Re: Gujarat Extravaganza

well, well..that is what is up next, and it is something that we are not proud of, but if we remember now, we laugh at it like anything..anyways, i will bring it up asap.

thanks again krishna da

Re: Gujarat Extravaganza

Superb narration Dada
You should have become a writer maze ke maze, aaram ka aaram..

Re: Gujarat Extravaganza

That is what he has become of late!

Re: Gujarat Extravaganza

Yea, looks like it. bunking office and going who know where. Something fishy.

Re: Gujarat Extravaganza

zyada dimaag mat lagao re bhailog..kaam pe dhyan do!

Re: Gujarat Extravaganza

Day 5 Continued..

The road from Khavda towards Jamkundaliya is pure bliss and it was so easy to maintain a speed of 80 in the narrow stretch of road! After few kms, I could see the white rann visible at a distance and that literally gave me a smile, we were finally going to be at the white rann during sunset; my little gamble has payed off!



At the end of the good tarmac, we encountered a BSF checkpost, with two jawans staring at us. The moment I saw, all those hopes, all those smile vanished within seconds. I knew we are toast now! As all 5 of us approached there, both the jawans approached us, and started asking for details. Incidentally, one of the jawan turned out to be bengali and the other was from bijapur, karnataka. The bengali jawan was ready to leave us almost immediately but told us to stay on the path of the truck and not to drift away from it, because there is a lot of slush around. However, the jawan from bijapur, S.A. Ibadar was not ready to leave us yet. He was more conscious with this fact that it was going to be sun set time in another 30 minutes and his shift would be changing and he did not wanted the other jawans know that he let us in. As per him, the rann around this area was no man's land was strictly prohibited for tourists. He was although happy to see the bikes from Karnataka at this place (ended up saying that: "I am feeling really happy to see people from my land here, my family is not here, so what, people from my land are here": translated for the ease of understanding of readers here) and eventually let us go through, but he repeatedly told us to come back to the checkpost within 30 minutes of time because it will be his shift change. We thanked him and I was happy again, realizing that we were finally close to the rann and were about to ride over it.

The moment we left the checkpost, the tarmac vanished and red soiled road started. After few meters even that disappeared and we ended up in a dusty and sandy road. We held our breaths and in no time, we entered the white rann! We could indeed see lot of slush on both sides of the truck-tracks and although, it demotivated us a bit, because we expected a plain surface, but after few meters, all the slush disappeared and we were surrounding by white rann. Anywhere you see, we would see only the horizon with some hills at a distance. This is what we wished for! People started yelling with joy, and roared their bikes on the plain surface of rann! Eshwari, who was on the thunderbird, was so excited that she pushed the accelerator hard and kept the throttle going, and we sped past few Kms, amazing experience I must say, maybe this is the same experience which people gather at the Salt flats, Bonneville! Eventually she came to a halt and gave a hi-five; sheer excitement all around! It was the moment where you feel that you riding all the way to Gujarat from Bangalore is success, all the tiredness vanishes the moment you are here. Anyways, people were already divided into groups, each busy clicking pictures, of themselves, of their steeds. Eventually I settled down and started clicking pictures as well. I would now let the pictures do all the talking, pictures are a mix and match of all the cameras.

































Suddenly we remembered about our words given to the jawan, that we would be back in 30 minutes! It was good 1 and a half hour we were at the place, forgetting completely about the time. We hurried off immediately put the cameras and stuff inside and started riding back to the check post. It was then that we realized what mess we were in. We had already deviated from the truck tracks, out of sheer excitement and it was next to impossible to locate the same, especially since the Sun set long ago and it was getting really dark now. However, we had no other option but to move ahead and try to locate the checkpost tower. We were good 3-4 Kms inside the rann and we started riding together, taking a trail.

I was however busy looking how beautiful the moon had become when suddenly, felt a sudden jerk, Eshwari lost balance of the bike for a moment, controlled however, and stopped. I got down from the bike, realizing that the bike got stuck in the slush, and when I looked around for the other folks, I saw them stuck as well, in front of us. So, we got diverted much from the truck-track and every one was us were stuck, in the middle of nowhere, in the dark. Eshwari came down from the bike and I tried to throttle gently, in sheer hope that the bike would be able to lift and come out of the slush, but in vain. Other were trying hard as well, but the more we tried, the more the bike used to push itself down the slush. We eventually gave up and Sunil and Tapabrata decided to rather look and trace the truck-trail because there was no point of shouting or signalling for help because as per the jawans, this was a restricted area and they were not supposed to come for help. Few moments flew by when suddenly Sunil shouted that he has located the truck-trail and luckily (yes, it was sheer luck for us), the trail was not too far from where our bikes got stuck. So, we immediately decided on the next step, i.e. one person to stay on the trail so that everyone knows the exact place to go, and the rest pull the bike from the slush and slowly push the bike to the trail. That is what we did and although it took quite a bit of time for us, but eventually, all the bikes were taken out of the slush, and placed on the trail. Eshwari in the meantime managed to get a picture of how the thunderbird got stuck in the slush. Here goes the picture.



And another picture when the bikes were finally pushed out of the slush, on to the truck-trail.



We headed towards the checkpost, expecting to get belted from the jawans now. Strange, but true, there was no one at the checkpost! We heaved a sigh of relief and speed past the checkpost, but our relief was short lived when a group of armed jawans stopped us. Their voice was loud and rude and they fired questions after questions towards us. We did not have much option but to explain them that we got stuck in the slush while coming back. To this, the jawans got more angry and started explaining how bad a situation we have fallen into with much stress to the word "no mans land". We pleaded for apology and kept on saying the same thing again and again that we got stuck unfortunately. After long exchange of words, the jawans seemed to tone down their voice and after few warnings, let us go. Few meters ahead, we bumped into S.A. Ibadar who let us in the desert and the moment he saw the headlights, he came running towards us! The first sentence that came from him was: "Dear Sirs, you have betrayed me, you guys are not from Karnataka, my people does not betray me Sir. My job is at stake because of you people. I was planning to take VRS in some months, but I do not know what I will not do now". Our heads were down with shame that very moment and we had nothing to say to him, there was nothing to say from our side, even Sorry did not sound enough. Sunil requested him to sit on his bike so that he can be dropped to the nearest village, maybe that was best thing we could have done at that point. We dropped the jawan to the place we wanted to get down, told him Sorry and rode away from there. All our excitement, all our joy had flown away, we felt ashamed of ourselves.

In half an hour time, we reached Khavda and we pulled our bikes to have some tea and snacks. To our surprise, we saw a group of 6 bikers coming from the Kalo Dungar side and they pulled at the same place as well and started inquiring about us. Interestingly, this group was also coming from Bangalore and they were on Rajasthan + Gujarat trip. We shared some incidents, some jokes, some light moments with each other and suddenly, our gloomy mood was back to normal. All of us had coffee and tea and exchanged best of luck for the trip ahead. We requested a local person to take a group photo though, before bidding goodbye to each other.



It was 8 pm already and we realized it would be late by the time we reach Bhuj. I called the hotel and requested them to prepare dinner for us. That being sorted out, we headed towards Bhuj. The temperature had dropped considerably and cold winds were now pricking our bodies, which slowed down our speed for quite a good amount of stretch. By 10 pm, we reached our hotel though, finding that dinner was not yet ready. So, we hurried into our rooms, got freshened up, and gathered up to see the pictures for the day. We laughed at us when we recalled the incidents which happened at the white desert and how we got stuck at the slush and how we got out of it. We finished our dinner and crashed. Having said that, this was the last day Eshwari was staying with us; she had to fly back to Bangalore due to her office commitments and her flight was early in the morning.

Accommodation for the day:

Hotel Name: Hotel Anjali
Hotel Address: Sahjanand Anexy, New Station Road, Bhuj, Gujarat 370001
Contact Number: 02832254033
Tariff: 1500 per room (triple bed) and 1200 per room (double bed).

End of Day 5. Coming up next, Day 6.

Re: Gujarat Extravaganza

Awesome pics Suvra Da
And superb narration.


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Re: Gujarat Extravaganza

Nice. Lucky you guys were with the slush patch. And with the ire of jawans.
Though your antics might prevent them from allowing future tourists from going there late evening.

Sent from my phone. Kindly avoid it while riding.

Re: Gujarat Extravaganza

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Re: Gujarat Extravaganza

Awestruck reading the logs... Awesome pics Kaka.. as expected wonderful narration.

Re: Gujarat Extravaganza

A good writer becomes a great tourer or a great tourer becomes a good writer i just don't know, but combined together, visual treat is to the max....

Re: Gujarat Extravaganza

Day 6: Bhuj - Lakhpat - Narayan Sarovar - Bhuj

The day started earlier, because Eshwari had an early flight from Bhuj and me and Ashish decided to see her off. However, everyone got up early (maybe because all our tiredness vanished after a good sleep) and started getting ready for the day. Eshwari did not want to have breakfast so early so we made our move towards the Bhuj airport, which was not far from the main city itself. I told her to ride to the airport, as this was her last day with the bike, and she happily agreed. The morning was super chilly, with bits of fog here and there and I was shivering at the backseat, am sure the same case was with other two as well. The airport was small, and did not actually look like an airport though, it looked like some town hall with nicely laid roads all around. All three of us were in a bad mood because for sure, we had some fun, and she had to leave because of her commitment to work, and it was hard for all of us to see her off. Anyways, we bid goodbye to Eshwari as her time to checkin was nearing, and after sometime, I and Ashish left the airport, back to the city.

We had some important tasks to complete today, before we can start for our next destination, i.e. service our bikes. After reaching hotel, we had a short discussion and agreed to this fact that servicing our bike is important and can not be neglected, so lets dedicate some time for that and extend our stay at Bhuj for one day, and once the bikes get serviced, we would head towards our next set of destinations. So, all 4 of us went looking for mechnanics and service centres. Tapabrata found a Honda showroom near to the hotel and the rest three went to Castrol Bike Point, which was just next to our hotel. My tail lamp set was again loose, so I told the mechanic to replace the clamps inside and fix it properly. The mechanic promised to deliver the bikes by 12:30 pm and now since we had some time to kill, we went for breakfast and gave some clothes for laundry and focused on re-arranging our clothes. Now that we were one person less, Tapabrata suggested we move to a 4 bedded room, instead of 3 rooms and when I went over and talked to the hotel manager, he happily agreed to it and found one good 4 bedded room for us, which incidentally was just next to our rooms. We immediately shifted to the bigger room and started getting ready

Suddenly, there was a message from Saquib (who had already left from Bangalore 2 days back and was now at Ahmedabad) that there are reported cases of Swine flu in Gujarat so do we have any insights to it. I ran to the TV and turned on the news channel, just to know that yes that is true and there has been reported death count of 12 in Gujarat our of which 5 are in Bhuj! All 3 of others jumped on the bed and started googling to look for precautionary measures. Mostly what we got out of it was that we need to be really safe and be clean, and avoid crowded places and local tea and coffee stalls until we head out of Gujarat. Anyways, that being said, this never happened with us and with few moments, we even forgot the presence of swine flu around us.

By 12:00 we got ready and headed towards the mechanic who promised to deliver the bikes. He was almost done working on the bikes as well and all the bikes were ready on time. So, we saddled up and headed towards our next destination, i.e. Lakhpat which was some 140 kms from Bhuj. The road, although was not butter smooth but was in a good condition and well laid so inspite of the heat around us, we were not facing much a problem to cruise on the highway. Tapabrata wanted do a speed run to ensure his bike is fine after service so he speeded ahead of us. Anyways, we ended up stopping at places of interest along the way to Lakhpat though and clicked a few pictures.







Eventually, we approached Lakhpat and we could see desert all around us, on both sides of the road and a fort, standing tall in the middle of it.



We reached the entrance of the fort, finding Tapabrata waiting for us, and for quite some time. The entrance of the fort did not have a big door or something, although it seemed there was a huge door right there, but smashed to the ground now. We started clicking pictures out here, some of them from mine and Tapabrata's cameras are being shared below.









While the others were busy clicking pictures, I and Sunil entered the fort. There was not a single soul to be seen inside the fort and I could see remains of houses and temples inside the fort, spread over quite a distance. A road made of sand went through the fort with lot of diversions and I took one of them and started going towards one of the walls of the fort. I could see few faces peeping from few houses, eager to ask me about my whereabouts, but I ignored them and continued. After taking few diversions, I ended up at one of the walls of the fort. The walls were very weak and showed its age. I parked my bike in front of a staircase that was leading to the top of the wall and started climbing the stairs. Few pictures which I took at the spot goes below.











After exploring some other lanes in the fort, I headed back to the fort entrance and found the other three waiting there. It seems Tapabrata and Ashish were so busy clicking pictures at the entrance that they did not feel like going inside the fort. Anyways, from there, we headed towards Narayan Sarovar, our next destination, 35 kms far. The road was narrow and well laid, and we had no problem taking our bikes well above 70-75 in that road. However, after few kms, we stopped to see an arrow straight stretch in front of us. It deserved a picture here.





When we reached Narayan Sarovar, it was already 4pm, but we were not hungry yet, thanks to a good and heavy breakfast. We headed straight inside of what was told to us as the west most point of India. When we entered the sarovar, there was no water when inquired about it, we came to know that normally that is the situation and once upon a time, the lake used to be full upto the brim. Anyways, we rode further down the road as we could see a sea over the horizon. We parked our bikes at the end of the sea because we were already baffled by the beauty in front of us. We took out our cameras and started clicking.
























I must say that the place looked superbly beautiful and I experienced one of the best sunsets of my life here. There was a temple right at the edge of the sea (Koteshwar temple) and it was being maintained by the army. There was a checkpost right at the end of the pier and civilians are normally not allowed to go beyond that point. So, we parked our bikes at the very spot from where we could see the sunset. All, except me went inside the temple while, I was busy experiencing one of my best sunsets.

















After good 2 hours spent at that very place, it was time for us to finally leave towards Bhuj. We were feeling little hungry now and we located some local condiments stall to refresh ourselves. I was still not able to digest the sunset completely and was rewinding the views in my head, hence my eyes were going back to the sea from time to time. But at the end of the day I was really happy to spend another day which I will remember for quite some time in my life. Moving on from there, it was a simple equation for us now, we planned not to take the same route which we took which coming to Narayan Sarovar, rather we decided to take the NH 8A till Kothara and then take the SH 49 to Bhuj. Good winding roads of NH 8A made our night ride a bliss and all 4 of us started to enjoy the ride back to Bhuj, when we started getting blocked by cattle. Now we realized that we need to be very careful from now on from crossing cattle in the night, thanks to some of the close saves by me and Sunil. We reached Kothara by 9pm and stopped over at a highway dhaba for dinner (the name of the dhaba being the Ashish Dhaba hence the leg pulling sessions started once we sat down for dinner). By the time we reached Bhuj it was past 10:30 pm and we were tired as well, thanks to the bad road condition of SH 49 with number of potholes and speed breakers. We crashed immediately as we reached hotel. Another well spent day comes to an end.

Accommodation for the day:

Same hotel in Bhuj, but shifted to a 4 bedded room which costed us 1600 per person (relatively it turned out cheaper than taking two rooms).

End of Day 6, Day 7 to commence soon.

Re: Gujarat Extravaganza

Loved the sunset pics really beautiful. Lucky you and others who get to visit such places. And as always, excellent narration.

Re: Gujarat Extravaganza

Lovely!
On a different note, I thought west of Ghuar Mota was the westernmost point of India.

Re: Gujarat Extravaganza

guhar moti is the western most inhabited village in india which is located near koteshwar temple, i.e. the temple in the tlog
and once you reach Guhar Moti the beach becomes inaccessible due to presence of more and more bsf coast guards so the last accessible point for us was the koteshwar temple.

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