thejesh GN — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 14:28:09 +0000

Mostly Udaipur…only if I get bus or I will head to Jaipur. I am leaving my friends and will be on my own for next three days. I could not get ticket to Udaipur here in the city today. I am going to Govt bus stop and then will decide which bus to catch. Wish me luck..I want to go to Udaipur. You guys are on my twitter right?

Update: Pushkar pics are coming. They are amazing!

Pictures of Jaisalmer

Thejesh GN — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 23:37:49 +0000

We had Airtel connection in the desert yesterday. I was able to send some twitter messages. Sadly I could not hook AndyÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s laptop onto internet as we were using Tata Indicom and there was no Indicom network.

View of the city from palace.

City of Jaisalmer is beautiful; especially city inside the fort is very charming. We did a night safari and stay in desert yesterday. The sky yesterday night was so clear that I could see a million stars minimum. Today we went around the city just loafing around. I have enough pictures from the streets of Jaisalmer. As of now I am on my way to Ajmer by bus. I can not upload all the pics using this connection. Most of my better pics are on my camera and they are big. I am sending across some pics taken using my mobile which gives highlights my stay here.

Lake in Jaisalmer

Taken during my ride to desert

Sand dunes

This is where we spent our night

Leaving to Ajmer

Update: I reached Ajmer now. Planning to visit Pushkar and participate in Mela.

This story is a part of my travel stories from Rajastan called StoriesFromRajastan. The places covered are Ajmir, Jaisalmer, Pushkar and Jaipur.