The new year 2024 arrived at a new place for me after a surprise transfer to my once favorite city - Ahmedabad. The 5-6 years spent in Ahmedabad were the best of my life & most probably those times won't be replicated again.
So here I was again in the same office where I had started about 17 years back. It does get dull to stay in the office for seven & a half hours but having spent 11 years in the field job, I hope I can spent at least 1 or 2 years in the confined space doing data crunching - both on & off the record. Anyway, the results of this whimsical step remains to be seen in the future.
For now, An outing was due after the Kerala trip in November last year. The need to explore something different every time made me go for Rann Utsav in Kutch - not the official one but a group tour which included Rann Utsav as the main attraction. Actually I was lucky to find official tents unavailable as in the budget tour I got to see Dholavira & Mandvi beach too.
The day before
Trouble started just a day before the journey day as I got shivers & slight fever from early morning. Otherwise not feeling much bad I neglected the shivering, popped a paracetamol & went on to the (office) business as usual. But as the day passed on, the cold shivers emerging from within my body became unbearable & I had to leave for home in the afternoon.
It was a miserable day & the pain didn't end before the medicines showed effect late in the night. Before that I had already informed the trip coordinator about my illness. But as I was aware about the upcoming weekend & also about cancelled trips & leaves in January, I asked her to wait till the evening for cancelling my booking. All was not well in the evening but it was definitely better than previous day.
On second thought, I realized that the trip will get me through the weekend & get my lunch & dinner ready for me - both of the tasks were going to be challenging in case of staying at home with sickness. So the packing was done before the evening & as usual I was standing at the pick up point at the given time.
The journey started almost on (the latest updated) time but that lucky break was no match for the multiple misfortunes like Late trains, last minute inclusion/exclusion resulting in delay due to extra vehicle arrangement time, miscommunication of pick-up point. The troubles kept surfacing one by one for almost 3 hours. In these budget tours I always have to sacrifice my night sleep & this one was no exception. Anyway we reached the first attraction - Sunrise point - well before the sunrise & I had my morning walk in the vast dried lake engulfing the road.
day 1
Look at the Moon few minutes before the Sunrise & the Desert Sun slowly getting on its duty - both captured at the same location.
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| Morning Moon |
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| Desert Sun |
It felt quite refreshing in morning after the hiccups of the night & after a satisfying sunbath of about an hour, we headed to our resort for the real bath.
There was no time for the bath as suggested by the tour manager & the idea was silently rejected by most of the tourists as the baths, breakfasts & even make ups were leisurely undertaken for about 2 hours instead of the 45 minutes planned. This was the strike 1 from the Indian Time phenomenon for this tour.
Anyway, after breakfast, wearing fancy clothes & nice make ups we headed to explore Dholavira in the hot afternoon of the desert. For me, Dholavira turned out to be the best place in this trip for a detailed & interesting information of the Sindhu valley civilization at Dholavira given in the one hour guided tour.
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| Reservoir at Dholavira |
Only if my morning rituals were not disturbed, Dholavira would have been more enjoyable. No bath, Late lunch & above all bad health made the first day a painful one. Also, I missed to witness the enchanting Sunset at Bhanjno hill. (Video given below is not shot by me as I was unable to walk 1.5 km to the spot & decided to sleep in the bus)
day 2
Then came a much better day with a hot bath, good breakfast & the mesmerizing journey through the road to heaven. The idea of heaven was liked a little too much by the group and so about 2 hours were spent in the vast dried lake making reels while I sat in the bus waiting for the Reel festival to be over.
After completely satisfying the reel buds, we headed for our next destination - ગાંધીનું ગામ where you can buy handmade traditional clothes for women. It was well past lunch time & there was no time to waste so the window shopping was finished rapidly, we started for the resort & landed straight in the lunch hall.
Once again, there was little rest period available after the late lunch as the journey to White Desert had to begun in the late afternoon. White desert didn't look very exciting as we already had spent 2 hours making reels in the same scene. As usual for a tourist place, here you have the same activities that makes you fly in the sky & that's' what our companions enjoyed till the start of the cultural event. The cultural program was open to all who can bear the chilly wind flowing through the vast open landscape & not for me as I was not in best of my health.
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| White Desert Sunset |
The last stop was the Rann Utsav market which was like a full movie of the trailer we saw at "Gandhi nu Gam". So there was much more window shopping & a late but tasty dinner finished our day.
day 3
If the second day was better then the last day was the best of the trip as I was almost fit, tried to break ice with a square faced young girl & had evening walk on the beach.
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| Swaminarayan Temple, Bhuj |
This was a day of palaces as we visited Parag Mahal, Aaina Mahal (in Bhuj) & Vijay Vilas palace (in Mandvi) - all in a single day plus the palace like Swaminarayan temple of Bhuj. I got myself clicked at the Vijay Vilas Palace where the shooting of Hum dil de chuke sanam was done.
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| Vijay Viilas Palace |
The beach of Mandvi was somewhat disappointing but still it felt good to have evening walk on the beach. Finally the weekend getaway, that began with fever & coughing, ended with a fit & fine me ready to start the new week on a healthy note.
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| Mandvi Beach Sunset |
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