A Trip to Kutch…. Long awaited… Well Planned..
Day 3 was too awesome…. I had very little to drive but with to many stops… we visited around 7 temples. The best thing here was I was speaking in my mother tongue that is kutchi with anyone and everyone over there… Hindus, Muslims and even Pakistani refugees… lol.. it was a feeling of belongingness and brotherhood.. . we had nothing to do but visit temples and finally reach suthri as we had to stay there… Frm Bhuj we went to mata no madh , narayan sarovar, naliya, kothara and suthri… we reached suthri after lots of trouble of asking the roads etc… we reached there by 10:00 p.m. and again as always had lotsa fun in the night… we were the only guests in the whole building.. lol.. it was all ours.. :-p …. the main thing bout kutch is you need to reach your destination before 7:00 p.m. or else you don’t even find a single person who can guide you.. and even if you find they not gonna stop for you in such dark… L during my last visit to kutch we had stayed at the same place… infact same room J..
Day 5 : 26.01.2011 Mission Sankeshwar.. Kutch.. ( 300 kms.. )
Day 6 : 27.01.2011 mission vadodhra ( Baroda) Gujrat… 277 kms…
Day 8 : mission Pune… 250 kms only…
As soon as we got up we got ready had break fast and started for the temple by walk… we had our car near the room itself… one of the best jain temples in India… Manas Mandir, Mini Palitana… Great environment, peace, clouds touching the mountains and snakes all over… snakes specially cobras ,
This was a nutshell view of my ~Tour De Kutch~
This is a small story about my trip to kutch… beguns from day 1 till I return back… the best thing bout this waz I cud convince my dad to drop the idea of goin to kutch by train or by a travel agency’s car.. cos I wanted to drive the long distance of 4080 kms by myself.. well,, drivin is my passion… and after this trip to kutch I wud say driving on express ways is my biggest passion…lol.. thnx to L&T , IRB Infra for super cool metal roads…. I had taken a separate bag of mine which contained in it printouts of road maps of kutch & Mumbai, my charger, 3 cell phones ( which I hardly used ) .. my sony cybershot… and a bundle of 100 currency notes of 20 rupees to pay toll fees on toll roads.. lol…
Before I start,, I wud like to note down my rules of driving
- while driving on highways, do not over take anyone if u are driving in ghat section and do not let anyone overtake you if it’s a straight road. :-p
- Drive safely, have full control on your steering. Keep a regular watch on the mirrors.
- do not drive rash,,, you can and should always drive fast, but not rash, remember your family is waiting for you back home J
- avoid night driving, you may be perfect but the person over taking you might be drunk.. Remember you are not only risking your life but also life of other ppl who are traveling with you…
- last and very important , see that the person who sits besides you next to drivers seat is not a sleepy person… cos looking at him even u may feel asleep… lol..
Here I goooo…..
I got up early at around 4:00 a.m. noticed that I had heavy cold an was feeling bit uncomfortable… but I was very exited that i gotta drive now… Just got ready and made sure that I don’t feel sleepy… the other day I had an discussion in the evening walk with my family… my brother told me that it wud be a big thing if reach Mumbai ( 600 kms from my home ) by night… I had actually planned to reach Valsad (GUJRAT) ( 850 kms)
As discussed I had advised everyone to get started by 5 in the early morning…. The other reason was, I had got an text from my friend that Karnatak Bandh / Strike was declared on 22 so I wanted to be out of karnatak before sun rises.. That was wat we did…. At 5:05 a.m. we started frm our home…. Driving at night and early morning is fun as we do not have to drive slow cos of traffic.. dad was sitting next to me and one the very first hour he started complaing bout my speed… I was driving nearly @ 110 kmph towards belgaum…. I had to drive slow cos I had promised before that I wudnt cross 70kmph. Lol… by 7:00 we reached belgaum and I noticed that everyone was almost slept.. this was da time I was waiting for.. so that I cud get back to 110 kmph… lol… i got back to my speed of 110 frm belgaum.. we reached nipanni by 7:30 ( 150 kms frm Hubli and 50 frm belgaum ) I was now feeling hungry and woke up everyone… everyone was surprised that we reached nippani so soon..lol.. ( my wife urvashi was bit angry :-p ) we had our yummy brkfast and started towards Mumbai at 8:30 ( My bro’s fav place on EARTH ). Dad was now a bit confident about my driving and allowed me to drive at
100 kmph… I had planned to reach Mumbai by 2:00 p.m. which was still around 450 kms away.. I wanted to reach Mumbai as soon as possible.. not cos I had challenged my bro but to make sure that I don’t have to drive till late night to reach gujrat… We touched Mumbai exactly at 2:00 p.m. via Mumbai pune Xpressway… awesome highway were my minimum and maximum speed was TOPSPEEd… 120 KMPH….
Wat a jolly ride of 150 kms it was… the meter in the cars dashboard was then rotating just like electricity meter.. lol… My bro was really surprised when I called him from Mumbai… lol.. I was now sure to reach valsad, Gujrat by 7 as it was only 250 kms ahead… Now I had started using my Google Maps in my Nokia for directions as Mumbai is just like a confusing network of interconnecting pathways….. Mumbaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii….. Heavly crowded… Lifes fast over here… vehicles touch and hit each other every moment… but I had challenged myself that none of the vehicles would touch ours nor I will drive so rash and lose control… I was amazed to see that all the cars and bikes on roads had super duper dents on them… lol… I was warned several times by many that it would be very hard to drive in Mumbai as I was driving there for the first time…. Every warning in this regard was just like a new challenge for me… and above that I had showed off to my bro saying “ kya tera Mumbai… aaraam se paar karlunga… lol…
Wat a jolly ride of 150 kms it was… the meter in the cars dashboard was then rotating just like electricity meter.. lol… My bro was really surprised when I called him from Mumbai… lol.. I was now sure to reach valsad, Gujrat by 7 as it was only 250 kms ahead… Now I had started using my Google Maps in my Nokia for directions as Mumbai is just like a confusing network of interconnecting pathways….. Mumbaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii….. Heavly crowded… Lifes fast over here… vehicles touch and hit each other every moment… but I had challenged myself that none of the vehicles would touch ours nor I will drive so rash and lose control… I was amazed to see that all the cars and bikes on roads had super duper dents on them… lol… I was warned several times by many that it would be very hard to drive in Mumbai as I was driving there for the first time…. Every warning in this regard was just like a new challenge for me… and above that I had showed off to my bro saying “ kya tera Mumbai… aaraam se paar karlunga… lol… Further,,, we reached chembur, Mumbai at 2 but cudnt leave Mumbai before 6 cos of heavy traffic…. Lol… I still had to drive 250 kms from here… dad , mom and urvashi were frequently telling me not to drive in the night and stop at some lodge on the way… but I wanted to reach valsad any how cos even next day I had to drive another 800 kms to reach BHUJ… I cudnt drive much faster as it was dark and moreover from Mumbai to valsad highways are full of trucks… I don’t know why the hell this truck drivers need dynamo lights…. First of all they have high beam in there normal headlights which they never dim down and on over that they use heavy dynamo focus lights… shit man… even though the roads were super cool I cudnt drive above 80 kmph… finally we reached valsaad at 10:05 p.m. exactly 17 hours of driving…. Lol… I was so happy but was shivering of cold…. I was really not tired of driving… we had our dinner by 10:30 and slept off to end the day by 11:30… another thing I would neve forget is I and my dad teased my mom n urvashi every night wen we go to sleep… we laughed so much enjoyed every moment spent but missed bijoy tooo… L L L
Day 2… 23rd of jan ’11… Mission Bhuj :-p ( 800 kms from Valsad )
Because of the fun we did last night we were unable to sleep early and slept only after 12:30… lol I had to start the 2nd day by 5:00 a.m. but the funniest thing happened was we all woke up only after 7 :30… lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol…… “WTF” I said to myself… we rushed, we jumped out from bed, got ready, had brkfast by 8:30 and Started for BHUJ by 9 :00… we were 4 hours late on the start itself… :-p lol… I managed to make my dad sit in the back seat of my car as I knew I had to drive faster cos we were late.. now Urvashi was sitting net to me.. I got some funny calculation in my mind… I felt that if I drive at 100 kmph I wud reach bhuj in max 10 hours… i.e. by 7:00 p.m. I started on the highway which was soooooo straight without curves and turns… we cud clearly see nearly 10 kms ahead us… as we started I noticed that there was heavy traffic of trucks in this 6 lane road…. Nearly 100 hundred trucks in a single kilometer… the first thing happened after I noticed the traffic was : my calculation of 10 hours was now laughing out loudly at me… I cudnt even cross a speed of 50 kmph… I stopped the car and asked the reason of such heavy traffic to a truck driver… he said “ sir yaha aagey surat me solid factoryaan hain… vahan tak traafic esa ich rahega… ( Means :- till surat m gonna face this traffic as surat has many factories… ) yup,, its true surat has many textile, chemical and fertilizer factories… it took 3 big hours for me to cut this 100 kms… it was already 12:00 p.m. and I was still in surat I still had 700 kms… I got back at a speed of 100kmph and reached vadodhra ( BARODA) by 1:30 p.m., had lunch and left by 3:00p.m. I was now exited cos 5 kms ahead we had another expressway where I wud get to drive super fast without much traffic… its named as INDHIRA GANDHI EXPRESSWAY ( well known as vadodhra- ahmedabaad expressway) . I paid Rs.240 as toll fees at the start , tightened my seat belt and started driving…. It took 30 seconds for my car to catch the speed of 120 kmph… lol…. I had full control on my steering and also had my google maps navigator on using GPS…. Cos I had to leave the xpressway in between, 30 kms before ahmedabad…. I got another funny feeling that If i go via ahmedabad I wud be able to see the ROADIES 8 Ahmbd. Auditions…. lol…. My wife , urvashi , was going through maps and shouted sunndenlly…. STOOOOPPPPPP !!! I cudnt,,, cos it was an expressway and sign boards were displayed on roads saying “ DO NOT STOP ON EXPRESSWAY, SPEED AND SAFETY IS OUR MOTTO” above that if I dare to stop on that lane I have 100 cars just before us,,, chasing us at the same high speed… I just changed my lane and got into a lane were slow vehicles who drive at speed of 80 are allowed… I noticed that all the cars which I raced in last half hour were now racing me with a wrrrrrrroooooommmmm kind of vocal sound… a Honda city just passed like an rocket… may be it was at a speed of 170kmph.. Urvashi said, we need to take off this road at Nadiad… which was almost arrived… I had no plans bout turning at nadiad or any other place as my google maps never showed such routes… I refused… she said “ atleast watch my map once…” I refused again…. She got angry and said me that m taking the wrong way and that it would increase 150 kms… i said “ lol… chill maar.. I am sure bout my google maps and will make sure that we are not on wrong way…” she was still angry.. :-p and I slowly came back from 80 kmph to 120kmph and was back on the fast track lane.. I then raced back all those cars again in 15-20 mins except that white Honda city… he must have reached ahmdabad/… lol.. finally took a turn at saarkhej… 30 kms before ahmedabaad… it was already 4 :00 p.m. I was happy to notice that I covered 123 kms in an hour… thnx to L&T,,, Narendra Modi Rocksss……. I still had to cover 350 odd kms to reach Bhuj..
We started off with a small break of 10 mins and at that time I worked out on my maps to make sure that I don’t miss any highways and enter a state highway or a city… we reached sanandi by 5:00 p.m…. filled my cars fuel tank to full.. to my badluck the NH50 itself wasn’t a single road… we had vehicles coming against us on the same road and without a road divided in between… the whole road was under construction.. and again I could drive only around 50 kmph… after a lot of slow and bored driving we managed to reah bhuj by 10:30 p.m. I had a cup of tea to freshen up and started again.. now I was on a single road highway ( one way ) and felt happy for that.. I still had to drive 150 kms to reach bhuj. And finally reached Bhuj at 12:30 a.m. exactly…. No dinner on that day… lol.. sorry mom , dad & urvashi… I really forgot to stop for dinner.. finally ended the day again with lotsa fun and slept by 2:00 a.m.
Day 3: 24.01.2010 Mission : Temples of kutch and Suthri…. Just 350 kms…
Day 3 was too awesome…. I had very little to drive but with to many stops… we visited around 7 temples. The best thing here was I was speaking in my mother tongue that is kutchi with anyone and everyone over there… Hindus, Muslims and even Pakistani refugees… lol.. it was a feeling of belongingness and brotherhood.. . we had nothing to do but visit temples and finally reach suthri as we had to stay there… Frm Bhuj we went to mata no madh , narayan sarovar, naliya, kothara and suthri… we reached suthri after lots of trouble of asking the roads etc… we reached there by 10:00 p.m. and again as always had lotsa fun in the night… we were the only guests in the whole building.. lol.. it was all ours.. :-p …. the main thing bout kutch is you need to reach your destination before 7:00 p.m. or else you don’t even find a single person who can guide you.. and even if you find they not gonna stop for you in such dark… L during my last visit to kutch we had stayed at the same place… infact same room J.. Day 4 : 25.01.2010, Mission Bhadreshwar ( Kutch )- again just 300 kms..
Early morning around 6:00 a.m. the first thing I saw was migration of birds… wow… millions of birds in a single line just changing the place of there living.. I shooted a clip of few mins on the birds…. We had to move to Sayera… My kutch native… as we had to perform a small pooja formality in sayera… we left sayera and reached Mandvi J…. by 1:00 p.m. we were at Mandvi beach..
Also known as madai beach… Pakistan is just 50 kms away from here… the other side of the beach was Pakistan… and roadways also connected Pakistan with India. BEACH OF MANDVI……… one of the coolest places in India… silence with fun… I and my dad had a camel ride on that beach… it was fun… we ate my moms favourite ICE GOLA on that beach… soon after the short fun of 30 mins we left for Mundra… where my mom had to do shopping stuff… it was some 50 kms… we reached mundra via NH 8A… 
we saw a truck which was fully upside down.. lol.. Mundra has a port… Mundra port.. well known as it belongs to Adani Enterprises… one of the well managed companies of India… naturally there was again hell lot of truck traffic on the way but the roads were awesome… we reached mundra by 5:00p.m. and then mom,dad n urvashi left me alone for shopping… I wanted to take rest so I stayed back.. but I cudnt take rest… I mixed up with a group of small boys who were playin Gilli Daanda…. One of the best regional homegames of rural India… it was fun as all those small muslim boys were speaking kutchi… I had a fun and never knew how time passed… soon I realized that I still had to drive around 30 kms and it was already 9:00 p.m…… I called my mom and said to rush back so that we cud reach Bhadreshwar as soon as possible… I was surprised when I saw that my mom and wife had purchased 15 - 20 sarees and dress material… lol I cud never think that the number wud be so big… lol.. doubling up my speed I started driving towards bhadreshawar… it was already tooooooo dark… we cudnt find anybody on roads… and even single vehicle passed us only after 10 mins.. I wondered weder the road was correct… I had to switch my google maps on… they worked super fine… finally we reached bhadreshwar by 11:30.. we had entered the city but we still had to find a temple… kutch cities have no lodges… we have dharamshalas.. we tried to stop few vehicles but cos of fear none stopped… we were completely blank… my maps showed that we were in bhadreshwar but we never knew bout the way to temple.. we made a wrong entry into a colony werein we found around 25-30 dangerous dogs…. Shit man,,, wat an experience it was.. none of dared to get outta car… I somehow dared and got out of my car with a stone in my hand for safety purpose… there was just a single street light I had to keep my cars light on to show the muddy road… dogs started to roar against me wen I was some 50 meters away from my car… I found noone and felt it better to slowly walk back to my car.. finally we stopped a truck.. he guided us a bit and finally we reached the temple… it was past 12:10…. Lol… the first plan we had bout the whole trip was not to drive after 7:00 p.m. and this was the third continuous day we had to drive till late night… we had dinner late night at 12:30 and slept off…
Also known as madai beach… Pakistan is just 50 kms away from here… the other side of the beach was Pakistan… and roadways also connected Pakistan with India. BEACH OF MANDVI……… one of the coolest places in India… silence with fun… I and my dad had a camel ride on that beach… it was fun… we ate my moms favourite ICE GOLA on that beach… soon after the short fun of 30 mins we left for Mundra… where my mom had to do shopping stuff… it was some 50 kms… we reached mundra via NH 8A… 
we saw a truck which was fully upside down.. lol.. Mundra has a port… Mundra port.. well known as it belongs to Adani Enterprises… one of the well managed companies of India… naturally there was again hell lot of truck traffic on the way but the roads were awesome… we reached mundra by 5:00p.m. and then mom,dad n urvashi left me alone for shopping… I wanted to take rest so I stayed back.. but I cudnt take rest… I mixed up with a group of small boys who were playin Gilli Daanda…. One of the best regional homegames of rural India… it was fun as all those small muslim boys were speaking kutchi… I had a fun and never knew how time passed… soon I realized that I still had to drive around 30 kms and it was already 9:00 p.m…… I called my mom and said to rush back so that we cud reach Bhadreshwar as soon as possible… I was surprised when I saw that my mom and wife had purchased 15 - 20 sarees and dress material… lol I cud never think that the number wud be so big… lol.. doubling up my speed I started driving towards bhadreshawar… it was already tooooooo dark… we cudnt find anybody on roads… and even single vehicle passed us only after 10 mins.. I wondered weder the road was correct… I had to switch my google maps on… they worked super fine… finally we reached bhadreshwar by 11:30.. we had entered the city but we still had to find a temple… kutch cities have no lodges… we have dharamshalas.. we tried to stop few vehicles but cos of fear none stopped… we were completely blank… my maps showed that we were in bhadreshwar but we never knew bout the way to temple.. we made a wrong entry into a colony werein we found around 25-30 dangerous dogs…. Shit man,,, wat an experience it was.. none of dared to get outta car… I somehow dared and got out of my car with a stone in my hand for safety purpose… there was just a single street light I had to keep my cars light on to show the muddy road… dogs started to roar against me wen I was some 50 meters away from my car… I found noone and felt it better to slowly walk back to my car.. finally we stopped a truck.. he guided us a bit and finally we reached the temple… it was past 12:10…. Lol… the first plan we had bout the whole trip was not to drive after 7:00 p.m. and this was the third continuous day we had to drive till late night… we had dinner late night at 12:30 and slept off…Day 5 : 26.01.2011 Mission Sankeshwar.. Kutch.. ( 300 kms.. )
This date and day had a special significance… exactly 10 years before, the great earthquake had destroyed this temple to dust….
As the sun rose we saw the temple in the early morning….. WOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW I exclaimed…
it was such a giant temple… this temple was completely destroyed in 2001 earthquake and when I visited this temple 5 years back it was just a open ground.. the sculptors were so skilled.. the carvings on the temple were unbelievable.. minute carvings.. wow man….. I never imagined that this people would turn a playground to such an awesome temple… we spent some time in that temple and finally left bhadreshwar at 10:00 a.m…. soon after that we started for anjaar… near adipur… we had to meet our relatives in anjaar, adipur and gandhidham… I had to change my head lights high beam blub… everything was done by 6:00 p.m. and we finally left for sankeshwar… we still had to cover 250 kms.. lol.. this was the 5th continuous day wer i did night driving… lol lol lol… the same thing happened… we found noone except google maps who cud guide us till the enterance of the city… but as we entered the city we found partially rusted bords displaying temple name and way… but we cudnt rely on it… finally by hook and crook we found the temple by 10:30…. We booked a room n slept after a bit of fun….
Day 6 : 27.01.2011 mission vadodhra ( Baroda) Gujrat… 277 kms…
We left sankeshwar by 11:00 a.m. We had to visit the great akshardhaam temple ( swami narayan mandir) in gandhinagar.. the capital city of gujrat… this massive sized temple was attacked by terrorists few years back in September 2002…. We reached there by 1:00 p.m. had our lunch in the Restaurant inside the mandir and then visited the temple which ended by 5:00 p.m. I still had to drive to vadodhra which was around 140-150 kms…
I was back on my favorite ahmdabad – vadodhra expressway… I started on expressway by 6:00 p.m. and covered 150 kms by 7:30 pm…. We had nothing to do but book rooms and have dinner…. This was the first and only day were I did not drive in the night… the surprising thing was we did not even touch ahmedabad in this trip… even while coming we turned at saarkej.. some 30 kms before and even while goin back we directly joined xpressway from gandhinagar…
Day 7 : 28.01.2011 Mission Mumbai , Shahpur, Manas Mandir…. 500 kms…
We started of a bit late at around 11:00 a.m. it was again on super roads,, not expressway but it was an 6 lane highway… it was again full of truck traffic… but I enjoyed the drive,, I cud drive at a speed of 70-80 kmph…. We had arrived in mumbai exactly at 5:00 p.m. from there we had to go to dombivali… so I took a turn after godbunder bridge and steped on the way to thane – kalyan road…. We reached dombivali @ to my mamas place just around 6 :00 p.m. I cherished the old memories of some 7 yrs back and also saw old home of mama.. was an awesome experience. Further at 8:30 we left for shahapur, Manas Mandir… after a bit of asking we cud find the temple on nasik highway… it was completely dark and we cudnt see the temple even from a close distance… we booked a room and had great fun over there…
Day 8 : mission Pune… 250 kms only…
As soon as we got up we got ready had break fast and started for the temple by walk… we had our car near the room itself… one of the best jain temples in India… Manas Mandir, Mini Palitana… Great environment, peace, clouds touching the mountains and snakes all over… snakes specially cobras ,
( ajghar) . this snakes have never harmed the people over here… its learnt that some 15 days back i.e. on 15 jan 2011 a 12 feet cobra had leaped around a saints body and just stayed on him for 15 mins and left him unharmed… it was a great time which we spent in shahpur… we left shahpur and left for Dharamchakra, another temple on nasik highway…. Reached there by 3:00 and had lunch… we took an hour to see the temple and visited a relatives place. We started for Poona ( Katraj Temple ) at 6:30 p.m.… it was a still a 200 kms drive left for the day… now I had to drive through 3-4 ghats.. I was driving at a speed of 70-80 kmph on the ghats too… awesome roads but full of traffic.. everyone in the car was almost slept…. I felt of driving directly to Hubli without stoping at Hubli… I asked mom weder she was fine if we drive directly to Hubli and reach there by night 2 or 3:00 a.m. she angrily said NO !!! :P lol…. we reached pune by 10:00 p.m. Poona has lots of Indica Cars… hehehehe…
Day 9 : Mission Hubli… 450 kms frm My Home….
It was just a game for me to drive just 450 kms and I was eager to reach back home… the road from pune to Hubli was fully free of traffic… but the thing was I was feeling a bit bored of driving. I never get bored.. may be it wass cos my mind had already started thinking bout the business so I just wanted to get there as fast as possible… started from pune at 12:00 p.m. back on ROCK n ROLL Driving at 110 kmph. We directly stopped at Nippani at 3 as mom was feeling hungry… I did not have lunch cos id to drive :-P…
Left there by 4:00 p.m. we still had to cover 150 kms to reach home…. As soon as I reached the dharward high court I felt really pissed off cos we still did not reach home…. Even though there was no traffic I was just driving at a speed of just 50kmph from dharwad high court… lol god knows wat happened !!! finalyy reached my SWEET HOME by 6:00p.m.
This was a nutshell view of my ~Tour De Kutch~
I am now so very perfect with the roads from Hubli to Kutch…. I remember each and every turns, cities names , kms distance, And most of the toll fees also :-p… I remember id paid 140/- for Mumbai-pune xpressway and 200/- for vadodhra –ahemdabad indhira Gandhi xpressway……
The “ Nothing Like it “ Things in this trip
- Driving as much as 4080 kms
- Talking in mother tongue with anyone and everyone in kutch.. I mean even the strangers and unknown people
- Meeting acharya sahebji and hearing manglik from him in BHUJ.
- Playing Gilli danda with kids at mundra
- Xpressways
- Shahpur – Manas Mandir , Bhadreshwar ( Rebuilt after earthquakes)
- driking glass full of NEERA in Maharastra..
- Driving in Heavy traffic of Mumbai…
I would advice and suggest each and every kutchi to visit kutch atleast once a year… The district is developing rigorously.. Specially Naliya… Land rates are not like before… do not sell your native land in kutch…it’s a treasure ,, preserve it…
