Gujarat

My travelogue about my visit to Gujarat. Hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Though not being in college anymore, I joined them for this trip. Luckily got to go with them. We started the excursion on 27^th Oct ’07 and came back on 5th Nov 2007. We departed from Mumbai (bandra terminus) on 27th Oct in the evening by Saurashtra express.

We reached Rajkot station at around 8am the other day i.e. on 28th. Our first halt was at Junagadh so had to take a bus ride from Rajkot to junagadh. We stayed there in dharamshala. The place was quite neat and serene. After lunch we went for local sight-seeing. A typical village, situated at the foot of Girnar hills. We visited Darbar Hall Museum (where there is a display of the interesting collection of weapons, thrones, silver articles, costumes, paintings, tapestries, and palanquins used by Nawab of Junagadh), Science Museum, Sakkarbaug Zoo (the oldest zoo of Gujarat & 3rd oldest in India. The rare Gir lions are bred here), and the Dattatray Temple. One has to climb 10,000 steps to reach the temple. Somehow we 15 students managed to climb 1000 steps in about half an hour. The temple is situated in a jungle so occasionally one can hear the calls of wild animals. A beautiful experience though a bit tiring. The very next day we left for Gir.

Early morning on 29th Oct we left Junagadh for Gir National Park. We were to stay there for 2 days & 2 nights. We stayed in a farm house which was far beautiful than we can have imagined. Located in a jungle, it was next to a river full of crocodiles and alligators and one can sight beautiful birds sitting in a machan built next to the farm house. First we went to Gir Interpretation Centre where information about the national park, animals and birds found there is been given.

Gir is the only home for pure Asiatic Lions. The area is divided into National Park which measures about 258 km² and Sanctuary which measures about 1153 km².The area was declared as protected 1900's by the then Nawab of Junagadh. This was done due to decline in number of lion which went as low as 15, because of game hunting.The park and the sanctuary remain open all year but the best visiting season would be late november and early-March.

Gir is the largest dry deciduous forest in western India, Teak being the main flora. The fauna consists of Asiatic lions, leopards, hyenas, marsh crocodile, chitals, being few of the fauna found here. The avian fauna includes Vultures, Crested Serpent Eagle, Great Horned Owl, Bush Quail, etc. Gir also has lion breeding programme which carries out studies of the behaviour of the Asiatic lions and also practices artificial insemination.

From there we went for an evening Safari & spotted 1 lion & 2 lioness sitting and other 2 lioness crossing our vehicle. It was such an experience to sight this magnificent animal in the wild.

After safari we went to a Crocodile Breeding Centre. The centre supports around 20 fully adult crocs along with their eggs and young ones. Luckily because of Hussein sir, the forest officer of Gir, I could hold a baby croc in my hands. It was such a cute baby though quite powerful. I was lucky to get such a chance.

The most fun part of the day or should I say the night was a tribal dance by Siddhi tribe. The people of this tribe are South Africans brought by the Nawab of Gujarat as slaves. The dance is based on nature and animals. After sometime even we joined them in their dance.

The next day i.e. on 30th Oct we went to Diu Fort. It is a beautiful fort once used as prison by britishers. On the very top one can see 4 canons. From there we went for CMFT (centre of marine fishery technology) visit. After a small seminar at the institute we headed for Somnath temple. It is one of the 12 Jyotirlings. The Somnath Temple is known as 'the Shrine Eternal', as although the temple has been destroyed 6 times it has been rebuilt every single time. The present temple is the 7th temple reconstructed on the original site. The present temple, Kailash Mahameru Prasada, is built in the built in the Chalukya style of temple architecture and reflects the skill of the Sompuras, Gujarat's master masons. We reached there on time for maha aarti at 7 pm. Such a divine place. We returned back to our farmhouse in gir that night.

The very next day i.e. on 31st in the morning we headed for Jamnagar via Okha, Porbandar& Diu. Okha is a fish landing centre where we had to go for a visit. But unfortunately we couldn’t observe any fish catch as the fishing boats had not yet arrived from the catch. Then we headed for Porbandar beach. The beach is an eye-treat gently rocked by the winds and the wave from the Arabian sea. The beach was not that clean but one can observe variety of organisms, algae and shells. We did collect lots of specimen for college purpose. After collection we headed towards Jamnagar where we were to stay till 4th Nov.

The next day i.e. on 1st Nov was a relaxed day as we did shopping and local sight-seeing at Jamnagar. In the evening we went to Baal Hanuman Temple, Lakhota Palace and Smashan, both of which are recorded in Limca Book of Awards. The story behind the temple is that a saint was looking for a place to built a temple for Rama and finally he found this spot which was a bushy area used for urinal purposes. He started to recite prayers from that time and is still going on from generations to generations without being stopped i.e. Akhanda Jap. It is now being going on for 19,979 days nonstop hence is being recorded in Limca Book of Awards. Whereas the Smashan bhoomi is the one of a kind due to inscription of complete Ramayan in the form of pictures. It was not scary but one could feel calmness in the air.

On 2nd we headed for Pirotan Island, the one of a kind Marine National Park in India. It is situated almost 22km, off the coast near Jamnagar. It is a 3 square km area of Island, and is covered with Mangroves. The Pirotan Island has beautiful scenarios, and magnificent view of sunrise and sunset. On our way to the island we saw a family of dolphins swimming parallel to our boat. It was one of a kind experience. They were least bothered by our presence. Our boats were anchored away from the shoreline so we had to jump in the water and walk towards the beach. It was fun walking in the water. The entire island have various marine lives like crabs (Neptune, Hermit crabs, Ghost crabs, etc), jelly fishes, sea snakes, sea slugs, sea anemone and nests variety of birds (Cranes, little and larger egrets, grey heron, etc). After a walk on the island and observing marine lives we headed for our boats. As it was a low tide we had to walk down on the sea bed towards our boat and had to wait for two hours for the water to come towards the shoreline. Till that time we had a little walk on the sea bed and sat their till the onset of high tide. We could actually see water slowly coming towards us. After 1 ½ hours we climbed the boats and waited our boat to drift in the water. We reached the mainland at around 8 in the night. The boat ride in the evening was soothing and calming. This trip to island is something I will cherish for a long time.

On 3rd we went to visit Jamnagar Fishery Institute where we saw Prawn & Lobster Culture and then went for Shore visit behind the institute itself. There again we observed various marine lives. From there we headed towards Dwarka. It is rated as one of the 7 most ancient cities in the country. The legendary city of Dwarka dwelling place of Krishna. It is believed that, due to damage and destruction by the sea, Dvaraka has submerged 6 times and modern Dwarka is the 7th city to be built in the area. It is on the mouth of the Gomti River into Gulf of Kutch. The Dwarka temple has 5 storey tower which was built by Sambha, who is the grandson of Lord Krishna. The temple was made of limestone and sand. There is a flag hoisted in the temple tower everyday which waves in air beautifully welcoming the pilgrims. There are two gateways namely Swarga Dwar where pilgrims enter and Moksha Dwar where pilgrims exit. From the temple one can view the Sangamam of River Gomati flowing towards the sea. While returning back to our hotel in jamnagar we had a dance party in the bus itself. It was crazy because everyone danced in such a cramped place including our professors. It was such a fun.

On 4th since we had to leave for mumbai in the afternoon, the morning time was spent in packing and in clicking group snaps. We boarded the train at 1:35 in the afternoon and reached mumbai on 5th at 5 am. The night was spent chit-chatting, playing cards, singing songs and all such stuffs.

Overall my trip was fun, thrilling, exciting and above all a learning experience. I got to see various marine forms I knew but didn’t see. Overall it was a wonderful experience.

So that’s about my trip to Gujarat. Hope you enjoy reading my travelogue. See ya.