Advertisement
Published: November 15th 2018
We’re kept awake till midnight or so by the wedding guests heading in and out of each other’s rooms, noisily, but eventually they all head off to the wedding and we’re able to sleep at last. It’s no surprise there are very few people at breakfast next morning at 7.30!
The satnav tells us it will be a five hour drive to Diu, but in the end it takes six. The quality of the roads slowly but surely deteriorates as we head deeper into the countryside. The two lane highway turns to one lane each way, then the roads narrow, and eventually the smooth tarmac breaks up. At times our average speed drops to just over 20mph.We pass through a series of small dusty towns where we crawl through traffic. To either side of the tarmac road is four metres or so of hard packed soil, generally covered in trash and behind that are little one room shops with open fronts. In some places one side is full of stalls selling fruit and veg. In one town the fruit market is in the dry river bed, which is awash with discarded plastic. This is not a new problem but we
notice it all the more this year.
We stop briefly for a cup of chai, at a small roadside cafe selected by Mr Singh. What was not clear from the road is that the side of the cafe houses a urinal (or maybe the side of the cafe was the urinal?), the smell of which when the breeze stirs does nothing to enhance the chai. In front of us is a large earthenware jar, a metre or more tall, with a small red spout at the base. This turns out to be the village water supply, with people coming to top up water bottles or just take a drink from what seems to be a communal steel cup.
David snatches a few photos of people as we drive along, but there is nothing much to detain us. On the way Mr Singh points out the various crops growing; here it is rice and cotton, then it is peppers, then cotton and cauliflowers. As we approach Diu, we drive past shallow inland lakes which are home to a surprising variety of birds, and stop repeatedly to take photos. There are cranes, flamingos, some black and white kingfishers and
many other birds we cannot identify. Mr Singh even points out some wild blue cattle in the very far distance. His eyesight is clearly better than ours!
As we enter Diu, we have to stop so Mr Singh can pay for a permit to enter the state. The fact that Daman and Diu, despite being tiny, is a separate state is good news for us, as it does not have the prohibition on alcohol that Gujarat does. Mr Singh finds us a very economical liquor store in no time, and we start to stock up for our return to Gujarat! The boys serving in the store announce proudly that they are off in the New Year to visit their relatives in Leicester, and offer us a bite of their cake. Diu looks very different to everywhere else we’ve been. The buildings are brightly painted, and everything is clearly signposted. It reflects its colonial past, when it was under the Portuguese in the 16
th century, and has a cheerful seaside feel. We head towards Nagoa beach, and realise the massive downside of being here over the Diwali holiday. The beach is almost as crowded as Benidorm, but a lot dirtier,
and the narrow road is no match for the volume of traffic. The last kilometre takes a good ten minutes as we squeeze our way painfully through the crush. Our hotel is the last one on the beach, which should mean it’s a bit quieter, but that doesn’t seem to be much help. Our room does indeed have a seaview, but the car park – with its complement of cars hooting each other and people shouting – is between us and the sea. The same is true of all the other hotels we’ve seen, but it’s still something of a disappointment. There are no hotel chairs or loungers on the beach, and it is overrun, so we settle into the chairs on our shaded balcony instead.
At 5.00 we go for a walk along the beach front. It’s probably the worst beach we’ve ever seen. There are a lot of people but that’s not the problem. The beach is absolutely covered in rubbish – mostly plastic, but also paper and food. In places it has been cleared but then left in big piles that sit stinking and uncollected. There is sand, but as you get closer to the water
it seems to have hardened into shapes that look like black outcrops of rock but actually appear to be compacted sand. We retreat to the road, which is no better. The crush of cars trying to pass each other has reduced slightly, but you still have to pay close attention to what might run you over next while not walking into the detritus from the roadside stalls selling soft drinks and grilled sweetcorn.
We retreat gratefully back to the hotel and enjoy our first beer for over a week before heading to dinner. A party of 12 adults and 16 children is already settled in, but we’re served quickly and the food is some of the tastiest we’ve had all holiday. All for £10.
Scroll down for more photos.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.057s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 17; qc: 25; dbt: 0.0254s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Keep Smiling
Mike Fossey
I was looking forward to Diu...
...until I read your observations about the rubbish. It's still a problem throughout the country of course but it does seem particularly bad here. Maybe they'll clear it up after Diwali (or maybe not!).