Vibrant Gujarat - December 2017

Vibrant Gujarat….December 2016

We planned for a sight-seeing trip to Gujarat well ahead in September for a trip in December end. We took assistance from a travel agent of Gujarat to arrange for the trip assuming that we will get good guidance from them and can optimize our trip in terms of time /money and also places to visit.

However, it turned out to be that the guidance from the local agent (Compass) was far to come by! We realized on the second day of the trip that we were not guided properly by the agent and they had also overcharged us!  They had organized the route as follows –

Bangalore…… Rajkot -Bhuj– Rann – Rajkot – Dwaraka-Porbander – Somnath – Gir – Diu – Bangalore for 10 days and a car at disposal.  By end of the trip we realized that this was non-optimal and they had missed Junaghad and also Ahmedabad! Instead our trip should have taken the route:

Bangalore–-Bhuj–Rann–Bhuj–Ahmedabad(train)–Dwaraka (train)-Porbundar–Junagadh-Gir (Somnath) – Diu– Bangalore.  We would have seen more places and also saved two days! We were disappointed by the culture of tourism industry!

We landed in Bhuj, and stayed overnight. Unfortunately, our baggage did not arrive and we had to go to the town centre to buy some essential items for the night hoping the baggage would come in the next flight next day! Bhuj, as it is advertised is not colorful! The town centre was begging to have roads… there were literally no roads… dirty and garbage strewn place. I was wondering, how the local shop owners, business people tolerate such apathy by the administration! Next day our baggage did not arrive and we anyway, proceeded to the next destination Rann after seeing the old fort at Bhuj. I must say, that this was also a disappointment with no write up on the fort in English / Hindi and the approach road and the place was absolutely a disappointment with garbage all over! It is also the indiscipline of the tourist that contributes to the uncleanliness of the area coupled with official apathy!

Rann was very pleasant and the salt bed was indeed a geographical phenomenon worth visiting! Though it was not full moon or so, the sunset and the pleasant weather at Rann made it memorable. The sparse population in and around Rann also contributes to the pleasantness of the area.  We went till KalaDongar and till the point where we are allowed to go as thereafter the border starts near the village Dharamsala…

We returned from Rann to Rajkot via driving (thanks to the mismanagement of our agent!) and stayed overnight at Rajkot. Our baggage was delivered by Jet airways to Rajkot and finally we felt relieved that we have our clothes for the rest of the stay!

Next day, we travelled from Rajkot to Dwarka. On the way one gets to see the Industrial town of Jamnagar. One must say Gujarat is blessed to have such enterprising community!  Hotel at Dwarka was a disappointment! Though close to the beach, maintenance was a far cry! I had to get the room cleaned almost thrice to get it to a shape where we could spend the night. Adding to the misery, our agent had booked two nights at Dwarka! Anyway, though a very small town, cleanliness was not up to the mark in the town as well. While religious places where foot falls are very high like Tirupati, temples at Tamilnadu were able to maintain cleanliness, Dwarka can do much better in terms of maintenance. Temple was very beautiful with artistic and flowery carvings unlike temples of south where carvings are more theme oriented and depicts stories of Mahabharata and Ramayana. Roads were bad and garbage was all over place… I am wondering when will places like these where the foot falls are so high from poor to rich respect tourists and tourists also respect the place they visit! The next day we visited Bet Dwarka, giving us an opportunity to go on the boat and enjoy the short ride and view of fishermen’s boats sailing around! Bet Dwarka was also a disappointment with cleanliness hard to see! I started wondering about our culture of being dirty! Why do we think throwing garbage is a right but not throwing garbage is in fact a right! Keeping one’s own city and the place of visit clean is our right!

Afternoon we traveled to Junagadh on the way visiting Porbander.  We were so disappointed to see that there was literally no road in the old part of Porbander and the road leading to Kirti Mandir ( Gandhiji’s birthplace and house) was pathetic! I am surprised that our rich Gujarati business tycoons built super luxury houses for themselves and gift their spouses’ unimaginable expensive gifts, but they hardly support or come forward to sponsor such a historical place of importance.  I am amazed how the tourism department in Gujarat functions! We were really disheartened to see this place without the desired attention!

 It was a pleasant surprise at the hotel in Junagadh as it was very clean and the hotel team was very cooperative and friendly! We went to visit Uparkot fort in the morning. I must say, it is one of the living forts like Jaiselmer of Rajasthan where people still live by the lanes of the fort. Disappointment was there again for us as the place was so dirty that we were aghast! With so many tourists coming to see the fort, the apathy of the administration towards the fort and the tourists is shocking! We could not get one guide who was not eating paan! One has to live with the tobacco smell of paan through- out the journey of Gujarat. Very sad indeed but that is the reality! We took a guide with us, though very humorous, he too was very disappointed with the apathy of the tourism department in maintaining the fort. Every nook and corner of the fort is filled with garbage and the Adikadi well is a shame to our history!! Filled with dirt and filth one will only feel aghast as to how can citizens and the administration have such apathy to cleanliness!

Junagadh to Somnath was short and pleasant journey, passing through Gir! We should have stayed in Gir and gone to Somnath for temple visit. This is where we rely on the local travel agent and they were really not good!  History of Somnath is very fascinating with the main temple on the seashore. The sangam (rivers – Saraswati/Hiran/Kapila) , sun temple which is actually the ancient temple is crying for attention! Sun temple must be more than 2000 years old! Unfortunately, there is nothing to guide the tourists and the surrounding to go to the temple is filled with filth! One should start the tour in Somnath by visiting the Sun temple, Sangam and then the main Somnath temple. Hopefully, the Sun temple would get the attention of the tourism department as much as it should get. Somnath temple situated on the seashore and built multiple times over many centuries is quite beautiful and fascinating!

We stayed at Gir Jungle Lodge in Gir and were looking forward to the safari. The density of lions in Gir is very high and we were expecting to get some good sighting. Alas, our travel agent had again goofed up and booked only one safari online (all bookings are online and the jeeps are allotted based on the bookings. Jeeps are to be paid additional for every trip apart from the online fees). Anyway, we were taken one more private safari (that was the travel agents call!) to a famous temple nearby and we spent the afternoon through the forest. The man and animal conflict can be easily understood while we travel the path. Plenty of Deer and peacocks to see and while returning we spotted a leopard quite far though! Mornings and evenings are very pleasant at this time of the year and rather for people like me it is “cold”! The next day morning was our safari with the jeep and it was biting cold inside the forest! We could spot nothing except for owl and came back freezing!

Our travel agent had anyway goofed up our itinerary and we had to spend one night at Gir doing nothing! The next stop was Diu and the next morning we set for Diu. Diu being a union territory with separate administration was the cleanest place that we saw in this trip. However, closer to the beach we found that the place was overcrowded due to the new-year celebration and tourists left nothing to imagination and made the place as dirty as possible. Though there were dustbins every 200 mts, we saw papers/plastic covers/ Corn / chips wrappers/bottles/ paan spit all over the streets and the beach front! It is really a shame to Swach Bharat slogan and request! We need to be born to cleanliness to feel the impact of being clean and to own cleanliness. Unless we change our habits and ensure that our children are born to cleanliness, Swach Bharat will be only a dream! The very next day morning the beach was cleaned and again in the evening we saw the same ugliness all around! It is the responsibility of every tourists to keep the areas that they visit clean or at least not make it dirtier than what they saw first!...

It was a very mixed feeling at the end of the trip for us… one we did not expect professional travel agents to mix up routes and overcharge, secondly we were disappointed with the cleanliness of the tourist areas. We were searching for Gujarati Thali at each and every place but were disappointed there too! We could hardly find authentic Gujarati Thali and dishes in most of these places.

Probably, Gujarat is still not ready for tourism? Vibrant?!... we couldn’t feel at all!