Bikaner- Worth it or Hyped?

This birthday was quite different from the usual ones because I desperately wanted & planned a birthday getaway with Mr. & kids. I guess I have developed a bad habit over last year & that travel itch, after every 3 to 4 weeks of regular routine life, my heart longs for a quick travel. This habit gets further fueled by Mr. who supports the plan.

Back to the birthday gateway, I chose Bikaner since I love Rajasthan & have already been to a lot of touristy states. The main reason behind zeroing Bikaner was mainly for its food. Our expectation from this trip was exploring a handful of regional dishes, do some local shopping & relax.

We preferred travelling via Train because driving would have been tedious. For Hotel, we booked ourselves at Narendra Bhavan. Primarily because we have been to their other property at Jaisalmer ( Suryagarh) & we were thrilled to see such magnificent structure, A class hospitality. So, the expectations were really HIGH.

Honest Review:

The Birthday turned out to be good because I had my lifelines around me BUT talking about the city, hotel & overall experience….It was a total DISAPPOINTMENT.

Let’s talk about WHY?

1. Bikaner: Let me admit, it was a wrong choice. The city is nowhere close to Jaipur, Udaipur or Jaiselmer. The people are not tourist friendly, there is nothing to shop except some local sharbats. I mean my heart shattered into a million pieces because I was really looking forward to buy some batik prints. So, if you love Shopping, Bikaner is NOT for you. I must be a good city but it failed to meet our expectations.

2. Narendra Bhawan: The Hotel was good but if you have already been to Suryagarh, you will be surprised to see how tiny it is. Not only this, there are no views whatsoever. The hotel is right in the city, there are houses around it. Honestly, it looked like a match box compared to Suryagarh. With that being said, the breakfast buffet, room service was perfect. So, it’s a thumbs down from me if you are looking for views & grand interiors as you might end up being disappointed.

3. Laxmi Niwas: For my Birthday Lunch, we thought of visiting Bikaner’s number 1 property i.e, Laxmi Niwas. There is no denial of the fact that it was indeed a Beautiful property BUT we were the only ones enjoying food in the restaurant. 🙁

I took some time to write this review because based on my previous travel experiences, there are times when I don’t like the place at that very moment but later as holiday memories, I totally miss those locations & think about happy memories so I wanted to give Bikaner memories its own sweet time & see if they change BUT sadly, I still feel that it was a total waste of money, time & energies in visiting Bikaner.