Road Trip: Gujarat

Road trip to Gujarat

Tags: Travel Gujarat RoadTrip

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Road Trip to Gujarat

Total 12 Days of unplanned road trip to Gujarat driving ~3000 km. Along with pilgriming many religious places, seen a few museums, a science center, many historical places, a palace, a jungle safari, visiting a milk product factory and finally shopping at a wholesale textile market.

The experience was awesome and I recommend it for all; especially to Maharashtra’s politicians and leaders.

Day 1

• Pune to Nandigam: 300 km
  • Started late from Pune 1500; unplanned trips have starting problems ;)

Day 2

• Shri Simandharswami Jain Tirth - Nandigram
• Nandigam to Chotila: 500 km
  • A forced stop because a tyre burst; under construction a new road has it’s own problem. Spare tyres (Stepney) these days are smaller and have speed restrictions. So we stopped at the nearest town.

Day 3

• Chotila has a Chotila Mata Temple but it’s a climb of an hour.
• Chotila to Rajkot: 50 km
  • Got a new tyre
  • Rajkot city exploration
• Rajkot to Dwarka: 230 km

Day 4

• Dwarkeshwar Temple/Mandir
  • It was a different experience to attend the Kakad Aarti at 0600 at the temple. Unlike Hindu temples here in Maharashtra, there was no oil, camphor and coconuts hence the temple was much clean.
• Bet Dwarka
  • 35 Km from Dwarka
  • Its on an island and ferry takes ~ 15/20 mins. Temple is not well maintained but the ferry ride was fun especially because of the accompanying flock of white seagulls.
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Day 5

• Nageshvara Jyotirling
  • Just 21 km from Dwarka
  • Mahadev temple; one of the 12 jyotirling in India.
  • Pigeon holes outside the computer science theory are more lively.
• Rukmini Mandir
• Dwarka to Jungadh: 230 km

Day 6

• Girnar Parvat
  • Its the highest peak of Gujarat.
  • Thanks to the new rope way; highest/longest in India we could skip the half the distance.
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  • There are further 5k+ steps to reach https://goo.gl/maps/95SnLSpKSaxiTo5m7 roughly 2.5-3 hours climb & descent.
• The tomb of Mahabat Khan was closed for maintenance so we couldn’t see it from inside.
• Junagadh to Somnath: 100 km

Day 7

• Somnath Mandir
  • Its believed to be the first among the twelve Jyotirling in India.
  • The temple has long history of multiple reconstructions after each destruction by Muslim invaders. The current temple is reconstructed in 1951.
  • The Somnath temple signifies that the power of reconstruction is always greater than the power of destruction – Rajendra Prasad 1st president of India. Ref
  • Its one of the cleanest and well maintained Hindu temple I have ever visited to.
• There are 5/6 old small temples/places at Somnath which would take ~ 2 hours.
• Somnath to Gir/Sasan: 70 km

Day 8

• Gir/Sasan national park
  • Because trip was not planned couldn’t get Sasan Jungle Safari tickets as they were fully booked. Anyways in reality there is no designated area for tourist in national park. Devlia, instead, is a interpretation zone. Its 15 km from Sasan and has Lions, Leopards, Deers and Nilgai.
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• Gir to Junagadh: 76 km ~ 2hr
• Swaminarayn Mandir, Junagadh
• Gir to Ahmedabad: 336 km

Day 9

• ISKCON Temple
• Science City
  • Spent half day here. Aquarium is the worth the visit and time.
• Akshardham
  • At Gandhinagar: 35km / ~1hr
  • Evening laser show is must see

Day10

• Sabarmati Aashram
  • No time will be enough to go through museum, reading material or seeing Aashram’s artifacts of Gandhi’s era. Further more it has a Khadi and books & souvenir shop too.
• Bai Harir Vav
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  • Its a huge; 5 story deep step well with two spiral staircases
• Ahmedabad to Anand: 80 km
  • The Kaira District Co-operative; who owns the brand Amul
  • Butter factory visit
• Anand to Baroda: 50 km

Day11

• Laxmi Vilas Palace
  • The largest private dwelling built until that time.
  • 500 acre, Golf course, 120+ rooms and uncountable, precious & rare art collection from paintings to scriptures to glass works to weapons.
• Baroda to Statue of Unity (SoU): 100 km
  • World’s tallest statue: 182 meter
  • Massive 2700 CR INR project funded by gvmt of Gujarat
• Sou to Ankleshwar: 90km ~ 2.5 hrs - Ghat

Day12

• Ankleshwar to Surat: 70 km
• Sahara Darwaza
  • This was the last stop of the trip; a wholesale textile market. Surat is largest manufacturer of clothes.
  • Huge market with agents all over the roads looking for the customers. These agents have fix commissions per month from multiple shops. Unlike normal cloth shop where one can find different types of clothes with few variety, the markets have dedicated shops of specific types. Besides variety, prices are much less and it gives a clear idea on how much retailers would be making on each individual sale.
• Surat to Pune: 500 km
  • Reached home by 2200

The Real Thumping Machine

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Tags: Travel Gujarat RoadTrip
Updated on: 2021-11-25