November 24th 2006
Woke up early as the cycle rickshaw was to pick us up at 6.15 am from the hotel. Had tea and vegetable sandwiches, which we got packed the night before from the hotel's restaurant, before heading out. We also had bought 2 bananas. From last early morning's experience, this time we took our jackets.
6.15 am - Went to Kaeladeo Rashtriya Udhyan Bird Sanctuary. We took some early morning photos, saw a lot of birds, but the disappointment was - there were no ducks, flamingos etc, as the water had dried up - There was No water, No Lake, No Pond, so no water related birds. It is a nice park though, but a disappointment as they talk about ducks, flamingos etc in the beautiful lake in their ads.
Our cycle rickshaw driver was a nice and friendly person named "Darshan Singh" a Sikh and his rickshaw was # 58. His rate was Rs 50 per hour, so with tip, for 3 hours, pavan gave him Rs 200. He even shared my sandwich when I politely offered it to him. We did find some Owls sleeping in their holes which Darshan Singh pointed out to us. We also took a short walk just to explore the surroundings.
9.15 am - Returned from the sanctuary.
Back at the hotel, we had brunch - Aloo and Gobi Parathas with curd/pickle etc. before leaving. We first sat outdoors and soon moved indoors as it felt a bit warm. The breakfast took some time to arrive.
10.20 am - Left the hotel for the City Palace.
10.30 am - Reached the Palace and DISASTER - found out after paying the camera charge that PHOTOGRAPHY IS NOT ALLOWED INSIDE. We could have taken the photos from outside too!! They did show us some ladies personal areas where they used to bathe and dress, there were different cubical small pool areas - almost boxy areas - where they used to catch the hot and cold water, where it would mix to a right temperature for bathing.
11.03 am - Left the Palace to go to Alwar.
1.00 pm - Stopped on the way at a rest station. Very impressive, very clean toilets and restaurants etc., called Rajasthan Motel, Mahwa and is on the Jaipur Agra National Highway, better known as NH in India. Pavan bought a 2 volume set of Annals and Antiquities by James Tod, a highly recommended book. First we saw one priced at Rs 750 and soon realized that it is a 2 volume set. The shopkeeper brought the other volume too, and sold it to us at Rs 1400 (discounted Rs 100) and even gave us its box that holds the 2 solumes together.
(Later we found from Sunil that the books are only sold as a set, and that he sold the set for Rs 600. So, we have been had!)
We had some snacks and a pot of tea, could not eat all the cheese pakoras, so took them out for Saravan Singh, which I am sure he appreciated.
1.15 pm - Left Mahwa.
3.05 pm - Reached Alwar. Saravan Singh's in laws live in Alwar, very close to the City Palace, so he parked the taxi there. We decided to go around to see the Fort and decided to meet him later at 4.30 pm. The City Palace is taken over by the local Government, and they run the legal services from all of the outside areas, there are even cheap tea/chaiwalas sitting outside doing business, very sad that a Palace has to be used like this. A National heritage too!! We went behind the Palace to Lake Sagar, which could have been a great tourist spot, again it was dirty, with dog poop all over. We took some pictures as the structure is great and enormous, and actually finished with our photography at about 4.00 pm. Waited till Saravan Singh returned (with a fresh laundered set of clothes under his arms) at about 4.20 pm.
4.23 pm - Left Alwar for Sariska.
5.45 pm - Went to Sariska Palace. It was full.
6.00 pm - Reached Sariska Tiger Heaven - a heritage hotel - found a very friendly staff, maybe because it is a newly acquired hotel by heritage, and they hardly had any guests. The manager - Satindra Sharma, a very young manager - whom I first mistook for a receptionist - was very cooperative. After this hotel, the only other choice was RTDC, which was also quite far from here - we decided not to play hardball - so a room quoted at Rs 2800 that includes food (breakfast, lunch and dinner) was reduced to Rs 2500 as we were not going to be there for lunch next day. He also said that we could have toasts etc before going to Sariska park and then have proper breakfast after returning from the sanctuary. We selected a room after going thru a bunch of them. They were all the same, and need a lot of TLC, but they tried to make us as comfortable as possible, which was nice.
7.00 pm - Went to eat our dinner in their restaurant, which is in an adjoining building - one of the guys escorted us with a flash light as it was pitch dark. The restaurant is kind of open air with a rooftop but open on all sides. It was getting cold, for which they apologized and said they were working on getting the sides covered soon.
The dinner was served after about 15/20 minutes, but meanwhile, the manager, Satindra Sharma, came to talk to us about how Heritage Hotel recently took over this hotel from another owner. We discussed about our Jeep arrangements for next morning for the Safari (Rs 800 + Rs 50 Camera Charge).
The dinner was excellent, absolutely fantastic - ghar ka khaana. Small chapatis, paneer dish, mixed vegetables (mainly gobi aloo) and daal, jeera rice and curd. It was all freshly made, and tasted great. It was so good that we complimented the cook. I even ate the sweetdish - mawa burfi (white chocolate).
8.00 pm - Returned to the room from dinner, after being escorted back. I was rather concerned about encountering any runaway animals from the sanctuary.
Had some tea.
The whole experience was so much better than the other heritage hotels - like Mandawa and Karauli.
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