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550 km road trip across Rajasthan on a bicycle

26th July 2021, 14:37 by Chirag Moro

So the plan was to start riding from Jaipur and cover Sambhar, Pushkar, Jodhpur, Osian, Khichan, Pokhran, and Jaisalmer. Each of these places has a distinct landscape and I chose to ride along little-known roads instead of highways whenever possible.

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Sorry! This is my third travelogue here that is non-automotive based out of four. The current pandemic situation is not helping anyone travel but to recollect good ol' days. This is about one such tour I went solo in the December of 2014 riding close to 550 km between Jaipur and Jaisalmer. I hope this travelogue inspires you to tour on a bicycle or visit the wonderful state of Rajasthan!

The toughest part of the tour was coming up with an itinerary. I am limited to 12 days on the road and can cover only so many places with minimum junk miles on a bicycle. With this limitation, I had to remove Chittorgarh, Bikaner, and Jaipur from the list of places I want to visit. I would love to cover these places in a car with my family in the future.

So the plan was to start riding from Jaipur and cover Sambhar, Pushkar, Jodhpur, Osian, Khichan, Pokhran, and Jaisalmer. Each of these places has a distinct landscape and I chose to ride along little-known roads instead of highways whenever possible.

A word of caution if you are planning to ride a bicycle. The terrain is F-L-A-T and involves riding long stretches of road with little or no change in scenery in certain segments and this may not be everyone's cup of tea. If you are planning to drive, the roads are excellent to burn some rubber!

Jaipur to Sambhar

Finished my work at the office and took an evening flight to Jaipur from Hyderabad. Reached Jaipur at 9:30 pm and by the time I assembled the bicycle and started, there was not much traffic and street dogs just started to reclaim their territory. I was cycling for my life and checked in to Zostel, a backpackers hostel for the night.

Ready for the flight at RGIA

Woke up quite early the next morning and went riding in the Pink City area. I was quite surprised seeing Hawal Mahal. It is not as big as I have imagined from pictures of the front elevation. Beautiful structure nevertheless. I had kachoris at Laxmi Mishthan Bhandar and washed them down with a tall glass of lassi from Lassiwala @ Jayanti Market.

Hawa Mahal

Pink City

Sweet & savoury kachori at LMB. This and dhokla seem to be the preferred choice for breakfast here.

Cold Lassi in chilly weather. It still tasted great.

Packed a ghevar from LMB. I have no clue how it tastes. Looks very crunchy.

Only in Rajasthan!

Sambhar is 70 km from Jaipur and took around 3 hrs to reach. I did not find any place to eat lunch on the way, so had the packed ghevar. It was surprisingly soft, not so sweet and finished half of it. I took a room at Tatiwala Bhavan. It's a 4 storey building with lot of rooms and a large hall for functions.