I attended my third consecutive RubyConf India 2025, which was once again organized in Jaipur last month. The key aspect about these conferences is meeting people (which also happens to be a proxy for finding new opportunities) while learning new things.
The interesting things I learned from this conference: JRuby and Sonic Pi.
I had read about JRuby a handful of times over the years but never knew it was so powerful and a good way to integrate Ruby with the Java ecosystem. So far I have not been in a situation where I had to do this, but it’s something worth trying given how popular Java is. There were two talks covering JRuby, one by Rakesh Jha and another by core developer of JRuby, Charles Nutter. If you’re even remotely interested in cross language integration you should watch those talks.
Sonic Pi seems like an interesting project which I must look into as a musician and programmer, some day, definitely. One of the purposes of writing this blog is it will serve as a reminder to myself and I will not forget about it.
Some pictures from the conference.
I also won a quiz about Ruby at the stall managed by company Pattern. Overall, it was good conference and some amount of networking, though I need to learn how to make more friends. Except one person and a few organizers I knew beforehand, it was all new faces.
More pictures available at RubyConf’s Flickr and all the talks at YouTube.
Last year, I had been to Ranthambore National Park after the conference and had a tiger sighting. But, that was by train.
This time I used the opportunity to explore other parts of Rajasthan. I generally prefer to drive for my travels as I don’t have to deal with the nonsense of dragging luggage around transit facilities and it works out to be economical because my car is the last mile transport. I control when to start, when to stop and where to halt. It allows freedom to shop a bit more at places I visit since carrying luggage in your own car doesn’t cause significant inconvenience.
Another aspect is, driving on highways is a kind of meditation, where it’s just you, your folks and some music with nice views of farms, trees. It can be a bit tiring at times if the roads are bad or there’s too much traffic; it’s fun nevertheless.
As it has been the case with my last few road trips, I discussed my travel plan with HVK and he gave me some valuable inputs, thanks to his 30+ years of experience of driving on Indian roads. He also has his own navigation Android app, RoutO (unfortunately de-listed from Play Store due to API compatibility rules, the APK has to be sideloaded). HVK’s knowledge is amazing and he’s one of the inspirations and confidence behind doing such long road trips.
The key feature of the app is once a map is loaded in it, you will not get re-routed if you happen to take a wrong turn. The re-routing feature (or mis-feature?) of other navigation apps often ends up causing more trouble than benefit because they can route you to non-existent or narrow roads through villages, into the ocean or river bed (a lot of this has been into news recently). Additionally the routes he provides are curated by a real human who has driven on it, not just algorithms (AI?) which can think of just a pathway through grass as a road and route you through that. It also shows good restaurants and reliable fuel stops.
I have mentioned the segment-wise road conditions but it’s hidden unless you click on it as most people will not be interested in it. Moreover, this information gets outdated quickly. Some of the routes mentioned here were given to me by Mr Kumar while some were my own choices and deviations from what he gave. I won’t go into the specifics, if you’re interested in getting routes please connect with him on the Facebook link I shared earlier.
As per the odometer, the total distance covered was about 4250 km from home to home. The total money spent for the transportation was about ₹35000, just toll and fuel, which translates to ₹17500 per head for the two of us. One may wonder, there’s so much negativity about roads on social media and here I am doing a cross country road trip. Truth to be said, yes, there are issues in road infrastructure which needs to be solved, but it is also true that the infrastructure has improved significantly over the years.
Throughout the travel, most of the driving was done by me except for some places where I found it safe enough with thin traffic to hand it over to my better half which was her first major highway drive. I think the legs training I’ve been doing at the gym helped significantly in increasing the stamina to drive such long duration – can’t say for sure as I don’t have numbers before starting the training 😀.
After booking the early bird conference ticket, I had also booked train tickets for the appropriate dates just so I don’t end up missing the conference due to any reason leading to cancellation of road travel plan. And closer towards the start date it started raining heavily, but luckily it subsided and weather predictions by IMD turned out to be accurate, so we could continue with the road plan.
It was terribly humid throughout Rajasthan in the days I spent there though. Not a single day went without being drenched in sweat, as if one was in Mumbai/Chennai.
With the conference scheduled on 12th and 13th September, I had to reach Jaipur by 11th evening. I also needed to ensure that I wasn’t too tired by EOD on 11th to be able to attend the conference in an active state of mind.
09 Sep 2025: I started from Pune at 4.30 am and reached Bhopal where I have relatives by 9.30 pm. The route taken was PCMC – Alandi – Shikrapur – Ch Sambhajinagar – Murtizapur (via Samruddhi expressway) – Daryapur – Paratwada – Betul – Bhopal.
Road Conditions
- PCMC – Alandi – Shikrapur: good roads, encountered fog in morning, heavy truck traffic. Mostly 2 lane roads except for city areas.
- Shikrapur – Ahilyanagar: Good 4 lane tar roads.
- Ahilyanagar – Newasa: 4 lane tar roads but be watchful of giant potholes.
- Newasa – Ch Sambhajinagar: Good 4 lane tar roads.
- Ch Sambhajinagar – Karanja exit: Samruddhi expressway (very good)
- Karanja exit – Murtizapur: Good 4 lane cement roads
- Murtizapur – Daryapur – Anjangaon – Paratwada: Good 2 lane roads
- Paratwada – Betul: Average 2 lane roads, lots of curves and ghats, occasional rough surface and some potholes. Except for last 30 odd km where NH548C connects to NH47 then it’s good 4 lane till Betul. But it’s a very scenic post monsoon especially.
- Betul – Itarsi: Mix of 4 lane and 2 lane (diversions), lots of ghats and giant potholes. The construction of 4 lane isn’t fully complete. Potholes seem to be caused by sand mining dumpers.
- Itarsi – Bhopal: mostly same as above but diversions reduce.
This was a total 18 hours journey covering about 900 km with 4 breaks – one for breakfast in Ch Sambhajinagar and the rest for diesel & toilet. Somewhere after Paratwada we stopped for a cup of tea.
We carried food from home – fruits, snacks, etc. and that saved a lot of time which we would have otherwise spent at restaurants. Starting at 4.30 am requires some preparation by self as well as other folks in the family: we finished dinner by 7 pm and slept at 8 pm to wake up at 3 am. Then in the morning my mother made idlis and packed it in a box.
10 Sep 2025: With my aunt and uncle, we went to the famous Bhojpur temple in Bhopal and Bhimbetka caves. Bhojpur temple is the same place the recently released movie Kaalidhar Lapata starring Abhishek Bachchan was shot. Bhimbetka caves is an amazing piece of history. The origin of Warli tribal art paintings can be seen there. I usually prefer hiring the official guides who can explain the history of the place, otherwise we’ll just look at things and come back. We came back home by evening and slept by 8 pm to be able to wake up at 3 am the next day.
11 Sep 2025: My aunt woke up with us at 3.30 am to provide us with food – some sandwiches for our next leg of the journey. We left Bhopal at 04.30 am and reached Jaipur 2.45 pm. Route taken Bhopal – Biaora – Kota – Jaipur.
Road Conditions
- Bhopal – Biaora: 4 lane, occasional potholes and rough surface
- Biaora – Jhalarpatan: 2 lane, good roads
- Jhalarpatan – Kota – Jaipur: 4 lane, good roads. Some diversions for under construction flyover after Bundi.
- Road works and a low lying bridge in Mukundra tiger reserve.
- Potholes immediately after tunnel before Bundi.
- Lots of cows especially in MP and as sun started rising they started grazing, had to do emergency braking once to save the cow and myself.
The distance covered was about 600 km and time taken 10 hours. This time I had purchased the conference only ticket for RubyConf as I didn’t like the hotel they had booked last year. So I used my credit card reward points and had a wonderful stay at ITC Rajputana in Jaipur. A minor inconvenience though: I had to drive about 16 km through Jaipur to reach the conference venue (and back in the evening). Not a big deal, Pune traffic is far worse than Jaipur’s.
12 – 13 Sep 2025: RubyConf.
14 Sep 2025: It was the day to drive to Jodhpur. But in my 2018 Jaipur trip, I had left out one place – Galta Ji temple because it was too much to climb for my parents. This time I went there and had a good divine experience at the Hanuman Mandir and Surya Mandir. I had also planned to visit Sambhar Lake and Pushkar Brahma Temple, but due to time constraints I could cover only Sambhar Lake.
Road Conditions
- Jaipur – Bichoon – Akoda – Phulera – Sambhar
Good roads. Jaipur – Bichoon is NH8, 6 lane. Thereafter the remaining roads are 2 lane. - Sambhar – Bhadun: Good 2 lane road
- Bhadun – Roopangarh: Bad 2 lane village road (narrow)
- Roopangarh – Kishangarh: Decent 2 lane road but closer towards Kishangarh lot of truck traffic and bad surface with potholes
- Kishangarh – Ajmer – Beawar – Bar: NH8 (6 lane road)
- Bar – Jaitaran – Jodhpur: NH25, good 4 lane road, some occasional potholes. This route seems to have black livestock. Black livestock at night is a deadly combination on the highway.
Sambhar Lake is a beautiful place, it produces roughly 10% of India’s salt and an amazing fact about the salt produced there is it is freshwater salt. A toy train operated there which gives you a view and tour of the lake and salt making process. The train is operated only when there is enough crowd and the charges depend on the number people available for the tour.
If you have seen the movie PK, you may instantly recognize the train and engine once you visit the place. This train was also covered in an article/video by TheBetterIndia.
Sambhar Lake is also a Ramsar site and a lot of migratory birds can be seen there. I saw flamingoes and a few others.
15 Sep 2025: Local Jodhpur sightseeing. The main attractions here are the Mehrangarh, Jaswant Thada and Mandore Garden (which is also the place where evening light & sound show is conducted about history of Jodhpur).
Apparently a 20 seconds part of The Dark Knight Rises was shot at Mehrangarh Fort! It also happens to be India’s best maintained fort (as claimed by our guide). We shopped for some stuff from the store in the fort itself after seeing the artifacts and grandeur of the royal families who have ruled from the fort.
Another interesting tidbit from the guide at fort: The bedroom of Maharaja Takhat Singh who was the last Maharaja of Jodhpur to reside in the fort, known as Takhat Vilas is beautifully decorated throughout with amazing paintings. According to the guide, Fabindia – the company which sells ethnic clothing has many of it’s designs taken from this particular room.
The blue paint which gives Jodhpur it’s distinct name of blue city and look is actually Indigo. There is also an Indigo Ittr (perfume) available in the fort which smells amazing, it’s made by the same family whose previous generations used to make it for the royal family.
After the fort we went to Jaswant Thada, had some Gulab Jamuns and sweets at Chaturbhuj Rameshchand (must try!) and went to the hotel for some rest. In the evening we went to Mandore Garden for the light and sound show.
16 Sep 2025: We explored the Ghanta Ghar, had Shahi Samosa and Makhaniya Lassi, some local shopping for spices and pickles and then left for Kumbhalgarh. Kumbhalgarh happens to be the central point with a few other places worth visiting nearby.
Road Conditions
- Jodhpur – Pali – Sanderao: Good 4 lane NH62
- Sanderao – Falna – Sadri: Good 2 lane SH
- Sadri – Ranakpur – Kumbhalgarh: Narrow 2 lane SH, some places potholes
17 Sep 2025: We went to Ranakpur Jain Temple and saw the amazing architecture there. The temple construction was supported by Rana Kumbha, one of the important persons in the history of Rajputs/Mewar. Photography of the idols is not allowed in the temple nor is selfies / people posing photographs. One can only photograph the architecture/carvings.
The rest of the day was spent exploring Kumbhalgarh, Vero Ka Math and the main Kumbhalgarh fort itself. It was interesting to see this bell machine at the Vero Ka Math temple.
The Kumbhalgarh fort: built by Rana Kumbha (hence the name Kumbhalgarh) and has the second largest wall with a length of 36 km after Great wall of China. The light and sound show which is usually conducted in the evenings post sunset had some technical issue so we couldn’t see that. But otherwise our guide took us through the history of Rajputs, the birth place of Maharana Pratap.
18 Sep 2025: We went to Nathdwara and visited Maharana Pratap Museum on the way back. The divine connection you get to feel at Nathdwara is on a completely different level. I don’t know why.
Road Conditions
- Kumbhalgarh – Sameecha – Nathdwara via NH162: Average. Potholes. Under construction.
- Nathdwara – Haldighati: ok
- Haldighati – Kaloda – Toola – Kumbhalgarh via NH162E: excellent.
Toll not operational yet. Beautiful in some places almost like Himalayas, driving alongside a river.
Maharana Pratap Museum is built on the road to Haldighati where the historical and inconclusive battle happened between Maharana Pratap and Akbar’s army. They also sell amazing Rose sharbat and Gulkand which is apparently manufactured from special roses which are cultivated by a family of about 50 farmers in the region.
The museum is a private property, built by a person on his ancestral land with his own funds so as to preserve and tell more people the important history of Maharana Pratap. There are films and mechanized models with audio which take you through various important historical events in the life of the king.
Haldighati – the name is derived from the fact that the soil there is yellow in color just like turmeric. Later in the evening while returning to our resort at Kumbhalgarh, we spent some time boating at Lakhela Talav in a pedal boat. We were the only ones boating and it was a different kind of experience. The silence, water, cool breeze, setting sun and mountains.
19 Sep 2025: In the morning we went to Parshuram Mahadev temple which is a 1.25 km downhill and then 1.25 km uphill trek from the parking at Kumbhalgarh. It’s a cave temple and is also known as Amarnath of Rajasthan. There were a bunch of monkeys on the route. Quite an experience. Thereafter we went to Jawai which is famous for leopard sightings.
Road Conditions
- Kumbhalgarh – Jawai Bandh:
- Kumbhalgarh – just before Charbhuja via NH162E: very good
- Charbhuja – Sadri: good for most part except forest area. SH tolled road.
- Sadri – Bali – Perwa – Jawai Bandh: good, except the roads near Jawai Bandh are bad.
20 Sep 2025: Leopard Safari in the morning!
I have never seen a Leopard in the wild across many wildlife safaris I’ve done over the years. Beautiful animals. Jawai Leopards co-exist with the human population there and it’s quite a lesson in wildlife conservation.
Our safari driver was telling us, Neelam had killed a goat about a day back and rest of the villagers paid the goat owner compensation money. The villagers consider it as an offering to god when leopard hunts their livestock.
We also saw a King Cobra on the evening safari – but it was not possible to capture a photograph of the same. The Jawai safari was a good break from all the history we’ve seen in the last few days.
21 Sep 2025: Enjoyed some leisure time at our resort and then went to Udaipur
Road Conditions
- Jawai Bandh – Udaipur:
- Bera – Chamunderi – Pindwara: tolled SH. Decent roads.
- Pindwara – Bekariya – Gogunda – Udaipur: NH27 mostly ok. Hilly area.
Closer towards Udaipur when you turn right after Iswal the road SH32 is under construction/widening.
22 Sep 2025: Went to Chittorgarh Fort
I had been to Chittorgarh in 2018 while going to Jaipur but couldn’t cover all the places in it. Returned in 7 years to explore it once again. The temple below is Kumbha-Shyam temple in Chittorgarh. An interesting feature of the temple construction is one can see all kinds of architectural marvel in one single structure. This is because the best architects from all over India were summoned by the king for it’s construction.
Quoting our guide (translated to English):
People think Rajasthan is all desert, but that’s not the case as you’ve seen. Rajasthan has two regions Marwar and Mewar. Mewar is full of forests while Marwar is a desert. Desert doesn’t have water, so Marwaris (the people of Marwar) go out in search of work/food/etc. Whereas people of Mewar stay in Mewar itself (Eat 2 rotis less but don’t leave Mewar).
After the fort tour, we had lunch at Barbarik Restaurant which is inside the fort premises itself. Traditional Rajasthani cuisine – Dal Bati Choorma, Gatte Ki Sabzi, Ker Sangri, Bajre Ki Roti… amazing taste and filling.
23 Sep 2025: Explored Udaipur: Lake Pichola, Maharaja’s car museum and the City Palace. Watched Rajasthani folk dance at Lok Dharohar. Wanted to cover Sahastrabahu Temple as well but couldn’t due to time constraints.
We had lunch within City Palace itself and skipped dinner since it was going to be an early start next day. Settled the bills before going to sleep.
24 Sep 2025: Drive to Pune. Had instructed the hotel beforehand to pack our breakfast and keep it ready at 3.30 am at the reception. We left sharp a 4.00 am and reached home at 10.30 pm. This was my longest single-shot drive ever in my so many years of driving covering 1060 km.
Road Conditions
- Udaipur – Mangalwad: 6 lane NH, good
- Mangalwad – Nimbahera: 2 lane SH, average
- Nimbahera – Neemuch – Mandsaur – Nagda: 4 lane NH/SH, good, lot of truck traffic
- Nagda – Dhar – Gujri: 2 lane NH, excellent
- Gujri – Khalghat – Sendhwa: 4 lane NH, good, heavy truck traffic
- Sendhwa – Dhule: 4 lane NH, average, heavy truck traffic
- Dhule – Chalisgaon – Kannad – Ellora: Mix of 2 and 4 lane, mostly good, less traffic
- Ellora – Sinnar: Samruddhi expressway
- Sinnar – Alephata: terrible condition of Nashik Pune road, too many diversions and flyovers under construction, had a good dust bath
- Alephata – PCMC: ok, quite dusty, possibly dust carried over on vehicles from previous diversions
- Nashik – Pune road is good in some parts where it’s been concreteized but no markings, night driving is difficult
With that, the journey of technical learning and exploring Rajasthan ended. Hope you enjoyed reading.
