This December we planned a week long vacation at Gujarat inspired by this blog.
Day 1: Land and Rest
We made a last minute change as the original flight schedule changed in Indigo. We left a day early and booked a room in Hotel Ashray inn express near Airport. This hotel is at a convenient location to just stop,rest eat and leave to fly.
Day 2: Zoom car and Little rann of kutch
After an unpleasant zoom car experience, we finally started to little rann of Kutch. Our stay for the night was at little rann resort. The person was helpful when we reached out to him for a cab in case zoom car couldn't resolve. He helped us with contacts.
Around 3:30PM we left for little rann of Kutch. Gujarat roads are nice, google maps work well. Reliance Jio signal is at full speed at all places we visited.
Reached is little rann resort at a remote village just rested there for that night. Our safari was on the next day morning. This place being part of remote village, night sky is beautiful. If interested carry mobile with apps like google skymap, skywalk lite etc to do star gazing.
Day 3: Wild Ass sanctuary, Flamingos, Pelicans and salt making process
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| Wild ass little rann of kutch - Salt desert |
Little rann of Kutch is for people like us who find rann of Kutch too far and too expensive. This setup is similar. Salty water, soil with interesting animals around. This is world's only wild ass sanctuary. It's a animal looking like a cross of pony and donkey.
The salty water makes this a paradise for migratory birds of many kind and in huge number. We saw 100s of flamingos pelicans and other common cranes. Safari charges were part of resort charges.
Bird watchers paradise this one is.
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| Salt lakes - Salt making process, real hard life |
After a good two hour drive we are brought to a small hut where the salt making process is explained over a black tea. Interesting process and hard life in those extreme weather. People are simple and contended which is inspiring.
Returned to room for breakfast and then did the check out.
Day 4: Velavadar black buck sanctuary
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| Beauty of black buck sanctuary |
En route Velavadar stopped at Gallop food court. For the first time entire food court is vegetarian. I was stunned. Domino's pizza place is also full vegetarian. Had food in one of the cafe and continued our drive to Velavadar. We reached there around 4PM. Booking at the forest guest house, over phone. They had kept room ready. Simple room with great view. They told till 6PM safari is allowed. We immediately headed for that.
This black buck sanctuary is a paradise of birds. A guide is mandatory and we can drive own vehicle inside. We did this safari twice. Once in the evening and once next day morning. Spotted Hyena, wolf, blue bull, different birds.
Day 5: Black buck morning safari, Gir homestay
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| Morning formations |
Morning safari at Velavadhar is a must do. Visit the wet land to watch beautiful flamingos flying all over. We headed to Gir homestay.
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| Hyena |
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| Blue bull - Neel gai |
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| Black bucks |
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| Wet land beautiful take off of flamingos |
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| Busy pelicans and flamingos |
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| The hopping younger ones, delight sight |
Our home-stay is hiran holidays. A small home stay with 4 rooms with Hiran river right next. Farms with wheat, sugarcane and all vegetables. Quiet place with a great host. A true home stay with most friendly host. They cook everything homegrown.
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| Hiran holidays farm |
Day 6: Gir forest, Somnath temple
Gir forest safari is all online and you can book up to 3 months in advance. The online system is easy and transparent. No need of any agent. Go ahead book yourself.
Gir forest we had booked the first safari at 6:30AM, reporting time was 6:15AM. We were there at 6AM and not a minute wasted the safari was ready. No plastic bottles(including Tupperware) is allowed, no snacks. So leave everything and just carry camera/phone and head into jungle. Steel water bottles available on rent if you want.
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| Gir forest safari, Dam with peacocks everywhere |
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| Gir information center |
Camera charges: Rs. 200
Guide charge: Rs.500
Gypsy charges: Rs. 1400
All these are extra apart from online payment of Rs. 1000.
Jungle is dark, cold and quiet. The stillness of the jungle is thrilling.Good 3 hour safari we spotted many peacocks, blue bull, samba deer.
We did not spot any Asiatic lion. The forest experience was well worth it. There are 523 Asiatic lions and happy to hear the numbers are increasing. The people here seem to be naturally animal loving. During safari a dam is shown there are lots of birds here. There are twelve different routes when your tickets are provided the routes are assigned, the gypsy takes only that route.
Returned home stay, had yummy taplas for breakfast and rested for a while. We then took a dip on hiran river. The river water was cold despite hot sun.
Around 3:45 PM we headed to the famous jyothilinga temple, somnath. This temple is next to beautiful beach. From Gir it's an hour drive. We spent an hour at the beach watching sunset before heading to temple. It's a crowded beach.
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| Spirit of Somnath beach |
Temple security check is an elaborate one. Please note no electronics allowed inside temple. Please leave them all in your car. Even car key with electronic locking facility is not allowed, but some people told they allowed. So decide asking people around. The security locker has huge queue. This takes a lot of time. If you plan to attend the maha aarthi at 7 PM keep a good 1 hour for all the security checks.
Temple is beautifully lit in the night. It's huge and clean. Sound and light show is nice but it's crowded. Buy the tickets in advance.
Male and female queues are separate so pick a spot where you guys will meet again after darshan. Remember no mobiles.
We had some chats around temple good food is available little further down with lots of sit down restaurants.
Gir is safe, roads are nice and clean. With pride Gujarat folks are able to say confidently it's safe here. Drive in the night. All that is just fine. I am impressed.
Day 7: Devalia - Gir, Self drive into jungle
Gir forests don't want to send people home without spotting the majestic Asiatic lions. They have made Devalia wild life sanctuary for that very reason. This reasonably big place has all the flora, fauna and all the animal species of the gir forest.
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| Beauty of Asiatic lions |
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| Ferocious lioness |
We had breakfast at a place opposite to the meeting point. Super hot and yummy parathas. Bought some slovenlier and visited the information center where some simple quiz for children are there.
Returned to home stay and checked out.
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| The little extra- 22KMs drive inside jungle |
During safari and from the home stay person we learnt there is a pass provided to reach other side of jungle driving own car. It's free and you can only exit on the other side. This is to reach to a village and a temple. It's a good 22 KMs inside jungle drive on reasonably okay okay road.
Please collect the pass from Gir side of forest and drive thru slow speed. You can spot monkeys and deer's interacting, peacocks and buffaloes playing. There are train tracks inside the gir forest. End of this road is a knee deep water with an encouragement from fellow driver we drove thru it. It was scary enough!
Our next destination is Palitana. Interesting and very important jain temple. This is first vegetarian city in the world and food is totally awesome.
We went to a place called Sankalp as it had the best reviews and food was first-class. It's a south Indian restaurant after eating parathas,poha roti for a few days, dosas were a great change! Do try when you are around.The sides for dosas are served in silver cutlery.
Our stay is at hotel Shumeru - Gujarat government hotel. Huge rooms with huge bathrooms. Wonderful hosts they were very helpful.
We did a light dinner at hotel Sukh Sagar returned to room and rested.
Day 8: Palitana trek
Palitana is a temple town. There are so many temples all over the place, we need to ask people which is the main temple. We selected this place as one day halt as the temple complex hosting over 800 temples sounded exciting and our drive back to Ahmadabad would be too long from Gir.
The Palitana main temple complex is about 3 kms from hotel sumeru. Note: the bags are checked throughly. No camera allowed, mobiles are allowed.
Single use plastic not allowed(water bottles- like kinley, bisileri not allowed, single use plastic covers not allowed). Please avoid carrying those.
This Shatrunjaya hill Palitana is an important Jain temple. You would hardly see any non jains but place is clean beautiful! It's total of 3200 steps well laid clean steps. Took us good 4.5 hours to reach top,explore and return to base.
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| Bird feeding points |
We did spend sometime at the top. It's all marble and nice architecture. It's grand! Do visit when you are around this place. We started around 7:30AM was down by 12 noon.
We checked out the hotel in the morning kept the luggage in our car and went up and came down. There are beautiful bird feeders along the way. Do carry rice to feed them.
Jains do not eat/drink anything during the entire trail. At the top no one touches food, so try to follow the principle. Entire walk/steps are super clean, do not litter.
The entire steps route is so clean people walk only with socks/bare foot too.
There are doli's available for 3000rs for people who cannot walk. You can negotiate do part doli's too for kids/luggage. There are also helpers who would give you a push to climb.
After nice trek and great food at Hotel Sankalp started our drive back to Ahmadabad.
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| Highway flamingos |
En route we had a beautiful sightings of hundreds of flamingos right next to highway. We did a short stop at Lothal - Harappan civilization with all the eviction site and museum. It's interesting to see humanity has thrived with all basic things taken care of.
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| From Lothal museum |
Reached our hotel Skylon at Ahmadabad, ordered room service and slept.
Day 9: Sabarmathi ashram/ river front, Queen's step well, Vintage car museum and Gujarati meals, Law garden shopping
Morning fresh start at Sabarmathi ashram. This place is truly inspiring with a touch of history. Significant moments of Gandhi's life is placed as picture/letter/quote. This is a must visit place to draw some inspiration on what is commitment,patriotism and handwork.
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| Inspiration |
We headed to queen's step well which is little outside the city. This place has an interesting story behind and a great architecture, beautiful work.
We visited a vintage car museum on the highway. It's an interesting private collection with over hundred cars. All looking good. Kids especially motor heads won't leave this place.
Gujarathi village is a place inside the same car museum place where great gujarati thali is served. Awesome food. They have a place to rest post food which makes even more interesting.
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| Beautiful queen's stepwell |
We returned hotel, rested and headed to law garden night market for shopping. This place is colorful and interesting. Majority of our shopping we did at National hand looms, tiny things we bought at law garden. Overall interesting experience.
Had awesome dabeli's for dinner and returned hotel slept. Autos were available at 10:30PM. Place is totally safe.
Day 10: Bye bye vacation over
After packing bags returned zoom car and packed yummy stuff for lunch headed to airport. Holiday season and fog delayed flight by 2 hours. Enjoyed the packed food and said a good bye to safest, most vegetarian state we have visited.
Lessons learnt:
1. Gujarat highways(NH/SH) do not have as many eateries as south indian roads. So do carry some snacks or packed food from your starting point.
2. Unless otherwise specified Gujarat hotels are default vegetarian only
3. People are friendly and helpful. Places are safe. We locked our luggage at parking lot in our car and did palitana trek 5 hours. No one touches anyone and everyone tell you that and it's true.
4. Most people speak and understand Hindi
5. Roads are good almost in all parts of our entire 1200KM drive.
6. Zoom car can fail, have lot of time to resolve
7. December is off season at Gujarat, all places are empty
8. Gujarat is a dry state, no liquor is sold anywhere, is that why Decembers are empty here?
9. Gujarat tourism/forest highly digitized and online, book your rides/rooms online easily and early.
10. Didn't pay any tolls for car. It's free. Zoomcar comes with fasttag not sure how it works.
11. Morning safari's are cold, do carry something to cover ears
12. Lions unlike tigers do not attack humans unless we trouble. That is the majestic beauty of the animal.
