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Published: November 19th 2018
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We set off for Gondal. It is in total about four hours total driving. The road is rough out of the Sasan Gir greater area, but then the roads improve. We pass through a flat landscape, with mile and after mile of cotton fields and dusty townships. You do not come to Gujarat for the scenery, or for pretty villages, but that is true of much of India. We stop off in Junagadh. This is a town that in the Middle Ages was the seat of the Nawab of Junagadh, who owed his allegiance to the Sultan of Gujarat. The old town in incredibly densely packed, with lots of old and interesting buildings, but there is nowhere to stop and park to allow us to take photos. The traffic is carnage as we approach the Uparkot Fort. The fort is approached through a narrow medieval gateway, which has to be approached at a right angle. There is another right angle turn within the gate, all part of making life difficult for attackers in the past, which also makes it difficult for modern traffic. Mr Singh steers our Innova expertly into the gate and up the dark passageway through the 30 feet
thick walls. Much incense is burning in the passageway and fragrant smoke hangs thick along with exhaust fumes. Vendors are making their way up the road with bundles of goods to sell. We arrive at the disused mosque within the fort. It was converted into a mosque from a palace in the 15
thcentury, and has three octagonal openings which once were domed, and decorated columns. It is now home to people selling snacks and inviting you to pose with a model lion for money.
We visit the walls where they are accessible. There are a number of old Turkish naval cannon which were abandoned after battles with the Portuguese based in Diu in the mid 16
th century. We see the two stepwells which supplied water to the fort. We don’t descend to the bottom, we can see enough from part way down. We pass on the Buddhist caves; there is not much to see and it will just smell of bat shit, and with the temperate pushing 40C we are hot and bothered. Back to the car and out of the gate, through the heaving Sunday throng. India at its most manic.
The Mahabat Maqbara
is the mausoleum of the Nawab of Junagadh who died in 1882. It seems to bubble up into the sky. It is a fine examples of Euro-Indo-Islamic architecture, with French windows and Gothic columns, with minarets encircled by spiraling stairways. There is an adjacent mosque which is locked. Next to that is the old derelict Junagadh High School.
It’s only another hour’s drive to Gondal, where we are staying in the Orchard Palace. This is a heritage hotel, originally built in 1875 by the local Maharajah to house his guests. We are shown to a vast room, furnished in an eclectic 1930s English country house style. The furniture is mostly heavy dark wood, apart from the bedside tables which are ornately gilded, the curtains are flower print. There’s also a large dressing room and a massive bathroom with acres of empty space. There is a slightly bizarre variety of artwork on the walls, including a signed David Shepherd print of African bull elephants charging. We settle in happily, only to discover a big problem – mosquitoes. Having seen almost no mosquitoes all holiday, this room seems to be housing colonies of them. After killing 30 with our hands, we
give up and ask for fly spray. Two circuits of the room spraying vigorously and almost choking ourselves seem to do the trick, with well over 100 slain.
We wander into the grounds to visit the Maharajah’s collection of 30 vintage cars, and his private train carriage, complete with his bedroom, a room for the servants, dining room, kitchen and bathroom. There are photos on the wall of the then Maharajah greeting Lord Mountbatten outside his carriage, presumably when they were off on a jaunt somewhere, presumably in 1947 or thereabouts.
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