Blogs from Gujarat, India, Asia - page 24

Mumbai to Hodko Oh my, what an incredible adventure I found myself enjoying back on the Christmas holidays! Deserts and a camel trek and tiny, traditional villages where ancient handicrafts and traditional ways of life are still practiced. Not to mention bicycling through several of the National Parks of India. But how very crazy these weeks since have been! In January I managed to scramble through two weeks of teaching before taking a group of 29 students on a week long trip to The Hague in Holland for the Model United Nations Conference. Then I went back to school to teach for three days before taking 21 students on a 5 day trip to our regional music festival in Kathmandu, Nepal. Now, I've been back to teaching less than two weeks and finally finding things settled, ... read more

Chamba is a chilled out town, a mixture of old colonial and concrete buildings, perched on the side of the valley above the Ravi River, snaked by roads weaving there way up the mountain side. It has a pleasant mountain air but a slightly shabby smelly run down feel, and on first sight doesn't offer much but if you poke around it's amazing what you discover. During the day I spent time wandering through the back streets and got a good slice of town life, school children buzzing about, people shopping (there are whole shops dedicated to sequins and baubles) washing, praying. I did freak myself out slightly when I took the odd turn down a road that turned into an alley but I normally found a pleasant surprise at the end - evidence of Chamba’s ... read more

We've made our way off the beaten track into the state of Gujarat. After travelling on the trains for 22 hours we've arrived in Junagadh, a quaint town of about 170,000 people (small for India). So far we're quite popular here, not many westerners, everyone says hello and if they don't know any english they prefer to stare and smile. Overall though, Gujarat people speak quite good english and Jarrod is currently engaged in a facinating conversation with some Indian teenaged boys about American football, hockey, cost of land, population, and many other topics... Uperkot Fort We've seen most of the forts through Rajasthan and I wasn't too keen to see another, but the fort here in Junagadh is the best yet. Uperkot Fort was built about 320BC and aparantly been taken over many times. It ... read more

2006………6wks-4th CYCLING TRIP-Gujarat & Southern Rajasthan, INDIA........... I’m on the balcony of my double room that has an expansive view down across the Gujarat plain. I’m about half way up the Pavagadh hill at what would be about the height of Mt Lofty. The volcanic hill appears out of no where from the plain. I am here to see another world heritage site, the former 8C Chauhan Rajput Capital which was later developed between 15C & 16C by Sultan Begara. A 6Km wall was noted for its impregnability and strategic positioning but was overthrown by the Moguls and went into decline after 1535. Significant parts of the wall at the base of the hill are still in tact and enclose the existing Champaner village, which I can see way below from my balcony. I enjoyed going ... read more

Our original plan had been to take a Friday evening train out of Udaipur, arrive Ahmedabad at 4:35am, Saturday morning, visit all day; and depart for Mumbai at 10:35pm. Once we took a close look at this schedule, as we dined overlooking Lake Pichola, we knew this was a plan, like most plans, made to be changed. Thinking travelers do not show-up, at strange railway stations, at 4:35am, anywhere; pretty elementary. Instead, we hired a car and driver for a leisurely Friday excursion, through the dusky valleys of the brooding Aravalli Hills, on whose sloping sides grow miles of cactus thorns, serving as impediments to herds roaming the semi-arid land. In time, we broke free of the stony hills into more verdant pastures in eastern Gujarat, traveling a dual carriageway we shared with standing-room-only auto rickshaws, ... read more