The all new Karizma ZMR is here! Have a look at these special photos..

Sunset in Manhattan... ooops, good ol mumbai.

The photofair 2008 prelude.

Bikaner fort: In full glory.

So after the very early morning visit to Karni mata mandir at Deshnok, bikaner fort was the next stop for the day. We were almost on the verge of cutting the tour as accomodations were full at Agra and jaipur. The express was now damn short of oil and the first thing we did in the morning was to get the change done. And and and, this was one day i had awaited for the whole past year. wanted to give in my best for taking as many shots of my most fav fort, the junagad fort. so the backups were done, i had 3 gb worth of memory with me, locked n loaded after having the royal, oops the shahi samosas at Laljees, off we were. The delectably cooked samosas filled with dry fruits and veggies just melted in the mouth and i carried along a few with me too. just couldnt resist it. Infact Laljees was the second best reason i was visiting Bikaner! Had a bite of the imartees too( jalebis).

The best part was this time around, the fort wasnt looking crowded! My mind sensed it and once the guide came, off we began. Well, what followed initially was ;what to shoot and what not to, and when i have to shoot how to shoot it in a different way! But m very glad i turned up with these results. i tried shooting RAW as much as possible coz wanted to give full justice to this glorious piece of architecture.

So here goes a virtual tour of the Bikaner fort. Sit back n njoy the show. You r gonna experience the entire fort from hereon. And i bet, if ur gonna go there, you will remember the karizma express' ride here. and forgot to mention, his highness Mehul Gohil himself!!..Mind u, no ones got such exhaustive coverage done before.

njoy.

@ Bikaner..

So here it was, the day to ride to Bikaner on that most most most most most awesome, ossome, .... i i i ijust dont have words for this most exhilarating road in our country. an arrow straight sheet of tarmac, all 300 kms of it( if not) straight till Bikaner! woow. I was all fired up. the dream ride had arrived. and i was enjoying every moment of it.

Had tea at Chowdharyjee's tea stall( muaah!!), some nice hot onion kachoris and we bid adieu to Jaisalmer at 9 and it was hard saying goodbye to this lovely city. turning back, i said i will come back soon, maybe on some better bike or something.. The bikes were running low on fuel and we only had a little less than half a tankful. Keeping both our bike averages in mind, we decided to go ahead without a break and tank up at Pokhran. Once the city limits were crossed, the roads began and so did the romance! The zma was soo loving this. Flat wide open bends, deep curves, roads going up and then straaaaaaaaaight down(yea say it like dat) and straight ahead. we were on our own, the tire grip was flawless, the wind wasnt much and the crammies were nicely settled.. For those 2 hrs till we reached Pokhran the smile on the face didnt seem to vanish and the twinkle in the eyes seemed to outshine the sun. Aaah! Lot of things were going around in the mind, but most of all, i was living my dream, all planning had paid off and here i was riding on my dream road. The belief in myself had truly paid off. Nothing, nothing ever felt soo perfect.

After tanking up at Pokhran, took a small lunch halt at the RTDC motel. Had the famous cutlets and omelettes( one each) as lunch before dashing to Khichan. My bike was now running very low on oil and that made me abort my chance of hitting the 125ks that i had oh so desired of! but nevertheless, i was safely on the road and that as important:)

The humanless sights continued for long n long n long n long, passed by so many sheep in mysterious formations on the road( donno doing what) until we reached the outskirts of Khichan. I had mixed feelings of seeing the migratory birds and it came true. There were none, and we came back empty handed. The only joy was to see school children come swarming around us just to be with our bikes for a precious little moments! that was so endearing. And their joy knew no bounds when we took photos wid em, the smiles in the eyes and the face were something to cherish forever!! dhoom was all over the place. as we left the place they were still running behind us bidding farewell.

The approach roads towards bikaner were real bad, but even though we managed to reach well before sunset. checked in at the RTDC hotel and called it quits for the day..

The bad part of the day was i was running out of space on the D80 and luckily the coolpix came in handy here. Missed taking shots of the long road with the D80, but the 8800 sufficed big time for it.. I took a real long video of the road, plus the usual pix.. did miss the colors i would normally achieve but nevertheless. So to say, I canned it again:)