Monday 19 December 2016

An Elephant in the Alleys of Udaipur!



The flamboyant city of Udaipur, lying in the southern part of the princely state of Rajasthan, is a priceless jewel of Indian heritage and tourism. Cosily wrapped into a snaky network of narrow streets are some incredibly serene man-made lakes and some of the most extravagant royal palaces! Apart from a few high-roads, it is Udaipur’s constricting narrow lanes that bear the grunt of the growing traffic! And what does this mean to a complete new comer?! Well, ask me!



My husband and I were in the city early this year to enjoy a swanky wedding, planned on the grand estate of the City Palace, Udaipur. The venue made as grandiose a canvas as could be for the approaching nuptial celebrations. At the same time, resting peacefully on the other side of the city, (and on the other side of my blog), was my cousin, Mira’s home… a humble, old-fashioned house, set defiantly amid the rumblings of the city’s mounting spirits. It housed three generations of Mewar’s high-and-mighty, perhaps moderated just a tad, by the slurs that came with life’s cataclysms. Although we were to stay at the grand Lake Palace Hotel, I did promise Mira a few visits over the next three days of my stay.

In fact, the very day we reached, we hit the road for Mira’s antiquated house, whose directions we were yet not aware of! So, “Google baba”, as it is famously called in the “gullies” of India, was pulled up, and it navigated us through what by far could have been the narrowest streets that a huge car like the XUV500, (an SUV), could have attempted. It was almost squeezing itself to pass through!


The street-ways were clogged on either side by small shops selling all things Rajasthani… interesting marble artifacts, multi-coloured mirror-worked apparels, Gods in bronze and copper, gem-studded paintings and jewelry, and more… to tourists who were sieving through the streets on foot.

While the shopkeepers continued their salesman-banter rather indifferently, and the tourists their window-shopping, it was the regulars who were disturbingly stimulated by us, some even amused at what we were hoping to achieve in that Elephant-of-a-Car!!


When we called Mira for help, she was surprised how we even got into this mess! She directed us to back up and we had to drive in reverse gear, as I held my breath for what seemed forever! On asking several bystanders, we finally took a detour to our destination... late by almost an hour! And boy, had we seen the heart of the city! Would we have otherwise dared this route had we known the nature of the streets? Well no, not in an SUV in any case!

On the way back, we made sure to get proper directions on paper. And surprisingly we reached in under 10 minutes! And, where were all those narrow streets? There was a high-road that took us around the city and right into the gates of the palace, in what seemed like a jiffy!

By now we had learnt one thing… Google baba was old-fashioned, here in Udaipur, and preferred to follow the alleys. And there was no way we could alter that! We needed manual help!  OR, we needed something more! The next day again, we were to travel to the same destination and back. Oh blimey, we had lost the paper that had the directions! We had to call Mira and get the directions once again!

Wouldn’t it have been great if I could have tracked the path I took last night and saved it for the next day!...

An app that could track my route as I travel, and SAVE the route for future use?


Track and Save your route as your travel
That would be awesome! This is exactly the idea behind the "Track-n-Travel" mobile app. Just a few months later I had the idea built into an app and is now available on the Play Store... 


Click here to download the Track-n-Travel Android app to track your route as you travel, and save it for another day.    

(iPhone app coming soon)




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