Driving around the drivable parts of Bikaner, Rajasthan || Wide, clean roads with easy, laidback traffic
Driving into Bikaner, Rajasthan on the Bikaner-Agra Road, the city came as a surprise. Wide roads with almost no littering. Of course, we knew it then that this was just the new Bikaner. Old Bikaner would be different and perhaps we were more mentally prepared for it. But new Bikaner, it was a revelation.
The Bikaner-Agra Road almost reaches right up to the Junagarh Fort. You reach the Shaheed Smarak and go straight around it. You drive straight past the ONGC Circle. When you reach the Maharaja Ganga Singh Statue, take the first exit and then merge into the Junagarh Fort Road. We followed this route.
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The Junagarh Fort Road circles around the Junagarh Fort. This entire area has ample parking space (even though if you are visiting the Junagarh Fort, you can actually park inside the fort premises). At least when we were there, the traffic here was light. In my mind this also reflects on the pace of life of a city.
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The locals in Bikaner refer to themselves as being "saral, sukh, and sust". One of my good friends from Bikaner shared that people in Bikaner take pride in acknowledging that they are content. So I guess it is true. The state of the traffic on the roads does reflect the pace of life.
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Even if the people are laid back, they cannot really be called "sust". You only need to take one look at the schedules of the people in Bikaneri Bhujia trade to know that they work really really hard. They start as early as 4 am and make tonnes of bhujia every day. But you will hardly ever see them complain about monotony. You will rarely run into people from Bikaner who want to do something else in life. I guess that is the difference between being "sust" vs being "content".
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We had parked outside the Junagarh Fort, because at the time we were not aware that there was parking inside the fort. After visiting the fort, we drove to the Lall Garh Palace. For this, we went straight from the Junagarh Fort Road to the Municipal road. Drive past Kirti Stambh on to the Karni Singh Stadium Road.
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Drive past the Dr Karni Singh Circle, across the Jaipur Road, on to the Laxmi Niwas Palace Road. This road is practically empty with lush green areas on both the sides. In some time, you arrive at the gate that opens into the Laxmi Niwas Palace and Lallgarh Palace complex. The drive is pleasant and easy on the eyes.
Finally we drove to our booked accommodation - Hotel Jaswant Bhawan. For this, we had to retrace our drive back to the Junagarh Fort and then from the Shardul Singh Statue Circle, take the exit to Mahatma Gandhi Marg. After a few minutes, take left toward Modern Market.
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All of these roads were pretty comfortable to drive on. Hotel Jaswant Bhawan is on the edge of old Bikaner (and it has a parking). So we were able to drive around comfortably in the drivable parts of the city and then park our car and explore the old city on foot (another post coming up on this soon). What more could we ask for?