As a mother and women, I totally understand Our daily Marathon starting everyday running from kitchen to rooms and outdoor trying to manage everything in daily life and forgetting about personal health and wellness.
In this hustle we at times ignore our mental and physical Health, that we suffer daily but tend to ignore it. Back pain, anxiety, stress, join pain, depression and digestive issues the list goes on if we count. Your personal wellness is equally important.
But this year I made sure to give health priority and take a break from this busy schedule. We went to Deham, a luxury and wellness retreat is placed in the lap of breathtaking Sahyadri mountains located at just 1 hr drive from Pune.
Yoga, Naturopathy, 𝗔𝗬𝗨𝗥𝗩𝗘𝗗𝗔 and Satvik diet are the four ways they work in Deham for your wellness . Let’s discuss more about how it works for us.
In this treatment they try to heal our body by itself with the help of nature forces. In naturopathy they work under the factors responsible for any particular disease or illness like the daily lifestyle, unnatural habits, sleeping schedule, food habits & work.
Understanding health
After understanding all the details a proper diet and treatment is suggested as it is believed our body is capable of self healing if proper care is taken. That’s how your wellness journey starts.
At Deham before starting any therapy or treatment you need to take proper consultation with experienced doctor present at the resort. As per your health condition, history and any current concern doctor will suggest a proper diet with therapies to be taken.
During your wellness stay you need to follow the whole prescription and daily check up before starting the next day treatment.
At Deham Naturecure you will get wide range of health-supporting cuisines. They offers a variety in pure veg and authentic cuisine. They offer dishes that are made from vegetables and grains that are grown organically in their farm and crafted by the guidance of health experts.
It was a much needed break we needed. We had a nice family time together as we were disconnected from Gadget ( no Television in the rooms ) at the wellness resort . Has a rejuvenating experience following proper clean diet and required treatment under doctors assistance.
Experience with kids
Amazing experience for my daughter as well. She learned so much about farming and enjoyed plucking fresh fruits and vegetables from farm. Participated in meditation and yoga as well, relished the fresh produce direct from the field.
Staff at Deham
All the staff at Deham wellness resort was so friendly, we never felt we are at resort. We felt like family the moment we reached Deham, they welcomed with so much affection.
After becoming parents we rarely get free time even at the resorts, but here we enjoyed me time as well with the help of the staff.
I would surely recommend to all the parents, to have this experience.
After spending amazing time in Jaipur and visiting few of the most popular places of Jaipur. On Day 3 we headed to a less explored region of Rajasthan i.e. Shekhawati region.
As mentioned in my first blog this is region is located in Northern part of Rajasthan. It consists of Jhunjhunu, Sikar & Churu district.
Places we visited came under Jhunjhunu district. As per the guides this region was founded by ‘Rao Shekha’ and named after him.
About the region
This region consists of some of the most beautiful and iconic havelis. Word haveli means big house or as per our guide “Havadaar” ghar. These havelis were build by some of the rich merchants of that time.
This region was a part of ‘Silk route’ so the merchants were quite rich. They built these havelis to show off their wealth. Few of the famous havelis are situated in Nawalgarh, Mandawa & Fatehpur.
We visited Nawalgarh on our way to Mandawa. It’s around 120 Km from Jaipur and it’s a National Highway 52 via Sikar.
The most famous haveli in this place is ‘Podar’ haveli. After restoration it was converted into a museum and now it is maintained by the Podar trust.
This place is really beautiful, with lot of frescoes. Fresco is a technique in which the painting . It is done when the plaster is wet so that the paint penetrates the plaster and becomes fixed upon drying.
There are 2 courtyards with different kind of frescos all around it.
The door that connects these 2 courtyards was(is) amongst the most beautiful gates in the country.
There are around 700+ frescos in this haveli, these frescos depict many scenes from Indian mythology as well as some modern trends like trains and dresses and also European culture. All the colors used in these frescos was obtained naturally.
There is entry ticket which is Rs 75 pp and timings are from 8 AM to 8 PM.
The museum displays the art and culture of Rajasthan,different festivals and way of celebration.
Different types of bridal costumes which brides of different sections of the society wear.
There is a section which displays different turbans which holds specific significance and are wore on different occasions .
In the marble art section, there is this beautiful artifact of a Rajasthani women. Build out of single piece of marble.
There was a school at this place which was converted into a museum. To accommodate the kids, they constructed few rooms on the first floor.
The caretaker/manager of this place showed us the Haveli and informed us each and every detail about the place plus. He helped us in clicking some good pics as well ?.
After completing our tour and taking a lot of pictures, we continued with rest of the Journey towards Mandawa which another 30 Km. We booked the stay a place which was 9-10 km before Mandawa city.
Mandawa is 236 KM from Delhi.
On the way we stopped at a hotel and to our surprise it was one of the most cleaned and hygienic and modern roadside hotel/property. It has auto on lights in bathroom with contact less flush etc.
We had tea here and it was really good. Place name is – Hotel Om, Sikar Road. You can see it on the left side while coming from Jaipur and going towards Mandawa.
We stayed @The Desert Resort which is part of WelcomHeritage hotels. It’s design replicate the rural culture. It has mud houses/huts of different sizes.
Desert Camp main entrance
This was the second time we didn’t find the service up to the mark as per 5* standards(First one was with Sofitel BKC Mumbai which is one of the worst service we ever had)
So, there was a film crew who has occupied most of the resort and we were given choice of 2 rooms, one in each category and the rooms were not cleaned at all.
The covers of sitting area was dirty there was dirt on the floor on the table, we called multiple times for all this.
Also not sure if there was shortage of staff but as there was a bottle kept outside of room which was there when we arrived and was still there when we were checking out.
Another thing is there was garbage left by guest in the main garden area right in front of reception and few of the housekeeping members pass by but no one picked it
Overall their attitude was not at all good which is totally opposite of the people of this region. We booked this place for 2 days but moved out after one day to a different property.
Garden area
And this was one of the best decisions as we got the chance to stay in one of the original heritage property more than 100 year old Haveli – Vivaana Culture Hotel
Day we reached Desert resort we relaxed as we were tired of walking a lot in Jaipur and explored the property itself.
The property is good with some activities as well(which are very costly like Rs 1500-2000 per activity) we didn’t do any activity as most of these activities we were going to do in our next destination.
Desert Camp
In Mandawa city there is a lot to see and can be covered in half day or max a day’s time. All the tours are done walking only. The guides here knows multiple languages as before pandemic most of the tourists were foreigners.
Beautiful Frescos of different Havelis in Mandawa
Fun Fact 1 – our guide asked us which language we prefer we said Hindi then he said he is not comfortable in Hindi as their native language is marwadi and after that he can talk in English, German, French etc.
Fun Fact 2 – Bajrangi Bhai Jaan wash shot in Mandawa (Pakistan part)
Frescos inspired from different historical events
There is a fort in Mandawa which is now a hotel and there is entry fee and as per the guide it was not worth.
Mandawa Fort
There was this one golden room and the ticket price of that was 100 pp and that was not worth at all. So, you can avoid that and can save some money. Why not worth as the room was not maintained at all the family living there have stored all the crap and the walls and ceiling was not maintained.
Roof with original gold work
After completing our tour of Mandawa we came back to the Haveli where we were staying and had a tour of that as well.
Vivaana @night
They also do village walk but not sure if it was due to pandemic or we were Indian tourist the person was not at all interested in taking us for a walk, so we did that by ourselves.
100 room Haveli and a beautiful yellow door of some house with Frescos
You will see a lot of cows and bulls and cute little kids playing in the evening, we went to a vendor who make Bangles but we were little late as they have already turned off the furnace(small one to make bangles).
He didn’t even showed his own property(he works there was customer relationship manager at the property) with any enthusiasm or interest.
Fountain in other blockPlay areaVivaana
The Maze waterway in the middle of the courtyard is a tribute to the amazing human ability to negotiate problems and came out free at the other end.
Maze courtyard
We gave the same review in their feedback book and to our surprise the owner does check that, and we got a WhatsApp message from the owner Mr. Atul Khanna very next day when we were on rout to our next destination. He apologized for that person’s behavior and informed us that there CRM is very enthusiastic.
There are different category room starting from Deluxe, Luxury and Royal. We got the opportunity to stay in Royal room which was quite amazing and weird as well.
Beautiful Royal room
Weird in the sense that the bathroom of this room was on the first floor and it’s an open bathroom.
Royal room in the main building
The room is very beautiful with frescos all over the room. This property has 2 blocks, basically they acquired the haveli adjacent to theirs and combined it.
Original and working Rolls Royce
The Luxury rooms with frescos are there in second block and on low occupancy they close that block to save some money.
Overall with mixed experience we enjoyed our stay in Mandawa and will definitely recommend it to everyone.
After exploring the magnificent forts of Jaipur we started our second day after heavy b/f. For this day we have planned to visit the Jantar Mantar, City Palace, Amer Fort & Jal Mahal.
We started with Jantar Mantar as it’s totally open space with no shade, so if it’s hot then we have to bear the heat. In Jantar Mantar there are more than 15 astronomical instruments which were built by Sawai Jai Singh 2.
Worlds Largest working Sun Dial
Jantar Mantar is situated right beside City Palace and Hawa Mahal. The instruments created here allowed the astrologers to see the astronomical positions of different planets and stars with naked eyes. This was built by the king as he has keen interest in astrology, he used all the knowledge while constructing the Pink City.
There is a sun dials which tells the local time in which we need to add I think 38 min to get the IST. The biggest sun dial(vrihat Samrat yantra) in world shows the time to a precision of a second.
Witnessing all this live was an amazing experience and to know this all was created 200+ years ago by our astrologers and craftsman. Overall time spent here was maximum 1 hour. Ticket price is Rs 50 pp and car parking is of Rs 80.
From here we went to City Palace which is situated right next to it. Ticket price is Rs 200 pp. There are other tickets as well like the one where you can visit it at night and then there is package in which you can even visit the place where the current royal family lives, as I remember the price of this ticket was Rs 3000 +.
City Palace was created at the same time as the Pink city itself. It consists of Museum and a part where the royal family lives. This palace houses many courtyards, buildings and pavilions and the most prominent are Chandra Mahal and Mubarak Mahal.
There are many entry points to the palace, one is reserved for Royal Family i.e. Tripolia gate. Visitors can enter via Udai Pol and one other.
Mubarak Mahal was built as a guest house for foreign guests which is now converted to a museum. Chandra Mahal is one of the oldest building in the palace and has several floors.
Then there is a place which was used as a Diwan-e-khas, it’s an open hall which is now used by royal family to celebrate important festivals. There are 2 big Silver vessels kept on either side and these vessels hold the Guinness World Record as well.
Silver Vessel
These vessels are the largest silver vessels with height of 5.2 ft weighing 340 Ks and has a capacity of around 4000 liters. These vessels are used by the king Sawai Madho Singh 2 to carry Ganga Jal when he went to London for some function/play.
Another special thing about these vessels are they are created without any joint or soldering. It was a wonderful experience knowing our history and seeing how skillful our artisan were. We spent around 1.30 hr here.
From here we went straight to Amer(Amber) Palace. This is situated in the Amer town and was build by Man Singh and later by Sawai Jai Singh. It situated on the foot of Jaigarh Fort. Ticket price is Rs 100 pp and parking charges for car is Rs 50.
There are many options to reach the palace one of which is your own vehicle. There are electric vehicles which will take you right inside the palace and charges Rs 80 pp after your own vehicle this is the most economical and affordable option.
Electric vehicle
There is one main attraction here to reach the top is elephants, but they are there till 11 AM only after that you have rest of the options till 5 PM.
From down to the full tour it will be around 3 Km of walk. The fort is laid out in 4 levels starting from Diwan-e-aam which was used for public celebration, Diwan-e-khas used by King and his special council, Sheesh Mahal and finally the Sukh Niwas.
This palace and Jaigarh fort are situated in one complex as there is a passage which connects both and was used in case of war. This enables royal family to shift to the Fort which is situated on a height and much more secure.
In Jalebi chowk there is Ganesh pol/gate which is very beautiful. It leads us to the private palace of the Maharaja. Beside this gate there are steps which directly leads to the temple of ‘Sila Devi’ which was worshipped by the Maharajas.
Going up from here comes the Diwan-e-aam, this was used to address common public. Going further up comes the third level. This is the courtyard where the Maharaja his queens and attendants used to live. There are rooms for all.
There is a ‘Sheesh Mahal’ and a beautiful garden as well in this courtyard.
Sheesh Mahal and beautiful garden in front of it
Final courtyard is where the queens used to live. The king had 12 queens, so he constructed 12 rooms and there is a staircase which is connected to the Maharaj’s room, but the queens are not allowed to go up.
All the rooms open to a common area which has a Baradari in the middle. It is said that if any queen does some mistake then the king gives them the punishment and make them sit in this baradari which is then covered by curtains and the queen will do some hard work like ‘Chakki peesna’.
In front of this Palace situated a lake know as Maota Lake and in middle of it situated a garden also known as Kesar kyari(garden) and as informed it was built to harvest Kesar.
Kesar Kyari
In the Amer town situated Jhodha Bai ki Haveli which is not maintained at all and no once can access it, we can only see it from the Palace or the Fort.
After this we stopped on the way to click some pics of Jal Mahal. It is situated in the middle of the lake ‘Man Sagar’
It is said that it was given on lease to someone big company to renovate it and make hotel in it like what we have in Udaipur. Someone said that there is a stay on the construction/renovation.
This Mahal is a 5 storied building of which 2-3 floors remain submerged all the time and when the lake is full 4 floors are submerged. The situation on the shore is not good, so much of garbage was present in the water that it was stinking.
This ends our second and final day in the Pink city. From here we went to the less explored region of Rajasthan which houses some of the most beautiful Havelis.
Patrika Gate
Do check my next blog for more details about this place.
Jaipur aka Pink City was formed by Sawai Jai Singh in 1700’s. It took around 4-5 years to complete the construction of the Pink City i.e. construction of main roads and main areas of the city. Present day it’s the largest city of Rajasthan.
Do check out my previous post where I have given details about different regions of Rajasthan we have visited and how we planned this trip.
After check-in to hotel and relaxing for some time we started our tour after lunch. We stayed in Jaipur Marriott. The property is quite big with 300+ rooms. We stayed in Executive room on the top floor and the view was quite good.
There is one restaurant ‘Okra’ which serves good and quality food. We had daily b/f and dinner at this restaurant. There is one more restaurant/bar where you can have high tea or drinks.
Service is very good; we missed our high tea on the first day and requested them if they can send at least tea to room as we were really tired after the tour. We were surprised when the room service came with a big tray.
The chef has sent fresh aloo bonda(aloo Vada) with a sandwich, some cake, cookies etc. Everything was tasty and fresh.
First day we have visited Jaigarh Fort and Nahargarh Fort. These forts are situated above Amber Palace and there is a way to reach Amber from Jaigarh fort which was used by the queens in case there is an attack.
First, we went to Jaigarh Fort and the main attraction in this fort is worlds biggest cannon named ‘Jaivana’. The weight of the cannon barrel is said to be around 50 tons and 4 elephants were used to turn the cannon from one direction to other.
It is said that the only time it was fired they have used around 100 kg of gun powder and 50 kg of cannon ball. When it was fired it travelled a distance of 30+ Km and a small lake was formed in ‘Chaksu’ were the cannon ball landed.
This fort has its own water harvesting system as well, as water scarcity is there in Rajasthan from long time so they use to clean and store a lot of water.
There are small museums inside the fort one displayed the swords, shields, guns, and also a 50kg, cannonball with other smaller cannonballs. Other one has photographs, stamps and other stuff of royal family.
There is a small garden which is quite well maintained but cannot be accessed by public, one can see that from fort walls.
Many movies were shot in this fort/garden area.
View from here is amazing you can see Amer palace and Maota Lake, we can also see the Nahargarh fort walls which are spread over several km. Roads to this fort is in good shape but it’s a single road broad enough that 2 cars can pass.
View of Amer and water reservoir
Timing of this is from morning 9 to 5 in the evening. Ticket price is Rs 100 per person. One good thing about this place is you can take your car inside the fort, ticket price for car is also Rs 100, driver fee is included in car fee but if you are driving then you have to take ticket as we were told that driver can not step out but our guide managed it for that time ?
From here we went to Nahargarh Fort. Opening time is same as Jaigarh but it opens till late in evening due to sunset point. Ticket price is Rs 50 pp and Rs 50 is for car parking. There are 2 parking places one is inside, and one is outside so if you want to visit the sunset point and parking is available inside then do park inside else you have to walk extra.
Best time to visit this fort is in the evening time, you will witness amazing sunset and can click some amazing pics, when we were there a couple came for there pre wedding shoot.
Sunset point Nahargarh
There is one restaurant Padao as well which is operated by RTDC and they charge Rs 100 pp as entrance fee. Our guide said that the food quality is not that good, and we can get the pic from outside as well, so we didn’t went inside.
There is a wax museum at the entrance of the fort and the ticket price is Rs 500 pp, they have built a ‘Sheesh Mahal’ small palace made of different color glass and few other attractions.
We didn’t visit this as well as the price is more, and we don’t want to visit wax museum as we have seen Madame Tussaud’s in NL and Sheesh Mahal is there in City Palace as well.
Nahargarh Fort
In the main building of this fort there are around 9 rooms which are exactly same created for 9 Ranis(queens) of that time king.
We can even climb on the roof of this building and the view is just amazing.
While returning back from the fort to hotel in the evening we visited the Pink city. The city building are well maintained and are maintained by the government. No one is allowed to do any other color inside the Pink city.
Pink city has 7 gates to enter/exit, the wall of Pink city and the gates are still intact and well maintained. This city is well planned city and was constructed as per ‘Vastu’. There was no modification done with any of the buildings(there are new constructions but old is as it is).
We missed taking pics at night as our guide said that lights will be there till late night, so we went out around 11 PM one of the gates was closed so we have to take a de-tour and found that the lights are off.
I am not sure if they close some gates at night daily or it was due to Covid they closed it. There are lights which lit the full pink city at night and the lights are turned off by 10-10.30 PM daily.
This concludes our first day out of 10 days. Keep following my blog and Instagram for day by day trip details.
