Friends with mutual interests always come up with something unique to create amazing memories.
The passion of travel and bike rides is what I share with one of my best mates, we fused up both and that led us to a bike road trip.
The trip kick started with our bikes cruising through the busy roads of Ahmedabad to the empty and silent roads of Jaisalmer as we killed the engines at Hotel Helsinki’s parking for our night stay.
Sunsets are always mesmerising and riding a bike gives you the pleasure of pulling up on the road side when you see the sun going down for the day. I could not resist and captured it (Pic.1). Back to Jaisalmer, stay at this hotel was just perfect. The place had that royal Rajasthani feel, we got good service as the owner and staff knew a great deal about hospitality.
The amazing sunset got us curious about how peaceful the sunrise would be so we decided to wake up early and experience the magic of sunrise.
Both the experiences were enough to convince us that we were not missing any sunrise or sunset for the remainder of our trip which proved to be amazing.
Although, the initial plan was to stroll around the historic fort of Jaisalmer and explore it with peace while there were no visitors.
We did wake up early, took an hour walk to soak the historic feel of the place.
Exploring the fort was so intriguing that in quick time it was noon and we were experiencing scorching heat of Rajasthan.
All the walking made us super hungry and it was lunch time. We found an Israeli café and gave it try. The food was delicious and once our tummy was full, sleep clocked in as we were up early. We decided to take a nap in the afternoon heat and re energise ourselves for rest of the day.
We explored Gadisar lake in the evening. The lake is home to various bird habitats, birds add to its beauty and the shades of sunset near the lake made the perfect end to the day.
Desert safari and camping were on the day’s plan. The owner of the hotel arranged it for us and we left for Lakhamanon ki basti after lunch. Lakhamanon ki basti is approximately 50 kms from Jaisalmer and just ahead of Sam sand dunes.
Megabhai, our guide for the safari was waiting there for us along with Shahrukh and Juilie. We jumped on the camels and commenced our 4 km desert ride to reach the dunes eventually our camping spot for the night.
The night will always be a special memory. Megabhai cooked delicious food for us. We had dinner and then had a chat with him. The conversation was amazing and we got to know his view of life. Though he never went to school, he was able to speak English and had conversations on topics which no one would expect from a person living in a remote basti. The knowledge he had was an eye opener for us.
We went to our camp for star gazing and I have never seen sky that beautiful ever. We planned to enjoy the stars till late night but the peaceful atmosphere and the quietness of the desert got to us not knowing when we fell asleep. In those couple of hours of star gazing we saw 5 shooting stars and it was magical.
We got up early as it became a ritual on the trip and experienced the sunrise. Megabhai made us tea and breakfast. After having breakfast, we got back on to the camels and rode back to Megabhai’s home where we left our bikes.Then we bid farewell to Megabhai.
But before we proceeded with our journey, both of us thought to go for an off road ride towards the dunes as the place was too hard to leave. In a matter of seconds it was decided and we gunned our bikes towards the dunes.
Anyone with stable mind would know that bikes are not meant for desert. We got as far as possible before getting stuck in the sand.
That’s when we met this gang of baccha party, as their parents were farming nearby, they were playing around. Watching us playing with the bikes they came to us. We spent some time with them having fun. One thing that shocked me was that none of them ever heard or knew about the ocean. Hence, we showed them photos and videos of the ocean leaving them mesmerized.
Gifted sun glasses to the eldest brother till the father came and took the glasses for himself. Boy’s face went sad but we couldn’t do a thing as he was his father. We bid them farewell and pushed off to Jodhpur, our next destination.
Jodhpur was around 300 km far, our plan was to spend the night in Jodhpur but surprisingly life had some different plans...
Story continues in Part 2... Stay tuned...
