The Charismatic Kutch(Must take tour to Ran of Kutch)

The Charismatic Kutch

Kutch (renamed to Kachchh to preserve the old cultural name over that used by the British, just like Bangluru over Banglore) is a northern district of Gujarat, which people saw with dismay for years because of its dry land and weather adversities, only until Rannotsav, a desert festival organised by Tourism Department of Gujarat highlighted its beautiful aspects. The motive of Gujarat Government behind organising these festivities every year must have been to invite NRIs and other rich people, to come and spend their big money in Gujarat, but eventually, this initiative has bagged Kutch a recognition on India's tourism map and people are discovering the hidden beauty of this so far neglected and isolated part.

There are numerous pleasant sites in Kutch. The tents provided by tourism department in the tent city of the desert are a bit costly, around 8-10k per day and the private tents cost around 3-6k. People like me would rather choose to stay in some cheaper hotel or even dharamshala in Bhuj, since their main purpose is only to have a night stay. 

Bhuj itself has got some wonderful palaces like Prag Mahal and Aaina Mahal. With the magnificent use of mirrors on the walls and ceiling, well preserved beautiful royal show pieces & excellent design of the music room surrounded by small fountains, mirrored walls and colorful lights, the Aaina Mahal was not only a visual delight, but also an architectural magnum opus


. Apart from these places, there is near by village called Bhujodi, which one should definitely visit if one has a liking for exquisite handicraft. The people in this village weave those artworks themselves and these are then sold across the Gujarat.

Around 80km north from Bhuj is Kalo Dungar (Black Hill), which has a beautiful little temple of Dattatreya with various exclusive view points of the far away creek waters and surrounding hilly area. With the windy, foggy weather and a little trek to various view points, the site was really fun. Not so far from there, right beside the tent city is the white desert that many of you might have seen Mr. Bachchan advertising about. I would say the white desert that the Tourism Department so boasts about is the case of people setting high expectations and ending up with disappointment. Sure it is a different kind of desert, with its upper layer not of sand, but of the salt left after the salty water from the Arabian Sea evaporates. But nothing so interesting other than that. Also because the adventure area with mini rock climbing & bungee jumping kind of activities as well as the cultural program were reserved for those few staying in the tent city and apart from that there was just a small shopping and food stall area.

                                                                     Kalo Dungar:

Around 150 km West from Bhuj was Narayan Sarovar, a huge lake with not a single drop of water last december but the near by Koteshwar temple at the edge of the sea was a really awesome place. The Temple is situated along side the curved beach, from where you can have a vast sea view and fabulous pics. The huge Mahadev temple in the middle of speedily blowing wind and the melodious sound of waves was a real pleasure.

                                                      Koteshwar Temple:

To the south from Bhuj, around 60 km is Mandvi, where the Vijay Vilas palace and beach are the main attractions. The palace, which also has been used to shoot a bollywood movie, is really well maintained and from its terrace one can have the heavenly view of sea, foliage and a bunch of windmills. The beach is a really good place to hang out for fun with camal safari, horse riding, electric boat riding and chopati. The only setback was the water being diry and muddy. While the govt is trying hard to endorse these scenic places, I must say that enough care to preserve the sanctity of nature there is not taken at all. Even if the govt authorities cannot get the beaches cleaned everyday, I guess they should just start providing trash bins at such places and start penalizing those throwing the garbage away.

                   Vijay Vilas Palace:

                                                            Mandvi Beach:

Overall, it was a nice journey to Kutch but one cannot compare it to the royal palaces or sand dunes of Rajasthan. Well, every place has its own thing! Anyway I'll just conclude with a few tips for those who are planning to visit there:

The desert festival is on only for two months a year, near December & January.

The preferable time to visit Kalo Dungar is before noon or in the evening.

The palaces in Bhuj city are closed on Sundays and about every palace is closed before 6 P.M.

Many other religious places like Mata No Madh, Bhadreshwar, Haji Peer Ki Dargaah are on the way to the above mentioned places. 

If you just watch out while you are travelling, you can frequently spot animals like foxes and beautiful birds on your way.

About Author
Disha Shah
Working as System Engineer  
Tata Consultancy Services

My visit to Rupal gandhinagr gujrat on Ashtmi

Small description 

Navratri is a famous festival of India and also celebrated in other parts of the world among Hindus. Navratri  means 9 nights dedicated for 9 divine forms of Maa, Adishakti Maa Durga. And the Second last day is know as Ashtmi. On this day all the devotees on maa durga worships the goddess and adores him with different types. And from those  one I am going to explain in my blog .And the whole blog is just description of the below video.

Visit to Vardiani Maa Temple

The Story begins with a invitation from my friend's uncle to visit his village on Ashtmi. And he promised to show something really shocking . So we were eagerly waiting for Ashtmi. On Asthmi he called us in his village which is 10 Km from our TCS Office so we managed in my friend's car.And reached rupal at 09:00 PM. After Taking 30 Mins of rest I saw a crowd . And curiously asked uncle where they are going then he told us they we have to join them , they are moving to temple. And if we delay any more we cant enter to the temple due to this crowd then we moved with them . And the views i have seen are below

 These are the pics of before palli

(will tell you later what is this)

Starts

While moving back to home i seen some people making some thing from wood and i asked uncle what is it. The name of the thing was Palli . It is made up of wood not any wood  on the same day some villagers goes in jungle to bring the wood from a holy tree. and on the same day they starts making it and has to complete before midnight.

Villagers preparing Palli

And also seen that at ever end street there are huge container or Ghee(Butter). and all people are adding ghee in that . Many are purchasing kgs of ghee to fill the container. At this point i know that the Palli was a kind of huge lamp of ghee but Iam not getting what they will do with all this Ghee(Butter). Its in 1000 Kgs .

Villagers collecting ghee

Ghee collected for palli 

Ghee on other parts of the village

Also i have senn that for some guys these drums are too small so they started collecting in tanks of tractors. It was like see of Ghee ,one can smell this ghee from kilometers away from the village. I have seen people using spoon for ghee but here one can find buckets are used in pouring ghee from one container to other.

And there are many small vendors selling ghee. you can find them at any place in village any they are also sponsored confused . They are sponsored to sell in less price and the cost of ghee was 150 Rs per Kg . And many big merchents are purchasing ghee at high rate and selling at low rate through these vendors.

Boy selling ghee 

venders selling ghee

Now uncle told us that Palli will come to our society after passing from some other societies in village now we just have to wait. We waited whole night at 6 Am we seen palling coming . Uncle told us that it will stop only for 5 mins and we have to pour all the ghee from palli i told this is not possible because its a huge quantity . So he told no problem we will try and if some what is left we will pour down the palli .And started pouring ghee from buckets.

Now after all this was the condition of road you can find in upcoming pics . uncle told us that the people those who belongs from the lower cast has right to collect the ghee from street and they can use for there personal use. but what i can find was a long buddy road . But the single diff is of ghee instead of water.

Workers collecting ghee from road

Workers filling the drums again with the ghee from the street

My Personal View

To get more about this custom I discussed with many other elders in village and found that this was started with a wish and on completion of wish one has to offer a cup of ghee to goddess durga for the joyti i.e lamp. But as time changed people thought that more ghee means more blessing. and slowly slowly custom changes from a cup of ghee to tanks. Believes are very important as one can gain much positive energy from all  these kind of divine traditions . 

Please provide your view in comment box

Some Unseen truth of Kedarnath Disaster(Part-1)

This video is also covered in story below with complete description

Short  Description of my trip.
We (me,mummy,uncle, aunty and driver) planned to visit char dham( ie Yamunotri,Gangotri,Kedarnath and Badrinath). So we completed Yamunotri and Gangotri and moved towards the Kedarnath by our personal Innova .It was too difficult to reach Kedarnath on the same day so we decided to take rest in between Gangotri and Kedarnath and took a night halt and planned to travel early in the morning. And on next morning after breakfast we moved to Kedarnath.

Reached Gaurikund

We reached Phata(a place before 15 Km before gaurikund  ) at 6 PM . There we saw a long line of vehicles.and a police man told me that each hour we send limited number of vehicles to gaurikund and u have to wait . That was the first place in uttrakhand where we saw any police or governance . we are also stopped by some check post before and they told that you cannot travel after 6 PM but after taking 200Rs they allowed all the vehicles to pass. So after one long hour we got our way but full of traffic no management from government at all. We moved with the speed of 10Km/hr and reached Gaurikund at 9PM. And found that there were no space for parking and police told driver to park innova 7km far from Gaurikund I was very disapponted with this and with this mismanagement of government.

Now Gaurikund was like khumbh mela, too much rush and to fill the gap rain started.And we start searching for hotel with our luggage  on road,near by hotel charging to much for night stay. So we moved towards hot spring pools and took the only left 10 cross 10 feet room in 2000 Rs. We asked for a discount from hotel manager then he  refused to give the discount and told that this is the most crowdy night in past years. As there was no choice so we took that room and decided to leave for the temple at 6 AM next morning. 

From Gaurikund to kedarnath temple

Their was heavy rain in the morning when we wake up at 5 AM, So we purchased local raincoats and left the gaurikund at 8 AM. First we decided to take horses to travel to kedarnath temple( it was 14km track from gauriund to kedarnath from which 7kms gaurikund to ramvada was easy track but after ramvada to kadernth temple was steap and narrow)
.

Horse parking in gaurikund

After all our religious discussion elder decided not to opt horse and track by our own while tracking to kedarnath we seen many different species  of plants some were looking like snakes.

There we seen every age group people tracking with all difficulties and the only thing strengthening them was chanting "jai kedarnath baba". it was a divine feeling and there you can see real follower of Dharm. but some are only for fun and they are treating it like a outing throwing ploy-bags and water bottles in river. At 11Pm we reached Ramwada here we took some breakfast and seen again a huge parking of horse.

     The nominal charges fixed by govt was 700Rs one way and after 6 PM the route from gaurikund to kedarnath temple was closed . But humans will never leave there tendency if you are ready to pay 2000Rs they will take you to the kedardham at 8 Pm also and if you want to start from Gauri kund in midnight then also they have no problem just pay some more ie 3000Rs one way. There was also helicopter service from phata to kedar temple but was stopped by horse owners to earn more from visitors.
 After all it was a nice decision not to choose horse ride for tracking.

There was no maintenance of the track neither from government nor from temple committee . it was to small for both horse and humans walking on same time . And don't ask about the excreta of horses it was all over the road and was coming on us as horses are passing from there. One can not find a single police man to help a needy and not a single first aid camp or temporary hospitals. i am sharing some of the pics of Natural beauty and mismanagement

Some Unseen truth of Kedarnath Disaster(Part-2)

Some Unseen truth of Kedarnath Disaster(Part-3)

Some Unseen truth of Kedarnath Disaster(Part-2)

In the Morning of 17-June-2013

In morning my mother waked me up asking to run outside the hotel as the manager was shouting that "run out hotel can collapse at any time  and you have to stay in hotel at your risk". And what I saw is in the below video.

.

By seeing this I was worried about the guys who were there in parking because this was our parking Area which was converted in a river and all the vehicles was covered in 20 meter deep mud and rocks. You can find in video that it was not the water in the flood but it is the mud and rocks flowing like water and here comes the story of a woman with her 8 year old daughter whose bus was flooded into the river and also other stories of different people  which I will discuss in my other post. Again but with  god's grace nothing happened  to our vehicle because it was parked in hotel . One of the front line hotel collapsed into the river. And after 3 to 4 hours the whole parking was covered by 30 Meter mud and was looking like a big ground.

And also the road connecting kedarnath to Sitapur was damaged from the middle, so no more vehicles can reach here and it was like we cant move neither back nor forward. So you can say we were trapped there and no electricity because there was no fuel to run generators and over all no mobile signals.And below are the pics displaying the road condition.

One more sad news came from our nearby hotel . There was a group of senior people all aged above 60 came for Char Dham yatra. From them 3 peolple died by heart  attack after watching the flood in the morning.

Other problem was of food there were no rate hikes in lunch platter (of 70 rs)but quantity was decreasing 

daily.but on next day the shopkeeper decided to give lunch in free and it was from the last storage of grains.

And in below picture you can find all rich and poor standing in the queue for food.

18-june-2013 Sitapur kedarnath uttrakhand

In these two days we haven't seen a single policeman or any help from government. On 17 June we saw some helicopters moving from phata to kedarnath temple but they were also from  private services . and some local people told that government is conducting meeting in dehradoon and in those 2 days we heard the same.

From Sitapur to Phata

In noon of 18th the road was cleared and we moved towards the phata here we seen many disasters scene . some are displayed below.

Some Unseen truth of Kedarnath Disaster(Part-2)

                      Some Unseen truth of Kedarnath Disaster(Part-1)

Natural beauty Pictures

These are the frozen rivers melting and flowing under the ice

Pictures Showing mismanagement and uncontrolled crowd

 The rallying for support are too weak. and are dangerous too. if someone leans from then they will surly fall.

Reached Kedarnath Temple

We reached Kedarnath at 3PM and found that the temple was closed and will open for darshan at 5PM. During this two hours i.e from 3 to 5 PM pandits decorates the shiv ling .Due  to this the queue for darshan was increasing continuously.

Queue for darshan in kedarnath

There was only a small shed to protect all pilgrims from freeze wind and rain.One can find all age group people standing and waiting  eagerly for darshan.At the end of queue there was small ashram which is distributing tea and kichdi without any cost. 

After some time around 4 PM a pandit came and told that if someone is feeling delay in his program due to unavailability of darshan from 3 to 5 than he can pay 2100Rs and can do darshan by VIP pass. This was too cheap that on one side you are saying that Loard shiva takes rest from 3 to 5 and if one is paying extra money then they are allowing him to visit temple. At 5 PM we seen a movement in line  and someone told that temple is opened for the darshan,at same time a heavy rain  drenched  us completely and we all started shivering. But Darshan of kedarnath energized us and we decided to return to Gaurikund and not to stay in kedarnath.

                     

Back to Gaurikund

 So at 6 PM we left the temple and started moving towards the Ramwada.

We reached Ramwada at 9 PM and now the track from Ramwada to Gaurikund which was still 7 Km became difficult. The track became slippery due to rain and horse excreta. There are generators but not a single one is working , there is only 10 feet visibility and we slipped many times in the ditches full of mud and horse stool. 

But here also I can see many Pilgrims tracking towards the temple in that horrible  mid night with small kids and old people. I asked them to take rest in Gaurikund and not to move towards the Kedarnath in night but they said " we want to reach temple before 5 AM and will be back tomorrow in noon". There were also small shelters made for the travelers to take rest but on that rainy night all the shelters were full and there is no place even to stand.Finally any how we can back to Gaurikund at 11:30Pm (almost midnight).

Now it was not possible to move out of Gaurikund because there were no mobile signals and we have no idea of our driver and car so we decided have night halt  at Gaurikund and tried calling driver all night but was of no use.

Next morning  was also rainy and no signals again ,so we waited for driver for 3 hours and at 9 Am I decided to go to to all the parking areas to search our car. So when I started walking from Gaurikund to Phata ,I saw that the parking No.1 was completely immersed in water and thanks to  god that we have not got place here for parking. Then I moved further and checked all the parking but all were in same condition the cars and other vehicles are immersing slowly into the water and water level too increasing slowly. But after moving 5 kms from Gaurikunnd I got signals and called the driver asking him to come to  Gaurikund. The video below was captured while moving from gaurikund to Sitapur. And one can here the terrifying noise of the river and can feel the small stones coming from the river along with droplets(means with water rocks are flowing ).

The river was looking like boiling milk one cant find any thing not even buses which already flooded into the river.
So we moved quickly. Till Sitapur there was no problem. We heard  some horse owners talking that the horse parking of Ramwada collapsed in to river.But when we reached Sitapur there we found a heavy
traffic and heard a news that the hill was collapsed on road near Phata and will take 24 hours to clear the road. So we decidec to stay in a hotel in Sitapur and decided for night-halt. There were nearly 700 people looking for shelter but all are not lucky, so some decided to sleep in buses and in  other vehicles in parking area.

Some Unseen truth of Kedarnath Disaster(Part-3)