The Rajasthan Diaries - Day 4, Back to Jaipur and Hyderabad

 The drive back to Jaipur was pretty uneventful and smooth. Ram Singh was probably a bit homesick since he had been asking how long were we going to go around right from Day 2 I think. Now Jaipur needed to tick off one last thing - laal maas. So we looked up the net and found this list on which the top was Spice Court in Civil Lines. Abhinay said it was quite doable and we went over there.

Now this Spice Court is a nice fancy place with a classical Raj type setting - small though. The lawns were nice, there was a dessert place outside. One serious looking chap came and asked how many of us and we told him we were three of us and he seated us pretty soon. Nice crowd and service but what blew me was the lousy acoustics. It was like a fish market in there with all the sound bouncing off.

The laal maas came and it was nice - but seriously, can't compare to Andhra mutton curry. Overall we did a nice little meal. Then we headed straight out to Abhinay's house which is in Sangamner close to the airport. Its a nice little pad for a bachelor living alone - spacious, comfortable, surrounded by books, his painting stuff, his cycles. You could just get used to this kind of a life.

And then it was time for me to go and they dropped me off at the airport. Ram Singh could not wait to get rid of us and started unloading all bags and we told him only I was going. Well that was it. I went in and finished the rest of Trevor Noah's book waiting for the flight which was an hour late and read in the flight. Seated next to me were two burkha clad women - one young girl from Bangalore who was with her large family (separated temporarily in the flight and not used to travel and flying and a middle aged pucca Hyderabadi lady who flies twelve times a year to Ajmer apparently). Anyway i eavesdropped as much as I could to their conversations which were most interesting with the older lady giving the younger one much advise but more interestingly, telling her how beautiful Hyderabad was. Surprisingly for someone who goes to Ajmer twelve times a year, she never went to Bangalore.

Back in Hyderabad by 730 and waiting to meet the loved ones. End of a superb trip. One big one - hopefully more such to come. Thanks Vasu and Abhinay for making this so much fun and so memorable.