Travelogue approved.

Always a pleasure to read your travelogue, Aniruddha!

Chapter 3: Little Rann and small minds

Day 2GreatLittle Rann of Kutchh, which falls at about middle top area of Gujarat. It is an area about 5000 sq kilometers (about as big as the city of Mumbai) of barren land. It is famous for mainly bird spotting, as it has Patadi village at around 4.00pm. The farm offers simple rooms and morning & evening Safaris.
, a small village nearby, to witness the sunset and spend a quiet evening near the barrenness of Rann. I was in no mood to subject Ellie to rough roads; hence we decided to stop whenever the tar roads ended.

Kharagota is about 5kms from the hotel. It has its own railway station for transporting goods. There were a lot of gunny bags containing salt, perhaps waiting for the next train to proceed further. The road passes through sleepy villages.
rajai.

Chapter 4 - Of migratory birds and migratory bikers

Day 3Bachana Khur in local language.

But the most interesting sight in Rann has to be the birds. There are so many of them!

There are around 5 million birds in Rann. 50 Lakh birds!!

The driver took the jeep to a salt making quarry, and explained how the salts were made. I have grown up near a salt pan site, spending many early mornings of my childhood playing on such salt pans. The explanation of harvesting salt from the lands, and crossing the shallow salt beds prepared to dry out the water and yield salt brought back some fond memories of a carefree childhood.

It was a wonderful trip in the Rann, and seeing the animals and birds in their natural habitat from a distance was an amazing experience.

It marked a wonderful start of the trip, and we were excited about the future wonders that Gujarat had in store for us.

We were back at the hotel at about 10.30am. At the hotel, there were two friendly Dalmatian dogs with a fresh litter. I gained trust of the mom and dad first, and then played with the soft & warm puppies. It was a cuteness overload to be surrounded by Dalmatian puppies.

After a heavy lunch, we left the hotel to move towards our destination of the night: Bhuj.

Chapter 5 - Flight towards Bhuj


The roads towards Bhuj were in absolutely wonderful condition.


It was a superfast and yet relaxed journey, and perhaps it was the lull of the road that made me take a wrong way when we come to the bisection in the road.

For Bhuj, there are two roads from Little Rann. One is from the village BachauGandhidham and Anjar
All I wanted to do is sleep!

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Day 4
After the hearty breakfast, we headed to Swami Narayan Temple. This temple has come up only in recent times, but has become one of the prime attractions in the town.

It is intrinsically carved; so much that we were astonished to see carving at most unexpected places. Who would expect that the bottom support of a park bench would be carved?


The sky has turned a grand shade of blue, and it accentuated the white beauty of the marble.

This was how the hall looked in its glory days.

Clicked our photo in a big antique mirror. I am always intrigued by looking at my reflection in such old mirrors. So many kings and queens of past had looked out of this very same mirror, would it be possible that some part of them has lingered on, and we can see them as a fleeting reflection in the mirror?

After a tour of this palace, we ran towards the next palace in the campus, the Aaina Mahal. While heading to Aaina Mahal. Aaina Mahal
The remaining rooms have collection of various antique objects.

There is this mirror room of Maharaja, complete with his bed with four gold legs. The bed is kept prepared, and it looks as if the Maharaja could use it if he decides to step out of the painting.

Tastefully detailed ceiling with a touch of modern day LED lights.

It is a walk in the days of Maharajas, and their grand way of living life.

Soon we were out of the Aaina Mahal and started walking back to the motorcycle.

Enroute, I was stunned to see the depilated parts of the mahal, and remembered reading the reason behind it.


The palace is a witness of a grand past, and it still carries the aura of majesty. We could see the scars of destruction caused by the massive earthquake 14 years ago. Bhuj is slowly coming to terms with its loss, and working towards recovering. But for these mahals, it will require a good amount of time and investment to recover completely.

In the campus of the palace, there are some shops that display the arts and crafts of Gujarat. You can hunt for bargains if you feel like shopping. The display is typically traditional, bright colours and intricate weavings.

After the two Mahals, we headed to our hotel from small lanes of the bazaar. It was an experience out of a period film, where we could see ladies in their traditional dresses, complete with sareers with little mirrors and intrinsic designs, with head covered till the chin.

We moved out of Bhuj after a hearty meal at our hotel, and headed towards Junagadh. It was going to be a night halt only, and tomorrow we would go to Sasan Gir, the lion sanctuary.

Today we took the correct path, not from Gandhidham. The road is under construction, so the speeds were in two digits. The road connected many villages, and often we had to slow down to city speeds at such junctures.

A sunset photo clicked at a railway crossing.

Day 6The gates opened, and we were beckoned upon our designated route. The jeep soon was travelling on rougher roads, with the jungle slowly waking up around us. A hyena stretching its paws into the light of dawn, a bird taking the first flight of the day, the 3D discovery channel was around us in Dolby surround sound.

And then we saw a number of people standing in the roads. I was startled to see them on the road, given that this was a sanctuary, that too of lions nonetheless. But I remembered that these people, the Maldharis jee bhar ke dekhna, or observing till we were satisfied, we moved ahead heavy footedly from the sight. The lion sneaked a peek at us, and continued his sun bath while watching us leave him from the corner of his eye.

The path ahead was neatly laid and well-trodden. We spotted a lot of deer and peacocks around. I even saw a camel trying to hide in a group of grazing buffaloes.

Unfortunately the guide had not christened them yet, so no idea about their names.

A mean looking pig little far from his herd
We returned to the hotel at 10.30. Our package included the breakfast and lunch, but since there was nothing left to do in Sasan Gir, except perhaps catching up on lost sleep, we decided to move out post breakfast.

Ellie got a nice bath, and shining her flashy greens, we rode out of the sanctuary.

Today, GPS helped us a lot. We had to take a lot of intersections, and had it not been for the GPS, the travel time would have increased at least by an hour because of stopping and asking around for directions.A well tarred two lane state highway brought us to Bhavnagar, and we check in our hotel of tonight, the GenX Hotel. Our luck had smiled upon us today, first with the spotting of lion, and then we were upgraded to the suite room in the hotel.

It was a comfortable stay, and we caught up on all the lost sleep, wondering what that lion would be doing at this hour, after munching on the buffalo.

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Awesome pictures and narration. Looks like an excellent trip...

Chapter 8 - Amdavad etle Amdavadad

Day 7

After a hearty breakfast at the hotel, we rolled out of the hotel. The roads today were excellent. It is a straight road through the marshes that rushes to meet Ahmedabad. The traffic was sparse, the weather was beautiful, and the road was smooth: The perfect recipe for a Ninja to roar.
Elizabeth displayed her racing genes, and soon we were knocking at the gates of Ahmedabad.

We had two nights stay at Ahmedabad, and were scheduled to leave early morning day after tomorrow. Finding a meal at 3.30pm turned out to be a herculean task, with most of the Thali hotels already deep into siesta. We munched a few snacks and called it a lunch, and started roaming in the city.

Ahmedabad has nice big roads and a planned layout, at least the main part of the city. We started heading towards . A few kilometers ride ends up in the well-kept Ashram.

Mahatma Gandhi lived here for twelve years. It was from here that the Dandi Yatra -ahimsa aspect of the fight for freedom. The Ashram has a big campus, with historical buildings named Vinoba Kutir, Upasana Mandir etc that are named either by their famous residents or their use.

There is also a new building that depicts pictures, quotes, letters and other memorabilia about Gandhiji. There sits the famous statue of a thought laden Gandhi.


At night, it had to be a Gujarathi Thali. There is a famous Thali hotel, called GXXX Thali (name masked for obvious reasons). While the food was good in appearance, the taste could have been much better.