Fueled by some excellent high profile ad campaigns beautifully executed by Amitabh Bachhan, our interest in Gujarat really piqued towards the end of 2016. Finally, after much thought and deliberation, Priya and I, put together an extensive ten-day itinerary to visit all the major places of interest in that state! The basic plan was to fly into Ahmedabad, cover the entire state by road and then fly back out of Ahmedabad again…
This is a simple record of that journey and will hopefully give you a sense for how much there is do in Gujarat and how much we enjoyed the trip. There are lots of tiny little details that can’t possibly be covered in a travelogue of this type, but you’d an overall good idea. So take a nice hot cup of coffee (or whatever else you like), sit back, relax, see the pics, videos, slideshows etc. from each day of our trip and feel free to send back thoughts and comments at any time…
Our journey started from Mumbai where we boarded an Indigo Airlines flight to Ahmedabad. Guess who was waiting right there in the Arrivals Hall to receive us 🙂 Considering that the next ten days will be on the road, it was a great idea to reach Ahmedabad a day earlier and rest well at Crowne Plaza before starting on the long trip across the state.
Btw, can’t close day zero before mentioning the importance of seemingly useless Facebook posts. As it happened, just the day before arriving into Ahmedabad, noticed a casual Facebook update from one of our very close relations that they were having dinner in Ahmedabad ! Quick few fb exchanges followed, and we realized that they had recently moved to Ahmedabad and most amazingly were staying just a stone’s throw away from our hotel !!! Needless to say that we were thrilled to have found them in Ahmedabad… and as soon as we reached the hotel, they were gracious enough to come over, pick us up and take us home for dinner ! Spent a few hours catching up with them over a lovely dinner — all thanks to a simple Facebook post (the kind we tend to generally skip over)… Lesson learned – DO NOT IGNORE THE POWER OF FACEBOOK ! 🙂 🙂
Looking forward to the next day – primarily reserved for sight seeing and some shopping in and around Ahmedabad.
Never realized that Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar (the state capital) put together have so much to see. We tried to pack in as much as we could in the one day (one can easily take two-three days) we had reserved for this city, but I am sure we have left out a few other interesting places in the city that we should have included (like Kankariya Lake, where, in fact a festival was going on).
Anyway, we started the day out by visiting the ISKCON temple, followed by Gandhiji’s Sabarmati Ashram, Hutheesing Jain Temple, Sardar Patel Memorial/Museum, The Adalaj Stepwell and finally ending up at the amazing Akshardham temple.
Sabarmati Ashram is truly a worth visiting place – very calm, serene and located beautifully on the river bank. One can actually spend a few hours here – browsing around or literally doing nothing… certainly worth a visit if you are in Ahmedabad.
Amongst the thousands of artifacts at the ashram, there is an amazing collection of envelopes showing how letters were addressed to the Mahatma…. My favorite – “Mahatma Gandhi – Jahan hon wahan”… see below.
Next on the list – Hutheesing Jain temple and Vallabh Bhai Patel Memorial & Museum – short and quick stops – but worth visiting.
All this site seeing was getting us quite hungry by this time and hence a good time to take a break – at a well known Gujarati Thali place – Gordhan Thal ! Wondeful Thali – very reasonably priced at just INR 300/-
Post lunch on the itinerary were the famous Adalaj step wells near Ahmedabad. While this is smaller than the Rani ki vav (that we planned to visit the next day), this turned out be a really great experience. The step wells are amazing structures that have to be visited to really understand properly. Basically meant for water storage, they have been constructed so many years back with amazing attention to detail and beautiful architecture. The pictures below can’t convey the true beauty and sense of aw e one gets going down each level of the step well.
After seeing the fantastic Adalaj step wells, the only place left on the itinerary was the Akshardham Temple. The temple structure and the complex is very beautiful and we were told it takes several hours to get through the whole place. However, either due to less crowds that day or us simply being tired, we went thru the complex pretty fast and then waited for the much acclaimed Sound and Laser Show on a water screen…
Unfortunately, they don’t allow any photography inside the Akshardham premises (hence the YouTube video below), but those of you who have seen the ‘Song of the Seas’ show in Singapore, this one is similar in nature — but way way better in the storytelling and execution department. IMHO, its an essential stop for anyone visiting Ahmedabad and well worth the time spent there.
Day One ended after Akshardham’s Laser and Sound show and, after a quick dinner we just retired back to our room at Crowne Plaza, which was a real welcome relief after being out the whole tiring day !
On the itinerary for next day were a couple of interesting places close to Ahmedabad and we were really looking forward to those.
Today was reserved for visiting two historical landmarks – Rani ki vav near Patan and the Sun Temple at Modhera.
Rani ki vav is an amazingly beautiful stepwell with intricate carvings, statues and murals. One can’t imagine why in the world would someone would take so much pains to create this kind of an architecture for what is essentially a water storage mechanism – IMHO, one of the best initial implementations of rain water harvesting anywhere in the world ! I’ll let the pictures do the talking here… words can’t do justice…
After being absolutely awed by Rani ki vav, we headed to the Sun temple at Modhera. This is another amazing piece of architecture dedicated to the Sun god. I am told its similar to the more famous one in Konark and has been built on similar principles.
That’s pretty much it for sightseeing on this day… Next stop is Little Rann – a small village called Bajana. This place is very well known for the Indian Wild Ass Sanctuary, which is quite a unique place on its own.
We had planned to do the early morning safari in the sanctuary the next day, so for now, just checked-in to this tiny little resort called the Royal Safari Camp. Not much to look at – as one enters the place – but turned out to be one of the best places we stayed at – thanks to the simple & clean cottages with private terraces, excellent food, amazingly friendly staff and wonderful service !
Looking forward to the safari into the Wild Ass Sanctuary tomorrow morning…
Today – Day 03 – main event was the early morning safari to the Wild Ass Sanctuary ! Started off early morning since that’s the best time to see all the animals and the migratory birds etc. Initially, didn’t have much expectations from this since its not that well known or spoken about, but we are so glad we included it in our itinerary… We didn’t have the cameras to capture the real beauty of the place, but you’ll certainly get an idea about the vastness and landscape of the place….
Wild Ass Sanctuary done ! Quick breakfast back at the resort, checkout and on way to Bhuj…
Reached Bhuj late afternoon… and as the perfect tourist couple – sightseeing comes first… so first stops in Bhuj are Prag Mahal and Swami Narayan temple – prior to checking into the Regenta Resort later on in the evening.
Prag Mahal turned to be bit underwhelming after all the other beautiful ancient stuff we have been seeing. This place used to be a palace – now converted to be a museum – that severly lacks in maintenance and upkeep. Although it has a few interesting things to see, but nothing that we’d spend too much time over. It’s located next to Aina Mahal, which is supposed to be a lot more beautiful. Unfortunately, it was closed the day we visited…
After seeing the not-so-impressive Prag Mahal… went on to see the very impressive Swami Narayan Temple at Bhuj… Nice temple complex… ultra-clean. The only unusual thing we found was that while going in front of the main deities in the temple, men and women go in separate rows with the men’s row right in front of the deities and women’s row behind… sort of unfair, IMHO. That’s probably the case in all Swami Narayan temples and maybe a few others.
Bhuj, by itself, doesn’t have a whole lot of other noteworthy places to see… so having covered the two major places, we went on and checked in to the Regenta Resort for the night.
Seeing the nicely laid out, beautifully landscaped resort, we had high expectations from the place, but as it turned out, it was a complete let down. Horrible service, facilities, food etc. We had issues right from check-in (had to change rooms), to dinner to checkout (billed for un-availed services)… in a nutshell – avoidable place to stay. Thankfully, we had just a night’s stay here…
Next day, off to one of the main attractions on the trip – The Great Rann !!!
In a hurry to get out of Regenta Resort and actually more in a hurry to get to the Great Rann of Kutch, had a quick breakfast and started off on the somewhat longish drive to the Great Rann. Now, this is a place of indescribable beauty – the likes of which one may not have seen anywhere in the world… While we have tried to capture its beauty in pictures, I doubt even the best cameras in the world can do justice to what can only be experienced in person.
First stop at Rann, is a hill-top viewing point called Kalo Dungar (or Black hill). This gives a real scenic view of the entire Rann and looking out from the highest point on the hill, its really impossible to tell where the sky meets the see ! Gotta see it to believe it…
Interestingly, while at Kalo Dungar, we are so close to the Pakistan border, that even Pakistani mobile carriers are reachable here. In fact, this area is protected by BSF and they have a border post here.
From Kalo Dungar, we drove the Gateway to Rann resort at Dhordo where we were staying for the night for a brief rest stop before heading to the Great Rann itself. This is a beautiful resort built like a local village. The accommodations are very basic, but clean and done up beautifully… They have all the modern amenities – including a Tata Sky connection !!! Even then, a very different experience from the typical starred resorts that are more common elsewhere !
After lunch and a brief rest, drove off to the Great Rann ! Since it was just the beginning of the Rann Utsav (Festival), our dear PM was their to welcome guests…
The Rann itself is this huge mass of salt marshes – we are told, the largest in the world… In these months, the sea water dries up and the salty sea-bed is exposed. In fact, one can walk on the miles and miles of salt crystals and is an incredible sight to see. Due to the almost surreal environment it provides, many movies and ads also use this as their background locale… Again, one of those places that no pictures can do justice and I’d highly recommend everyone to visit whenever you can.
The sunset at the Rann is another thing of beauty and thousands of people literally line up the shores as the sunset time approaches. We did the same and were rewarded by one of the most beautiful sunsets we have seen anywhere.
Even after sunset, the Rann and salt marshes look beautiful…
Finally after seeing one of the most amazing sites anywhere, we headed back to Dhordo to take a look at the Rann Festival… This turned out be the usual mela with bunch of local craftsmen selling their wares, lots of food stalls, music etc… All very neatly laid out in a very aesthetic manner…
Having experienced Rann Utsav, headed back to our resort where dinner and cultural show was awaiting us. Good fun with some local musicians who gave out a great performance under the open skies.
A fairly busy day today… Coming up next day is the first of the two really long drives on this trip… from Dhordo to Dwarka – almost 500 km, expected to be around 8-9 hours with a stop for lunch someplace…
Early breakfast and off to Dwarka today ! A bit apprehensive about the llloooong drive, but it turned out be just fine since roads across Gujarat are amazing ! Very smooth drive all the way and a brief stop over for lunch, put us in Dwarka some time late afternoon. Checked in into the Dwarkadhish Lords Eco Inn — Got a wonderful sea facing room with spectacular views !
Great to rest here a bit, have a cup of nice tea and then head straight to the Dwarkadhish temple, which is one of the four Dhams every Hindu must visit in their lifetime. Fortunately, the Dwarkadhish temple was a short, pleasant walk away… mostly along the sea.
Unfortunately, the temple doesn’t allow any photography… so no pics of the temple itself. We were lucky that on day the crowds were very less. We were able to do the darshan by being in the queue for just about 10-15 minutes (usually it takes a couple of hours or more). By the time, we walked back to the hotel from the temple, it was dark and the shoreline was lit up…
Can you believe it – there is even a functioning lighthouse on Dwarka shores !!!
Other than the Dwarkadhish temple, there is nothing else to do in Dwarka. So next day we are off to Okha and see Bet Dwarka which is situated off an island 15 minutes by boat and then head southwards to Porbandar…
After a wonderful breakfast at the hotel and a quick checkout, we head off to Okha from where the boat takes people to Bet Dwarka. This is another ancient temple and is definitely worth visiting. However, a word of caution – the ferry that takes one across the island generally gets overloaded big time (capacity is abt 100, they take on 180-200 people) and they have no life jackets etc. So get on board at your own risk… Once on board and seated, however, its a pleasant short journey to the island – with sea gulls following all the way through… One can even feed the gulls and if lucky, see them catch the food in the air while in flight !
At the temple, we had real nice darshan and the queues were not that bad. Once again, they allow no photography… so none from the temple at all…
Back to the mainland after another ferry ride back, started off on the drive to Porbandar. This turned out be a real nice drive – largely along the coast – very very scenic…
One of the things we noticed along the way and all the coastal places we stayed, the sea is so clean and beautiful… More on this later – when we reach Diu… but seems to be the case along the entire Gujarat coast line.
Also, as we were driving by, we realized Don Quixote must be around ! Whats up with all these windmills ! So many of them all along the coast… doing their job round the clock. I think Gujarat is doing a tremendous job at exploiting this natural resource – specially in areas around the coast – Kudos !
After about a 3 hour drive (including a lunch stop), reached Porbandar and checked in the Lords Eco Inn at Porbandar.
The only major tourist attraction in Porbandar is Mahatma Gandhi’s birthplace – now called Kirti Mandir. The small house where the Mahatma was born is open to the public and one can go about the entire place through narrow (and steep) staircases etc. The house adjacent to it has been combined with this and the whole place has been converted to a museum of sorts.
Inside the house where the Mahatma was born is real interesting to see. The doors and windows etc are so small and unusual. May be the inhabitants were all short or may there is another reason, I have no idea…. interesting all the same…
Definitely an interesting place to visit, but one need not stay in Porbandar for this. We could have seen this in a couple of hours and driven off to our next destination.
Also, Porbandar, as a town was a bit disappointing to see – compared to other places we have been so far in Gujarat. Seems to be a neglected town, with terrible roads, streets dug up all over and general mess all over town. The cities and towns we have been to so far seems to be rather well maintained, but some how isn’t the case in Porbandar.
Anyway, our itinerary called for a night’s stay here… so we just went ahead as planned… Next on to Diu – a place we have been really looking forward to get to !!!
Nicely rested and with an excellent breakfast in our tummies, we left for Diu (via Somnath) which is about a five hour drive away. Once again, excellent roads and very scenic all along…
The only planned stop was the famous Somnath Temple. This temple complex is located right on the sea front and is worth seeing. However, like most temples in the area, they also don’t allow any photography on premises…
From Somnath temple, drove straight to Diu which technically is a Union Territory on its own and not part of Gujarat… So border check-post formalities are a must while coming in and while going back into Gujarat, they can check your luggage for any alcohol (which is prohibited in Gujarat).
After border formalities etc and some taxes paid (causing much anger to our driver 🙂 ), we checked in to the wonderful Radhika Beach Resort – the best resort in all of Diu and definitely one of the best ones during this trip ! Very modern rooms with all the fancy amenities, friendly staff and excellent food.
Since past few days had been pretty hectic, we decided to simply take the afternoon easy and went in for a rather longish nap after a wonderful lunch at the resort. Once we got out in the evening, it was already dark and the resort was all lit up !
Went off for a nice evening stroll at the beautiful Nagoa beach which was just across the road from the resort. Simple, clean beach where one can walk along the ocean for miles on each side…
After a rather long stay at the beach – walking almost the entire length – back to the room and decided to order room service. Each unit has a wonderful balcony… so we asked them to set up the dinner there – simply awesome… excellent weather, food, company (just the two of us 🙂 ) …all make for an excellent evening in Diu !
Next day is reserved entirely for sight seeing in Diu and we are really looking forward to it.
Today, planned to see all the recommended sites in Diu (turned out to be way better than we expected). Of course, first the mandatory visit to the beach around sunrise since we are right across from it (mandatory for Priya today, I slept through 🙂 ) Some unknown person on the beach had left a rather sentimental message early morning !
By the time I got ready and we finished breakfast, our day’s itinerary was pretty much finalized – First the unbelievable Naida Caves, then to INS Khukri Memorial, followed by Diu museum and finally ending up at the Diu Fort.
Let’s start with Naida caves… I have to say that having seen a bunch of cave sites in India, I wasn’t expecting much here. Typically, one finds caves smelly, damp, filled up with animals etc of all kinds etc… Well, not here !!! As you’ll see, these are amazingly beautiful set of ancient caves – very clean – very well lit naturally – no smells of any kind etc… The architecture and the beauty of these extensive caves really left us spellbound and we spent a lot more time going thru them than what we had initially planned.
Nuff with the caves… Let’s go on to the INS Khukri Memorial – Another of those surreal places – beautifully envisioned and constructed (although parts are being renovated). Its set up on top of a hillock overlooking the sea. Apart from the historical significance of the place, what strikes one the most is the beautiful blue sea – the likes of which I haven’t seen in India anywhere. The place is one of the most scenic one would find in this part of the world and truly is the best place a memorial for INS Khukri could have been built.
The navy has built a replica of the original ship and kept it in a glass-house kind of structure which is badly maintained. While the overall site is beautiful, it was a bit disappointing to see the actual memorial itself which really needs some deep cleaning and better upkeep. Maybe the on-going renovation will provide the much needed and well-deserved fix for such an important icon of our Naval history.
All said and done, Khukri memorial is a must visit place – both for its historical significance and for seeing the natural beauty that surrounds this place.
Next stop – Diu museum – which, as it turns out, is completely avoidable. It’s simply an old church converted into a museum with some of the church artifacts put on display. Nothing interesting here to see and we got done with the museum in literally five minutes flat !!!
Having done the fastest museum visit ever, our next halt was Diu fort. It’s one of those Portugese era forts with a lot of history. The fort structure, by itself, seems pretty standard of the old forts from that time, but its proximity to the sea is interesting and it even has an ‘Alcatraz-like’ prison, situated just off the main-land !
That’s it for the day… done with Diu sightseeing… Back to our wonderful resort by the Nagoa beach for an early dinner – this time presented very artistically !
Next day promises to be very interesting – the much awaited safari at the Gir Lion Sanctuary !!!
Safaris at the Gir Forest National Park have limited slots and are booked well in advance – specially during the holiday season, which is exactly now ! Even though we had planned this trip months in advance, we couldn’t get the slot for the early morning safari (supposed to be the best time for seeing the lions) and could only get the afternoon 3pm slot (they only have two safari’s a day). This turned out be a blessing in disguise since Gir Sanctuary is about a two and half hour drive away from the resort. If we had got the early morning slot (6:30am or something like that), we’d have to leave the resort at some unearthly hour. With our 3pm slot, we could relax and take it a bit easy in the morning before leaving for Gir.
After driving almost a 100km, reached Gir and checked-in for the Safari.
Even though the Safari slot was booked via an online payment at the time of booking, we still had to pay cash for the safari vehicle and the guide (both non-optional, obviously). In these days of less-cash economy, even being a government agency, they weren’t accepting any online payments for these two items… Guess cash still rules in the jungle ! 🙂
All checked-in, we still had to wait for quite some time for our vehicle and guide to show up. The good thing was there is one vehicle per booking – so crowded jeep. Just the two of us, the guide and the driver… Nice !
While, the initial part of the safari was quite boring and we saw some common animals like deer etc, the latter part became very interesting when we sighted some lions. As it happened, ours was the last vehicle in the convoy and the first lion simply walked behind our jeep… maybe about 10 feet away ! What a breathtaking sight that was…
Spotted another one on top of a small hillock a little distance away…
And finally, we get to see the famed Babbar sher !! The King !
Well, that’s it from the lion kingdom ! Fantastic Safari… Great experience to have seen these beautiful animals up close. Highly recommend to everyone… but plan well in advance !
Headed back to Diu for a well deserved rest and in anticipation of another very very long drive the next day. We head back to Ahmedabad via Lothal… around 400 kms… expected to take around 8 hours in just driving time.
Diu and the surrounding areas have been fantastic and after another nice breakfast at the Resort, we bid Adieu to Diu and headed towards Lothal on way to Ahmedabad !
Lothal was one of the well known cities of the ancient Indus Valley civilization and a lot of the ancient remains from that day have been excavated by archeologists over the years. For those keen on studying the civilization of that era and their achievements, this is a must visit place. There is a nice little museum with lots of artifacts from that time nicely preserved. However, the actual excavation site leaves a lot to be desired – at least from a casual visitor’s perspective.
The actual site of the excavation is also quite interesting, although we wished that there were some more info-boards or other methods to tell people about what they were seeing. There were only a few boards indicating major areas of the ancient city, but not much detail was available. If some money and thought is put into developing this place, it could easily become one of the major attractions – not just for tourists, but also for students of history from around the world.
Well, having got our minds around the well laid out cities of the ancient era, we needed to get our minds back to a modern city – like Ahmedabad. So off we went.. on the final final leg of our Ahmedabad-Ahmedabad itinerary…
The short one and half hour drive from Lothal to Ahmedabad came as a welcome relief after having driven literally the whole day. We just had to click a picture with our fantastic pilot and guide all along the way – Shri Devi Singh – our driver who took us all around, suggested the right places to see and avoided what could be left out… Thanks, Devi Singh.
We had booked ourselves into the fantastic Crowne Plaza again for our last night in Ahmedabad and it was a pleasure to get back to all the creature comforts after a 10 day road trip !
Of course, our activities don’t exactly end here :-). Remember the close relatives we had the pleasure of discovering in Ahmedabad on Day 00. Well, we absolutely had to meet them once again before we leave their fantastic city the next day. So we ended up – with them – at the most amazing Gujarati restaurant you’d ever see. This is a place called Agashiye at the House of Mangaldas Girdhardas. Its one of those old havelis converted to a heritage hotel as well as a really beautiful Gujarati Thali dining restaurant on an open terrace.
I can’t say enough about this place except to recommend it very highly to anyone visiting Ahmedabad. The ambience is unparalleled, the food is mind blowing, the service is out of the world… In other words, don’t miss the experience if you are in town.
Finally, on funny note, as we were going down in the elevator, I noticed that this was the only one that I have every seen that specified genders when informing people about the elevator capacity 🙂 🙂 Still can’t get over this one !!!
How’s that for ending a busy long day and actually a busy long trip through this awesome state.
Btw, my wife is convinced that we should move to Ahmedabad – considering the well laid out, generally considered safe new city, the clean and beautiful 20km river-side walks and gardens, multiple places to visit, places to take guests sight seeing and very very importantly — the entire range of Amul Ice cream available in the city – even the sugar free ones… 🙂
Anyway, that does it… Saw the sites, experienced the experiences, met people whom we haven’t met in years – what else can one ask for !!!
There is one thing – On time departure of our flight back to Bengaluru next day…
After such a wonderful trip, one really shouldn’t be asking for anything more… but – as you know – we did… On-time departure of the flight to Bangalore…
Well, the powers that be denied that request and ensured that our flight was delayed by several hours (in multiples of half an hour or an hour with each notification). Of course, we didn’t learn about the first delay until we had checked out of the hotel and were more than half way to the airport.
Couldn’t do much other than to check-in to the flight and wait at the airport until boarding gets announced. After an horrendously long wait (that included the airline graciously providing lunch), we were finally on way back to Bengaluru with lots of wonderful memories of a truly awesome state !
The only logical explanation for this is that Gujarat didn’t want us to leave… and really speaking, neither did we want to leave Gujarat ! We are sure to come back and go to places we couldn’t this time…
If you have been patient enough to have gone thru this somewhat long record of our journey for each of the past ten days, you can easily see that we really enjoyed the entire trip going through a vast range of things from modern cities to rural villages to religious must-dos to wild life sanctuaries and to places of unbelievable natural beauty… All in all a fantastic vacation to a wonderful state that we had never been to ! Highly Highly Recommended to anyone who has never been to Gujarat…
Final Note: In case you’ve been expecting to see lots of pictures of Gujarati food and have been disappointed at not finding many, the reason is rather unexpected, but simple. Other than the Gujarati Thali restaurants (mostly in major towns), there is no Gujarati food to be found at roadside restaurants – which we visited a lot as we were driving by. One can get twenty varieties of paneer dishes, vegetable curries, paranthas, naan etc… all the standard North Indian stuff… but no Gujarati food except for Kadhi and Kichdi (which is pretty good in most places we tried). However, the one thing you can be guaranteed at every place – big or small – is excellent Kathiyawadi Tea which is a real strong brew with lots of ingredients – always served with a nice smile !