Women’s Roadtrip (Part 3): Delhi-Jodhpur-Kumbhalgarh

Recap: In December 2023, my mom and I had to attend my cousin sister’s marriage in Jodhpur and decided to drive down from Delhi.

In Part 1, we drove from Delhi to Jodhpur and also experienced some adventure – thanks to a car failure on the highway .

Read about the Part 1 of the journey here: Delhi to Jodhpur

In Part 2, we decided to take a detour and visit Kumbhalgarh since it was on my mom’s list forever. Read about that journey here: Jodhpur to Kumbhalgarh

Also, check out some amazingly useful roadtrip products on amazon:

Pepper Spray, Pee Safe, Peechute; car freshener, Car charger, Car charging cable, Car air pump , Car tissue holder, Car vacuum cleaner, Car door edge cover guard

Contents

Stay at Kumbhalgarh

The main attraction at Kumbhalgarh is the fort which is the second longest fort in the world (Second to ‘The Great Wall Of China’) which is what I have covered in the previous part.

Like with most of my roadtrips, we had not booked our hotel to allow us the flexibility. Our initial plan was to visit the fort until about 6PM and then resume our drive towards Delhi; stopping somewhere on the highway for the night (depending on tiredness level).

Actually, I was under the impression that Kumbhalgarh would be a small town with not much accommodation.

Boy, was I in for a surprise!

The town was as touristy as it could get. There was no dearth of hotels with many of them lining bothsides of the main road.

It was actually a hill station town and am assuming it would be quite an attractive location for summers as it was at a good height.

It was definitely very cold for me and all that I wanted was to get into a nice warm quilt.

We decided to stop in the town itself and found a decent hotel named Tiger Trail for INR 3,000. The room was quite nice with a very inviting warm bed and clean sheets and quilt.

Just next to the hotel was a Sagar Ratna and we decided to have our dinner there.

Kumbhalgarh to Delhi

Due to the exhaustion, we got into bed by 9PM and almost immediately slept. I had such sound sleep that I had no idea about the loud music that was playing at some resort that kept my mom awake until about midnight.

But I slept well – and that is important as I was the driver.

As with most of our roadtrips, we started at 6AM from the hotel.

The drive out of the city was quite picturesque framed by occasional waterbodies and hills in the distance.

The road quality was not that great. Strictly Okay, I would say – I did expect better roads from Rajasthan though.

After navigating narrow roads riddled with quite a few potholes and speed breakers, we reached NH58 and breathed a sigh of relief.

That highway was beautiful. I remember being on this highway on my first long roadtrip in 2017 – Delhi to Mumbai with my mom. At that time we had driven on extremely congested NH8/NH48 from Delhi to Ajmer and had then reached this beautiful serene highway which seemed like an oasis after the chaotic NH8.

And now the sweet voice of my google maps said that I had to stay on this highway for nearly 100 km.

Woohoo!

A beautiful highway (I think it was a 4 lane highway) with the hills as backdrop and the best part was that it was not busy – just the way I remembered it from 2017!

It did feel nostalgic. My mom and I had a nice nostalgic conversation remembering our time on that trip.

A cow giving us company while we were waiting for our breakfast

The one change that we could see this time was that there were quite a few restaurant options on the highway which is something that we were craving for in 2017.

Since it was nearly 2 hours for us on the road and we had not eaten anything since morning, we stopped at a ‘hotel’ (Rajasthan term for a dhaba) for breakfast.

After a good decent meal, we resumed our journey. The only issue now was that although it was December, the sun rays had turned our car into a mini oven! And as we were driving towards the east, the sun was in front of me for most of the drive.

Ajmer to Delhi

NH58 got us till Ajmer. From Ajmer, we had three options:

Via NH48

This was the shortest route, however it was not being recommended by Google maps due to the major amount of work happening on this highway at multiple points. We had come via the same highway, so were aware of these diversions. That added with the fact that the highway would be teeming with trucks.

Via NE4 (Mumbai-Delhi expressway)

This was the recommended route by the maps. I had been on this route a few months earlier and was disappointed with the lack of restaurant/coffee options on this highway.

Via Sikar

This route was get us through Haryana via Bhiwani. I had been on this route during my return from Jaisalmer roadtrip. Although the road was nice for most part, it did go through some villages – at least at the time I was on that route (2021).

The Route Choice

Since I had been on all three routes, the ‘first time’ selection criterion was not applicable. I finally chose my route via the elimination route.

The Sikar and NE4 route were not very restaurant/coffee shop friendly (as per my last visit memory). So although the map kept routing us on to one of these routes, I kept dismissing the alert.

“We found a faster route that will save you 1 hour” said the Map lady.

But I needed my Coffee and I knew for a fact that I would get it on NH48, so I kept ignoring the suggestion.

About half an hour into the NH48 route commitment, I realised why the map was pushing me towards any of the other routes.

At that time (Nov 2023), most of NH48 was under renovation/widening project. There were diversions at very frequent intervals.

And to add to the chaotic diversions were the numerous trucks. The diversions were already so narrow – And gone are the days when the trucks used to drive in a single file.

Even after driving one hour on this highway, the map recommended us to take the NE4 route which would add some crazy number of kms but

A few hours into the NH48 drive - the map still wanted us to take the NE4 route — A few hours into the NH48 drive – the map still wanted us to take the NE4 route

would still save time.

I however was in the “Ek baar maine commitment kar di toh main apne map ki bhi nahi sunti” phase.

Not smart.

As we got closer to Delhi, the diversions seemed to have increased in frequency or maybe it was the combination of trucks and nightfall.

The only saving grace on this route was the amazing dhaba dinner and the coffee.

We finally reached home around 10 Pm