The Westside story –XII

We left Kribco township finding our way to Bharuch. We bypassed Surat, unlike last evening when we drove through the mad traffic at Surat

We headed to the ONGC chau-rastha and took a left on SH-168. This was the first good highway I drove on after entring Gujrat.
It was slightly chilly and misty in parts but it became warmer as soon as the sun was a little higher up.
We headed on to SH-6, following signboards and asking for directions to Bharuch. We were running really low on fuel and we could find any pumps on this strech for quite a while. We crossed Olpad and headed on to Kim using NH-224.Managed to find a pump after a not-so-good road. (Was kind of like the Gaganbavda-Kohlapur strech we did)

Took a left for Ankleswar (SH-65) and reached Ankelswhar at 0900hrs, 74 Kms after we left Kribco Township, Surat.

We headed on to cross the Naramda river (SH-64). It was completed in 1870-it’s a narrow 1.5 lane bridge (used as two lane bridge J heheh)

We reached Bharuch around 0945 hrs -83.1 Kms from Kitco.

Bharuch had a “majestic fort on a small hill” overlooking the Narmada river-atleast that’s what we read.
Enter Bharuch and people don’t know of any fort…..Hmm…..Not good.
So we took directions to the Jama masjid instead, which was the only other place mentioned in our guide book

It was easier to get to Jama Masjid, because atleast SOME people had heard of it. Driving through the narrow lanes of Bharuch we were suddenly climbing a small hill…..but there was no fort.

We reached the Jama Masjid, built in the 15th Century. It is a beautiful masjd built of stone and has fine intricate carvings- but saldy photography was not allowed.

We spent some time there, and spoke to a family who lived next door about the fort. They too,were clueless and we decided to give up and head to the next place on our list – Champaner.

On the way back from Bharuch, we made our first traffic violation for the trip. Apparently in Gujrat, all three and four wheelers are to have an anti glare sticker on the right headlamp. We tried to reason with the policewala but to no avail. So we decided it was best to pay the fine of Rs. 100.

We stopped over to have breakfast at “Thakur Restaurant” in Bharuch town which by the way wasn’t such a great decision considering the hygiene of the place.

We had no other choice but to go there as most of the other restaurants in town are not open for breakfast and it was too early to have lunch. We then continued on our way towards Baroda via Champaner and Pavagadh. We hit NH-8 at 1135 hrs which is around 7 kms from Bharuch.

We continued on NH-8 for another 80 kms and took a right turn towards Champaner and Pavagadh at 1340 hrs on to SH-87 which is an expressway. JJ took over the wheel from here and after a 33 km drive we reached Halol from where we took a right onto SH-5 towards Champaner which is 7 kms away.

Pavagadh is the hill and at the base of the hill lies Champaner, both of which are unesco world heritage sites. Champaner was the capital city of Gujarat when Chauhan-Rajputs were at the throne. There is quite a disturbing story about this place. When Champaner was taken over by a Sultan Mahmood Begara, the Rajputs committed jauhar, a ritual mass suicide in the face of defeat. We had lunch at Hotel Hansraj, which serves authentic Punjabi and Gujrati disheez ( the semblance with disease wasn’t enough to dissuade us from having lunch there, which was not bad) The after effects though were felt the next day in Ahmedabad when Lee started doing what looked like Bhangra steps inside the car.

We took a cable car a.k.a “Udan Khatola” to the top of the hill where a 11th century ruins of a jain temple called the LakuLesha and a relatively newer temple of goddess Kali are present. We decide to give the Kali temple a skip as the udan khatola is not available after 5:00 PM. We dashed out to see the Lakulesha temple which is in the centre of a tiny water tank. This temple is very small compared to the others that we have been to on the trip.

We took a look from the outside and darted back to catch the Udan Khatola. On the way back brave duo, that’s Lee and Danish were much comfortable than what they were on the way up to the hill, holding hands and saying their prayers and self assuring that “nothing is going to happen” and “its not that bad” and “theres a net below” and the likes.. :-P J

Anywho, We had a self imposed deadline of 1800 hrs to leave Pavagadh and as usual, we didn’t stick to it coz by the time we were back from the hill, it was well past 1800. We then went inside the fortress at the base of the hill, which encompasses a couple of villages. Apart from the imposing entrance to the fort, a beautiful mosque called Sahar ki Masjid, with its beautiful minarets and lush green lawns is a sight to behold. Though it is architecturally similar to the mosque in Bharuch, this one is a much bigger mosque and much better maintained, obviously due to its world heritage site status. We proceeded to take a look at the Jama-Masjid which is even bigger than the Sahar ki masjid and more beautiful. We tried to find the Kewda masjid and the Nagina masjid which we were told are situated in a wooded area. Since we were already getting late and we had to reach Ahmedabad for dinner, we bid our goodbye’s to Champaner and Pavagadh.

We traced the same route on the way back to hit the NH-8 and then the amazing Mahatma Gandhi expressway at 1933 hrs. We were consistently clocking 110-115 kmph and the 90 odd km drive seemed really short. We spotted a Maruti Swift behind a police vehicle which had the emergency lights on and both travelling at exactly 100 kmph, the speed limit on the Expressway. The law abiding citizens that we are, we decided not to overtake both vehicles and we too lifted our foot off the accelerator a little to go at 100 kmph behind the Swift. J Apparently the Swift was waiting for us to overtake the police vehicle and if we didn’t get pulled over for over speeding, he too would follow suit which by the way, was exactly what we were hoping for with a slight reversal of roles. J :-P The cat and mouse game continued for another 5 minutes or so before coming to an end by an Indigo that zipped past all three of us at way over the speed limit. J We thought an hot pursuit would ensue when the police vehicle started pickin up speed but that did not last long as the police vehicle went back to its original speed. This made us a little more brave and we overtook the police vehicle finally.

We took a left off the expressway towards Gandhinagar at 2025 hrs. We reached the gandhinagar toll plaza at 2030 hrs and just when we started to feel lost, we met two uncle jis in a white Indica, who volunteered to show us the way to airport. Oh, and by the way one of them bore an uncanny resemblance to Narendra Modi and the other to Sahib Singh Verma :)
After driving for about 24 kms, We took a right at the airport circle to reach Hanuman Camp at 2145 hrs which was the place that we were going to stay at for the next two days. We were hungry as wolves when we got there and decided to dig into dinner and we had to go pick up Sam from the airport who by the way took took double the time than we did to reach Ahmedabad though he was on the same expressway 30 minutes before us but on a bus.. :)

We sat and chit-chatted for a bit and then taught our anonymous travellers a game how to play Kothpeece and finally called it a day around 0300hrs!!! ----Not good !!! :)

(--By Anonymous traveller 2) :)