A Tiger's Tale IV: The Sands of Time - Page 4 of 6

The next morning, we woke up early and made our way out of the Golden City. The roads, as we had expected, were empty, but there was considerable army presence in the area. While there wasn’t any traffic, we did pass a personnel carrier every now and then. About an hour after we had left, the sun was on its way up, bathing the surroundings in a warm orange glow. Vegetation was beginning to make its presence felt and we felt ourselves moving away from the desert. We would now head to Jodhpur, the Blue City, before heading to Pushkar Lake and then on to the ‘pink city’ of Jaipur.

A few kilometres before we would stop for breakfast, I saw a creature run across the road diagonally. At first, my mind was processing what it was exactly: a bluish-coloured cow-like animal with the head of a horse. Identification done, I realised I had to hit the brakes, and quickly. Thankfully, the Tiger’s large discs complete with ABS ensured I stopped short and sweet with no drama whatsoever, averting what would have been a collision of weird proportions. It was a ‘nilgai’, I was told later. It took just a couple of hours after a quick breakfast stop on the highway to reach Jodhpur. No sooner did we enter Jodhpur than we got caught in morning traffic, and through the narrowest of lanes we made our way to Mehrangarh.

Mehrangarh is a massive structure with several gates, the scars from cannonballs back in the days of siege still very visible today. Its tall walls look impregnable, with the only visible areas of occupancy located high atop with a sheer drop for those who failed to scale the seemingly impossible to scale. While it is a major tourist attraction, there was heavy security from the armed forces, but a number of vendors with all kinds of goods, more noticeable flavoured tea, were plying their trade. Look over the crenellations, and you can see why Jodhpur is called the Blue City. Spread as far as the eye can see are hundreds of houses and buildings painted a light shade of blue.

As we made our way out of Jodhpur, the sun was baking hot and we needed to pick up the pace. We would push towards Merta and from there head on towards Pushkar. The roads were not all that good, but we managed to keep up a speed good enough to keep us from falling prey to the sun’s heat. Merta is a bustling little town we would go through before entering a not so busy highway and a lovely ghat section. The open roads and flowing corners were a good break and with the Tiger’s handling, it was a lot of fun taking those sweeping bends. Before we knew it, we headed towards the famous Pushkar lake which was just round the corner.