A mind stretched by new experiences can never go back to its old dimensions. Travel. Learn. Grow.
It's no secret travel has been most affected during the on-going Covid-19 Pandemic. In a matter of few months, it devasted world ecomomies. But we have to live with it for few coming years. With world opening up again slowly, people have started to travel a bit. And so did I.
The new norms of travelling if followed, travel is possible again. And now its about being on safe trip. Things have changed when you step out of home and i saw how some of these things have changed wrt tourism when i stepped out and travelled to Udaipur and Ranakpur few days back :)
Jodhpur to Udaipur by road
It was a beautiful rainy day. Plan was to travel by road to Udaipur which is around 4-5 hours drive and way is truely scenic road trip. We packed our breakfast and lunch from home to avoid outside contact as much as possible. Time to time hand sanitization and mask ON was thing to remember all the time.
We had planned to start early from Udaipur and explore beautiful places on the way to Ranakpur. Also, udaipur had lockdown for Sunday so good to leave city on time.
The road journey from Udaipur to Ranakpur is beautiful. The hair pin bands in the mountains , lake by the side and spotting waterfalls is all you need for a road drive. The famous jain temple there was closed but there are so many scenic stops in near by hills.
It was drizzling whole day and we truly enjoyed road trip.
We reached Udaipur by 2 pm while taking stops on the way to explore Nature. We had pre booked a good hotel and was sanitised time to time There were hardly 20 people overall in the hotel. Address of hote at the bottom :)
Udaipur is City of Lakes and have ample amount of tourist places. But this time for our own safety we decided to explore less explored places only. One such scenic place is BahuBali hills. This hill have small 1 km trek route to reach and gives a surreal view of lake around once you reach the top. Cool breeze, so green view around made our day.
After such a beautiful day, we came back to city side and enjoyed Fateh Sagar lake view from car itself. Number one rule for travelling right now, skip more travelled area. Later in the day we had our dinner at neat and clean sanitised place and headed back to hotel. Staying in hotel after so many months had its own fun. Since it was perfect weather to be there in Udaipur, we could get beautiful view of mountains from hotel room along with coffee ^_^
We found this awesome place in mountains near Sadri Village. Saw some cowboys there and we followed their paths and voila we were able to do small trek as well.
While it was an amazing time we were spending there. Something happened which made me realize how this pandemic has affected so many people and what job lost feels like. We stopped at some dhaba on the way for chai. And what made us stop was this old lady guarding it. She was around 80 yrs and was taking care of this small bussiness along with his son who lost his job as chef in near by resorts. With pandemic tourism bussiness was impacted, hotel and resorts were closed and so these people lost job. Now to provide food for family, the chef has to start his Chai Tapri on road side to sustain living.
All this is sad but the fact this lady and his son have accepted things and figured out way to sustain life. Age is not a factor for employment, its your will and that's what i learned from this Super Lady.
After spending soothing time here we stopped by waterfalls on the way(least explored :P) and enjoyed calmness. Birds chirping around was sugar topping ^_^
And that's how we had such an awesome trip for 2 days while being safe and responsible towards pandemic thing. Travel industry would revive soon and i wish people get back their job asap.
Thank you for your time while reading this.
Few tips and hotel we stayed in:
- Hotel YOIS, Roop Sagar, Udaipur, Rajasthan
- Avoid crowded area and major touristic places
- Prefer travelling by your own vehicle
- Keep nature clean :)
- Keep snacks along so as to avoid outside food as much as possible