A Road Trip wid Family – Season 2

This blog post is about our 10D/9N roadtrip including my wife Nikita, kids, me, my parents and in-laws. This was the first trip of this scale for my son, Pulastya, who was just 10 months old at that time. This blog post is in continuation to our first family road trip and readers interested can pay a visit here.

In the span of ten days, we visited Ked Shakti Dham, Binjusar, Khatu Shyam Ji, Salasar Ji, Ajmer, Tirthraaj Pushkar and Amritsar.

Day 1 – Day 4 : Pulastya’s Jadula (Mundan) Sanskar

After reaching Jaipur, we boarded our pre-booked taxis to head directly to Ked Shakti Dham. It is a small hamlet where people of Kedia clan trace their origins from. We also visited our ancestral Haveli in nearby Binjusar village.

Ked Shakti Dham has a very nice temple complex and dharamshala, all operated through donations and free to community members, where we spent one night.

We headed to Salasar balaji dham where the actual Mundan ceremony for my son was suppose to happen. Once we arrived, little did we know that we had miscalculated and chosen the most auspicious Sharad Poornima day for the ceremony and the revered temple was flocked with pilgrims with darshan line going more than a kilometre long! Not that we signed up for this adventure but we exercised our little jugaad in temple and able to get the ceremony done with much ease.

We headed for a darshan in Khatu Shyam Ji temple and post that proceeded for the next leg of our journey – Ajmer & Pushkar.

Day 5 – Day 6 : Ajmer & Pushkar

We checked in Pratap Mahal near pushkar bypass and since we had enough of the day light left with us, we decided to go visit Pushkar temple. Pushkar and Ajmer are two very much different but connected cities. We had a complimentary arrangement from our hotel for a guide who would accompany us for the Pushkar visit. However, we were conned and another guide masqueraded and started pushing us towards rituals for ways to make money. Before the entire experience would have got washed away, we were able to connect with the designated guide and things went in smooth from here.

Pushkar has the only temple in entire country worshipping Lord Brahma and there is an interesting mythological story surrounding it.

After roaming around in the markets besides the temple for usual paraphernalia, we decided to return to our hotel.

We started next day by visiting the Dargah of Khwaja Moinuddin Chisthti, who is also known as Garib Nawaz. This is probably the only Dargah which is revered by Hindus and Muslims alike, a message which the Sufi Saint kept preaching.

We chose a famous nearby restaurant Mango Masala for lunch and tried the local Kadhi Kachori. As we have much of the day left with us, we decided to go to Jaipur Ghat near Pushkar lake for the evening.

Pushkar Lake has more than 50 ghats where one can witness a great view of Sun setting in. We chose Jaipur Ghat which was recommended by our local temple guide and the place was filled with Western tourists performing a variety of tricks.

Day 7 – Day 10 : Amritsar

We onboarded an overnight train from Ajmer junction to Amritsar which coincidentally was the first train ride for my son Pulastya! Also, we were very excited for the final leg of our journey as we had a long list of culinary dishes to gobble in Amritsar.

Amritsar is famous for a wide variety of Punjabi delicacies, Street food and Dhabas. We started our gastronomical journey from Haveli restaurant, where all of us agreed that we had best kulchas till date!

We had another little jugaad to witness Attari Wagah Border Beating Retreat ceremony in finesse through one of our close relative. This ceremony happens everyday where security forces armed guards unfurl their respective flags but more than that, it is a blatant show of jingoism very carefully crafted to not tip over the fence. There are patriotic bollywood songs being played at high acoustics and the energy can only be witnessed in person than described.

After this ceremony, we headed straight for the Golden Temple Harmandir Sahib to witness the marvel during night time. For dinner, we had planned to attend gurudwara Langar.

We started next day by visiting Partition Museum, a place where one can go back in time, and hear stories of not just one but two countries together.

As the Sun was soaring, we decided to visit Golden Temple again and just sit back, relax and watch volunteers doing mundane activities with such zeal and affection! Next we paid a visit to Akal Takht, had Kara Prasad and headed for Jalian Wala Bagh for the evening Laser Show.

This was a buffer day in our itinerary. We visited Valmiki temple at Ram Tirth and Durgyani Temple and had lunch at famed Kesar da Dhaba, ghee laden maa ki daal and Kulchhe.

During our stay in Amritsar, we tried Lassi from Ahuja Milk Bhandar, Lunch at Bhrawan da Dhaba (near golden temple) and Kesar da dhaba, crisp Jalebis at Gurdas Ram Jalebi Wala (near golden temple), chaats at Brijwasi chat bhandar, Kulfas (big brother of delicate Kulfis) at A-1 Kulfas and got souvenirs back home from Lubhaya Ram Aam papad wala.