Saturday December 6 - Gondal to Bhuj

We needed to be on the road by 6:30 am. The hotel staff had breakfast and coffee ready for us at 6:15 and we were on our way soon. This was a very pleasant and pampered stat here indeed.

Things appear to go downhill pretty soon starting with a train breaking down at the crossing and having to take a long detour. In spite of this we made very good time and the roads were very good. We reached Gondal ahead of time and decided to proceed on another 45 mins or so to check into our lodging for the night, the Kutch Safari Camp.

The entrance to the premises looked shabby and unkempt but this was only the beginning. We were told that there was no reservation in our name, we called our ever helpful driver Jagdish. He called the office and after much discussion with front desk, it appeared that the resort had dropped the ball and we were finally given a cottage. The cottages, Were modernized version of the traditional mud hut, called Bhunga.

Our Bhunga was the last one on the lower level, it was a long walk on ill maintained steps and bad gradients. The whole property is like that, the location is gorgeous, situated next to the Rudramata dam, but the huts were ill maintained and the geyser(hot water heater) didn't work.














Both lunch and dinner were late, food bland, service bad. We weren't even asked if we wanted any water. So we were glad we were only spending one night here.

On the bright side, the 3 items that we came to see didn't disappoint us. The first was he village where traditional mirror work is done, it was very impressive and the people wonderful.









The second was the White Rann, this a vast salt bed that one could walk on or ride a camel or horse into it. We decided to walk someways, it's firm and not hard to walk, I picked some up and they were salt crystal much like coarse rock salt.

The Rann Festival was going on and there were border security forces everywhere. A hospital was being inaugurated by the Chief Minister of Gujarat, who flew in by helicopter from the capital Gandhinagar. This made the security tighter yet.

This is a very high security area to begin with, due to its proximity to the border, and permits are required for entering the area.

The third was Karo Dunga (Black Hill), from the top of which there is a great view of the Rann as well as the lights of Pakistan, which is on the other side of the Rann.

One very important phenomenon, on the way to the top there is a stretch of road that "pulls or pushes" the cars, due to a magnetic field possibly created by the magnetite in the earth's crust.

An excellent and intriguing day of sight seeing, so we decided to try and ignore the condition and food back at the Kutch Safari Lodge and went to bad early, glad it was just for one night.