Jun 042016
 

Padharo Mhare Desh: Rajasthan Road Trip clicked at  80 KM Per Hour

The Kids were busy in the backseat of the car, I was busy driving at 80 KM per hour on the road trip Agra to Gurgaon via Bharatpur and Alwar, and the lush green landscape of the desert state of Rajasthan was passing by. Any other day I would have stopped the car every few minutes, clicked a few pictures and congratulated myself,

Beta desi you will sure get 40 likes on this picture. “

Women working in field Rajasthan India

Women working in Sarson Ke Khet in Rajasthan a desert state – right?

But today was different, the toll road was smooth, and I was in a hurry to reach our next destination before sunset so that I could click some pictures of the monument I have longed to visit ever since I saw a part of the complex in  “ The Dark Night Rises “.  I was wondering what to do, and finally, I got an excellent idea that a guy who cannot decide whether he likes clicking pictures more or driving more.

So  I looked towards Wife jee, who is normally in charge of my camera when I am driving and asked her

“Honey, do you remember when we went to on a Roadtrip to Ananthagiri Hills ? “

She looked towards me with her innocent Doe-like eyes almost ready to fall into the trap

“Yes, I remember that trip, you stopped the car like 100 times to click stupid pictures”

Keeping my eyes on the road and foot firmly on the pedal maintaining the speed of 80 KM per hour I asked her,

“What else do you remember from that road trip? “

She looked at me puzzled and then said

“ Oh yes, we missed our Lunch because you were stopping so much and by the time we reached hotel the lunch time was over and we had to order room service, that cost us extra money”

“No, Not that, remember you asked me something?”

“Yes, I wanted to know if we switched off the Gas in the kitchen or not after we have crossed the city limits!!”

So finally I had to let the cat (or is it the camera ?) out of the bag

“Arey, not that Baba, remember you said, if I was not so possessive about the camera, you could take pictures from the camera, and that I never let u click pictures from my DSLR?


“Yes, but what your point is? You never have time to teach me photography, while I have taught you to make breakfast, operate washing machine, do the dishes etc”


So I said, ” I think the time to pay my debt has come madam, let us practice some photography, as I am driving; you just set up the camera as I tell you and press the shutter when I say so”.

So I stopped the car for a minute, set the camera in aperture mode with F 8, Auto ISO with the upper limit set to 400. the final setting that I did was to set the camera into burst mode, this allowed Wife jee to click 8 frames per second on my Nikon D 7000. And then told her to hold the camera steadily in her hands and press the button whenever she liked something.  She was a bit reluctant, to begin with, “But agar pictures are not good?”

Nothing to worry, I told her, we can delete the pictures, but as they are for my blog only, so I will just say they were clicked by Wife Jee hence so good !!

She looked at me with the same love, that a butcher looks at a lamb while sharpening the knife.

 So, I  backed off a little and said,

“This is just a fun thing we will do at 80 KM per hour, so don’t worry if the pictures are blurry, or bad or good, let us just enjoy clicking them”

 So dear reader thus we continued our journey, while I was driving at 80 KM per hour and focusing on the road and traffic around me, Wife Jee got busy looking around the road and whenever she will see something interesting she will press the shutter.

click, Click, CLICK. 

Women of Rajasthan in colorful dress

Women adorning rustic colors of Rajasthan walk along the highway

Sometimes she will get busy changing the song on the music system of the car, and I will notice an interesting scene on the road. So I will scream at the top of my voice.

“WOW  Dekho, truck ! truck !!! ”  and she will go “click, Click CLICK “. Soon it became a fun game and we started enjoying it thoroughly… and soon the kids joined in the chorus

Truck Trailer carrying Truck Rajasthan Roadtrip

That is a truck on a truck clicked on Road Trip in Rajasthan

What is this guy carrying on the scooter? OMG he that is a gas cylinder click Click CLICK

scooter highway Rajasthan Roadtrip

Man carrying a gas cylinder on his scooter – notice Sarson Ke Khet in almost every picture

Village women carrying water pots on road, – click, Click  CLICK”

What a beautiful house !!!

click, Click,  Click

Did you notice even with such beautiful houses, the village does not have water and the women need to walk to miles with water pots on their head? I wonder when villages in India will have safe drinking water, piped to homes.

Women carrying water in Rajasthan

Women carrying water in a Rajasthan Village

 

Women carrying water pots in a Rajasthan village

Beautiful houses have arrived but no drinking water via a pipeline 

Roadtrip Rajasthan Bharatpur Gurgaon (3)

The social network of the village women

“Mama, Look at that Tractor” – click, Click  CLICK”

Roadtrip Rajasthan Bharatpur Gurgaon (17)

Tractor on the highway

“Red Bougainvillea flowers “ — click Click CLICK

Roadtrip Rajasthan Bharatpur Gurgaon (19)

Oye Uncle G don’t cross the Road – click, Click  CLICK

“What is that ?

Oh, that is a Jugaad.   click, Click  CLICK.  

But what is a Jugaad ?

Jugaad Roadtrip Rajasthan Bharatpur

That is a original desi Jugaad – One day I will do a Raod Trip in a Jugaad

Will tell you later click the shepherds 

Is that Sarson Ke Khet ?  Sarson Ke Khet in Rajasthan? click, Click  CLICK

nomadic shephered on rajasthan highway

Nomadic Shepherds move from village to village in search of fodder

Stone temples for Sale

Stone temples for sale on a highway in Rajasthan

Is that guy selling temples ? click, Click  CLICK

stone idols for sale in rajasthan

Man-made Gods for sale !!! 

Every time she will go click, Click CLICK, we will laugh at our heart’s desire. Mind you this was all happening spontaneously, and I was making sure that I continue to drive at 80 KM per hour without taking any risk while driving. I find on a good Indian highway, 80 KM per hour is a decent speed to maintain where you have complete control over the car and you are within legal speed limits. I can go much higher than that but my motto is simple

“The Journey is the destination” and when I am on a holiday I have no hurry to reach anywhere, except to savor the journey so, I try and plan the road trips so that we reach our next destination before sunset.

The other good thing was that there was hardly any traffic on the road and I just stuck to one lane in the road not bothering to over speed at all.

Roadtrip Rajasthan Bharatpur Gurgaon

Road Trips are fun on such empty roads

Roadtrip Rajasthan Bharatpur Gurgaon (10)

Then the road turned

Roadtrip Rajasthan Bharatpur Gurgaon (2)

A tractor trolley carrying some grains

Road side dhaba on a highway in Rajasthan

A Roadside Dhaba in Rajasthan – click Click CLICK 

So at 80 KM per hour, I was comfortable driving leisurely on our Road Trip and Wife jee was happy clicking pictures at 80 KM per hour. Mind you our car window was closed and these pictures are clicked from inside the moving car, and with dust around us, it was not prudent to open the window. So you will see a lot of reflections of glass in the pictures. As anticipated a lot of pictures were no good, (simply due to low light and because we clicked them from a moving car from behind the glass) but we had a great time clicking them and later remembering them when I was working on this post. Check my post about when I was stopped by a police officer for over speeding in Rajasthan.

And if you are wondering where I was headed in such hurry that I did not even stop to click pictures, preferring to continue the Road trip in Rajasthan at 80 KM per hour, then have a look at the picture below.  While this is not the part that was shown in the movie ” The Dark Knight Rises” it is part of the same complex approximately the same period.  I am working on the posts on these wonderful monuments in Rajasthan. Would you like to take a guess? Where in Rajasthan  I clicked this temple housing a goddess worshiped in Rajasthan and Gujarat.

Harshat Mata Temple Chand Baori Abhaneri (1)

We did reach the place we wanted to reach before sunset. Click image for another view

About Photographer:  The pictures of this post ( except the last one ) were clicked by Wife Jee of desi Traveler. He who has shamelessly put his own watermark on the images because he was lazy to not create another watermark for Wife Jee is on dish washing duty this week for his unpardonable sins.

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  18 Responses to “Pictures From Rajasthan Road Trip AT 80 KM Per Hour”

Comments (18)
  1. Does she reads your blog? Looks like she does not? I should meet her one of these days!

  2. Great blog post. I’ve never been to India but it’s on my list! Thanks for sharing!

  3. 🙂 Cool idea Prasad! The photos are pretty good or at least capture the essence of your journey!

  4. Those are really interesting!!! Vibrant and colorful unlike the usual pictures of Rajasthan

  5. Your photos made me feel like I’m traveling too. and the final silhouette shots are stunning. especially the birds’ flight.. lovely 🙂

  6. I found myself smiling throughout this post. That sounds like such a fun family road trip. I can see that you all had fun.
    As usual, I loved the signature desitraveler-humour that cemented it all together making it another fun post.

    There should be a MrsDesiTraveler watermark!! (for all those future road trip pics.)
    Or a SrimatiDesiTraverler one, maybe. 🙂

  7. that is cool 🙂

  8. Interesting and funny post … especially the “click, click, CLICK”. Nice roads and beautiful photos.

  9. Rajasthan is my favourite place. I have done a lot of road trips in this state and always found it amazing. Nice post.

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