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Published: October 9th 2006
2006………6wks-4th CYCLING TRIP-Gujarat & Southern Rajasthan, INDIA...........
I got the 6am bus to Bhuj in Kutch, back in Gujarat. I had wanted to ride down the 27km to the plain from My Abu but the local hotel owner suggested that the express bus to Palanpur to change for Bhuj was the best. As it turned out, the connection I wanted wasn’t possible and I had to go via Ahmedabad. The bus to Bhuj was going to be 12hrs getting in after midnight and the train wasn’t operating. I ended getting a hotel for a few hours and getting the overnight bus to Bhuj. The bus is high and has actual sleepers up top- they are pretty narrow but its amazing the difference lying down can make to being able to get a decent sleep.
Gee India can be frustrating sometimes for the simplest things! …like getting breakfast. I am at the Gangara, Hotel in Bhuj and while the owner is helpful and charming, when he is not there the ‘boys’ have limited ability to assist even though they are running the place. It takes 5 mins to find the menu, ordering off the menu doesn’t work as it is in
English and they can’t speak English let alone read it. The ‘boy’ makes a phone call to ? and I find I am talking to an older woman *(owner’s wife?). I tell her I want cornflakes with milk. She tells the ‘boy’ & I hear him say “cunflacks” and now he knows what I want. I sit down on the balcony overlooking the old palace near my room & he comes up & says “Cunflacks- no”.
Well I must say that Bhuj has been a major disappointment on the Navratri celebrations. I had timed my arrival here to coincide with the 7th night of the celebrations as I had read that this is when it culminates and is particularly celebrated in Gujarat and in Kutch- but nothing. A few lights, blaring music and a few people standing around. It appears that if anything does happen it’s after 11pm. It may be that there is less to celebrate here since the earthquake of 2001 which has dampened spirits and disintegrated the community, many of which have been relocated. Some 10% of their 150,000 population was killed. Their rich cultural heritage was lost and damaged.
The Prag Mahal, the new
palace in Bhuj, is described in Lonely Planet as being in “a forlorn state, damaged by the earthquake and is dusty, but is worth visiting for its ghostly exuberant Durbar Hall with broken chandeliers and gold skirted classical statues that wouldn’t look out of place on podiums in a gay nightclub”. The building built in mid 19C was never actually lived in, was designed by an Italian and appears incongruous in its setting. Its clock tower, gargoyles and red brick make it appear straight out of Europe and not like a palace at all. It would have been quite spectacular in its time and now is suffering from earthquakes, neglect and resident pigeons. It is still spectacular in its decay with its huge Durbar Hall, wall and ceiling paintings, its stuffed animals from hunting trips which are gradually falling to pieces. It is right next to the Aina Mahal which the Maharao continued to live in. Built in 1752, it is in a sorry state with subsequent earthquakes, having lost its top floor. It now houses many of the pieces of the Maharao, including his gold-legged bed in a mirrored room. The room is now quite dark as the mirrors
have turned dark with age.
The great grandson of the Maharao is a friend of the warm, helpful hotel owner. He speaks fluent excellent English due to his education in a public school set up y the British for Princes- along the lines of Eton etc. He had been to the Juna Mahal in Dungapur, where I went earlier, as a child when it was still lived in. He is the youngest grandson and so it is his brother that is the present Maharao in effect, although the position is no longer officially recognized. He considered that Prag Mahl to be inappropriate in size for no land and is concerned for the buildings and contents which are under constant threat from further earthquake damage. He believes that the Government and Trust are not doing enough for its preservation.
I am sitting on top of the roof of the monastery at Than where I am staying the night. It’s about 5.30pm or so and the sun has given some relief at last by going behind the hill. Green parrots, wild peacocks and other birds call out and echo across the plain from the hill that forms Than. Copper bells
ring out quietly as cattle move about. The calls of peacocks are loud, echoing and eerie. I have just returned from a 90min walk to a temple at the highest point here through prickly, rocky and barren hills, largely along a stony river bed prior to a steep climb. There appears to be about 5 men who live here- only one as a monk. There are no other tourists here. It is like being in an isolated building compound in the Flinders Ranges.
My ‘bedroom’ is a very large empty room except for a pile of dubious looking mattresses. Dirty and dusty, they are stacked alongside one wall. There is no bathroom, just a tap from a tank outside. I have yet to find a toilet other than the one that is piled with shit in a squat toilet that appears to never have been flushed, let alone cleaned. I hope I don’t need to go. The monastery of several building appears to be a large empty shell.
One of the men is vomiting badly and having eaten dhal & chapatti here, sitting on the floor with several hundred flies. I hope I’m not next. Dinner, whatever it
Monk at Than enjoying the evening meal
He is part of the "Split Ears" order associated with Than. He has enormous wooden earrings! the room has no furniture. It does have three clocks though.is, doesn’t seem that appetizing! I have fruit and so may well play it safe. I saw one of the men climbing the electricity pole before and ‘playing’; with some wires so it will be interesting to see if we have lights tonight. I got here by taxi ($40) having heard that you could stay at the monastery. I could have caught a bus but I wanted to see some of the craft villages on the way. Kutch is famous for its concentration of crafts particularly its mirror work embroidery. It was a nice way to travel for a change and he spoke good English and knew the villagers. They had great fun seeing their photo on the camera and so everyone wanted to get in the act. There was a 3 day old baby there too that was freely passed around for everyone to hold. I said I would send photos to them, through the driver. I gave one woman 10rps, as suggested by the driver, as she was crippled with polio and it was an obviously impoverished village that has been set up with the support of the Irish Government.
Early morning, the next day…………………..
Well there
"Prime Minister" of Than
Postmaster, Caretaker, Cook (yes he cooked my dinner!)Cleaner (I don't think so!)Monastry Reception Officer etc. is electricity but not on my floor or room and so I have moved everything up to camp on the rooftop under the stars. The man vomiting is actually one of the three guests form the night here and has been drinking too much, despite Gujarat being a ‘dry’ state. I ended up having dhal and some other grain mixture with chapatti as it was freshly cooked and the kitchen seemed surprisingly organized looking through the window, although I did notice a mouse sneak, well brazen really, past us to go inside. You could say that the place needs a woman’s touch! There are three other guests for the night, two aged caretakers and one monk with huge wooden earrings. I read my book for a while in the only available light and helped a guest to read English. I then went up to my rooftop with its bright stars and surrounding peacocks crying out to each other in the amphitheatre of the hills. I put on some good jazz and danced with my shadow in the moonlight looking down at the white walls and temples of the monastery, the howling dogs and tinkling cows and reveled in being in
India. It got cold during the night with dew and I was up at sunrise to catch the 1 km away 8am bus. The bus got incredibly crowded, hot, bumpy and claustrophobic and it was a relief to get off 21km from Bhuj and cycle in the 37degree heat. I had intended going up to the northern villages from where I left the bus but couldn’t face another long stretch.
I caught a bus to the port of Mandvi to see the amazing wooden ship building yard. I was fortunate to be invited on board one being built and had fun taking photos of the workers until I got told off from stopping them working. It was a pleasant 8km ride out to the Maharao of Kuth’s summer palace, the Vijay Vilas Palace. The guide says it was built in the 1920’s but Lonely Planet says 19C. It is still used by I presume, the brother of the man I met in Bhuj. It is set on a very large estate wit its own private beach.
One of the ticket collectors (there is always at least 2-3 collectors- one to issue, one to check, another to check etc)
informed me that my back tyre had gone ‘hiss’. I chose to ignore the fact that it was a possible 8km walk ahead of me and went off to enjoy the palace. I didn’t have my puncture repair kit with me and pumping up the tyre got nowhere. The thorns on all the bushes here are vicious. One of the guys selling fresh coconut drinks left his cart and went home to get his repair kit to help me out. 5 people ended up helping as we attempted to get the patches to stick but to no avail due to the puncture prevention goo coming out of the tube. The coconut lad didn’t want any payment & so I bought a coconut drink as a thanks. One of the other guys offered (Indian hospitality is wonderful) to take me and Chinkara back to town to a cycle shop on his scooter. It was a bit tricky holding the cycle to one side. I ended up getting a new tube ($1.50 inc fitting). I’ll never get that puncture prevention goo again! The usual group of onlookers gathered and before I knew it I was invited to lunch of chapatti, vegetable masala
and salt lassi on the floor of a general store type shop. The five of us took up the whole of the tiny shop and it was strange as customers came up to purchase things. Sharing a meal is so much a part of the culture here. The others, in their early 20s, were friends of the shop owner and get together to share lunch each day.
I very much enjoyed riding out with my new pumped up tyre to the local beach to get some fresh sea air and a simple familiar view. Camels offered for rides formed an interesting foreground to the backdrop of a line of white wind turbines along the shore.
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AkaRoundPeg
non-member comment
Cornflakes in Bhuj?
Expecting Cornflakes in Bhuj is asking for too much dont you think? Would you get chapatis in a small remote village / town in America? Didn't you know English is not the native language of Indians? What do you expect, everybody to greet you in fluent English? Get real man and better still stay in your home country. We don't want cribbers like you in our country.