This was a long weekend we had leave on Saturday, Sunday and on Monday(for Independence Day). Well the question to do something in this was in the air at home. While talking to one of my colleague i got to know about Chokhe Dhani (Rajasthani theme based resort). Did some enquiry about it and decided that this is the place for this weekend.
Now it has been a year in India and i have not been able to gather enough courage to take my car out it in crazy traffic. Chokhe Dhani is about 23 Km from the place we currently live. Lately i have done some practice in the car to drive it around the neighborhood and so on. This gave me some level of confidence that i will be able to manage manual transmission driving for this distance. (Though i have about 5 years of driving experience in US and have driven almost 50k miles, but you need guts to drive in India)
We left home at around 3:30 as the Chokhe Dhani timing is from 5 PM -11 PM. I had the printout from google for the directions, but those directions are not of much use. You have to do the traditional approach (ask people). Well one good thing was that we had been to Aga Khan Palace on bike and Chokhe Dhani is on the same route although a bit far ahead.
Near Bopodi bridge, i encountered my first driving problem. There were 6-8 buffaloes standing on the mid of the road and they were not ready to buzz. To make matters worse there were autos and bikes coming who will somehow push the buffaloes more close to my car. Anyhow with honking and slowly moving i overcame this problem. I am sure i will remember this moment for the rest of my life as this was the first instance of this kind of problem.
So we finally reached the place. It is almost 2 km away from the main road. There are no visible sign (or atl east we missed to see one). We found it by asking people and taking a u turn. Thankfully there was no shortage of parking which was a blessing as i am not yet good at parking in a crowded place.
The entry fee is Rs 450 per adult and Rs 300 for children between (3 and 12). Upon entering we were welcomed with tilak. Then there was a drink stand where we got jaljeera and sharbat. Very near to that was a big bell which was supposed to be hit with a very heavy hammer. We tried our hand on it. Then there came the snack stand, where they were serving kandi bhaji, kadi bati etc. Hungry as we were we had several doses of them. Then we had a cup of tea.
After this we started exploring the entertainments provided by the place. There were camel ride (but it had a big queue), horse cart ride, bullock cart ride, train ride etc. Further there were performers doing puppet show (kathputli naach), acrobat doing tricks on a thin rope and Rajasthani folk dance and song shows. But the thing which left a mark on me was the magic show.
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The show was being performed by a young person. He did several tricks. In one trick he took the ring from my wife and then hid it in a cloth and asked everyone to touch it and make sure that they can feel it. One lady was asked to hold the ring with the cloth and then with the 3 taps of his magic stick he made the ring disappear. Finally ring was found hidden in a tomato.
But the best piece was the last trick. He asked people to make fist and put one on top of other persons hand, so that the top of two hands meet and asked everyone to choose among several flowers (rose, jasmine etc). And with few magic spells, he asked us to smell the hand. And truly there were fragrance coming out of our hand. I am sure that he didn't touch our hand any how. To make sure that it was not a collective hypnotism, i smelled my hand again after leaving him and fragrance was there.
Dinner
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They serve food in traditional Rajasthani style, with a wooden small table to keep your plate etc, while you sit on the floor. Dinner starts at 8 PM. But if you want to eat in traditional way then you may have to wait for 10-30 minutes depending on the rush. For people who can't wait that long there is a buffet system also arranged there. We decided to go for the traditional way. After about 15 minutes our turn came in. It was worth the wait. The walls of the eating hall were nicely decorated with the traditional drawings. People who served food were wearing traditional dresses. Whenever we asked what it is this item? The answer always ended in "Sa". For example "Bati Sa", "Choorma Sa". This is a vegeterian menu. We liked the "Palak Panner" very much. Almost 15 different kind of dishes if you include pickle and papad too.
Post dinner while my wife and mother were busy in getting heena on thier hand, me and my son roamed around to see what else was there. There is an aritificial cave. We decided to go through it. Some portion of the cave was dark enough to terrify you. For a moment i felt that something moved and was scared. But anyways it was fun.
Finally we had our final dose of jaljeera and decided to leave, but not before i tried my hand on the heavy hammer bell.
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