Day 32 - Ellora Caves & Aurangabad

31.10.2022

Day 32

Today we travel to Aurangabad, located on hilly upland terrain in Deccan and major production centre of textile and artistic silk fabrics and close to tourist destinations Ajanta and Ellora caves. 

We choose Aurangabad as our destination as we wanted to visit the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Ellora Caves. Aurangabad is about 220 kms and 5 hours and Ellora 30 kms before Aurangabad.

We started after breakfast at around 8.15 am and took Aurangabad - Nasik Highway. It was patchy at certain sections but generally it was fine. We see a number of vineyards, large areas of sugar cane and cotton cultivation. We also saw number of pilgrims (presumably walking to Shirdi shrine, about 110 kms away).

We took NH752H/ NH52 and MH SH22 towards Ellora. We had to navigate through some extremely bad roads for about 30 kms before reaching the famous Ellora Caves. We had pre booked our tickets online, and hired a guide to help us know the significance of this mammoth structure.

There are over 100 caves at the site, of which 34 caves (or temples as the guide explained). Of these there are 13 Buddhist, 17 Hindu and 4 Jain temples open to public. The biggest and the most important is cave #16 which features the largest single monolithic rock excavation in the world, the Kailash temple, a chariot-shaped monument dedicated to God Siva.

As explained to us, the temple is carved out of a mountain, from top down and it’s dimensions are H33-L89-W68 in meters! It may have taken over 100 years to complete this one temple and to build the entire site it may have taken over 1000 years!

The caves are simply spectacular and we are dumbfounded by the artistry and brilliance of generations of artisans who toiled to carve out the masterpiece.

We also went around few other temple caves of which the most significant was the Vishwakarma temple, where Buddha’s statue is engraved out of rock and the echo when you chant is out of the world!

We drove to Aurangabad and checked in at Fern Residency for our overnight halt.

End of thirty second day - 10,686 kms on our tracker. 

#fulltankers

Day 31 - Source at Sula, Nasik (second day)

30.10.2022

Day 31

We have planned two days in Source at Sula to enjoy the vineyard experience. The property is maintained meticulously. It has heritage vineyards, many selfie points and our stay included wine tasting tour. 

Today we have booked for the 11.30 am slot for the vineyard tour, which is expected to last 45 minutes. Our guide, a charming lady, gave lots of information on the grapes, wine making process and storage. Basically she explained the journey of a grape to glass. Finally to the best part, wine tasting, which we enjoyed thoroughly (sadly lasted only few minutes!). Overall it’s an unique experience, one must try out at least once.

For lunch we decided to try out local food and went to a nearby “Ranga’s Kolhapuri  Restaurant” run by an IT professional turned restaurateur. 

After lunch, we watched T20 World Cup India vs South Africa match, but was disappointed India lost.

End of thirty first day - 10,452 kms (no travel as we are inside the resort) on our tracker.

#full tanker

Day 30 - Source at Sula, Nasik (first day)

29.10.2022

Day 30

We are now on our second leg of our tour of India and the next destination is the highly acclaimed, “Source at Sula” in the finest wine region of India, Nasik.

Drive from Ahmedabad to Sula Vineyards is about 500 kms and 10 hours. We started at 5.30 am and took National Expressway (NE1) to Vadodara, which is about 95 kms from Ahmedabad. The drive is smooth and fast. Once we exited NE1, we take NH48 and then should have taken NH360, but then we got on to GJ SH 181 instead and then NH848, towards Nasik. Though we had to travel few extra kms, the route we took was beautiful! We enjoyed every bit of the scenic drive towards NH848 (sadly we could not make out the village names as it was in Gujarati).

We decided to have lunch before check in. Shawarma lunch in car was just nice!

We checked in at Source at Sula resort at around 3.30 pm. The resort has great ambience, nice rooms, pool, jacuzzi, gym and spa. (but a bit too pricey, if we may say so!)

Today we completed two milestones - one month and 10,000/- kms on the road! The journey has taken us through 15 states, 2 Union Territories and 10,000/- kms!

We are hungry for more and look forward to the Sula winery tour tomorrow.

End of thirtieth day - 10,452 kms on our tracker.

#full tanker

Day 29 - Ahmedabad

28.10.2022

Day 29

Our next destination is Ahmedabad, the largest city in Gujarat. We have relatively short distance to cover, approximately 215 kms and 4 1/2 hours.

We took NH27 and later NH47. Both highways are good except for few patchy sections and unfinished flyovers in some places. As we get nearer to Ahmedabad, we start seeing signs of industrialisation on either side of the road. However herds of cattle on highway is still a common sight! 

To optimise our one day stay in the city, we decided to visit Gandhinagar first, located approximately 25 kms north of Ahmedabad. Gandhinagar is the capital of Gujarat and is a planned city. We are pleasantly surprised to see an environmental friendly city. We did a quick tour of the city to see the primary attractions Vidhan Sabha (legislative assembly), Mahatma Gandhi Convention centre, Dandi Kutir and the much acclaimed Gandhinagar Capital (GNC railway station).

After this quick tour we drove to see Adalage stepwells, located close to Gandhinagar is a fine example of Indian architecture work. Stepwells are to collect rainwater during seasonal monsoons.

We drove back to Ahmedabad and had an excellent Gujarati thali meal at Atithi Dining Hall and later checked in at Bloom Suites. 

Ahmedabad is a modern city, with good roads and tastefully designed modern buildings.

Quick unpack and a cat nap, full tankers are ready for the highlight of the day - visit to Sabarmati Ashram. Gandhiji spent number of years in this ashram until 1930. Before he set off for the Dandi march he famously declared that he will not return to the ashram before the independence of the country. He never returned to the ashram as he was assassinated few months after independence in 1947.

The ashram is a very simple place with peaceful vibrations and situated on the banks of Sabarmati river running through the centre of the city. The ashram gives one an understanding about Gandhiji, his life and independence movement of India. Full tankers paid their respects to the Mahatma.

We also drove to see India’s premium institutes - IIM Ahmedabad and National Institute of Design.

We returned to the hotel at 7.00 pm and had dinner and rested.

End of day twenty nine - 9965 kms on our tracker.

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Day 28 - Rajkot

27.10.2022

Day 28

We started our day with another visit to the White Desert to capture the sunrise, and what an enthralling experience it was! 

Some of us had our morning walk on the white salt and savoured the once-in-a-life-time experience fully.  Besides us, there were a number of tourists watching the Sun rise over the white desert.

We returned to our homestay and had a quick breakfast, packed and checked out and was on the road at 9.05 am for the 310 kms, 6 1/2 hours drive to Rajkot. 

We took NH 341, the same route which brought us from Bhuj, but got stuck in a major traffic jam for 30 minutes or more, near a road diversion due to flyover construction. To make matters worse, there were no one to guide the diverted traffic - though fulltankers volunteered, we could not make much headway due to language barrier. Finally we got out of this mess and we are on our way…NH 341 merged to Bhuj-Bhachau highway and later Gujarat SH 6 and NH 27 and finally Rajkot-Morbi highway to reach our destination.

We checked in at Fern Residency, Rajkot at 3.30 pm for an overnight stay.

Rajkot is the fourth largest city in Gujarat. It is also amongst the fastest growing cities in the world. 

We only have few hours of sightseeing in this city and we dedicated this to visit Mahatma Gandhi museum, built as a tribute to the Father of the Nation. The museum is the erstwhile Alfred High School, where Mahatmaji studied. The museum paints beautifully the childhood, growth and the later years of Mahatma Gandhi.

End of day twenty eight - 9661 kms on our tracker.

#full tanker

Day 27 - Dhordo & White Desert

26.10.2022

Day 27

Today we are driving to Dhordo, to see the white desert.

Dhordo is in Kutch district in Gujarat, and about 430 kms and 9 hours from Abu Road.

We started at 7.30 am and took NH 27, towards Gandhidham. In about thirty minutes we are in Gujarat state, which we came to know as we are stopped at police checkpoint, looking for alcohol. Gujarat is the only state other than Bihar, where alcohol is prohibited. We are well aware of this and we came clean!

We continue our drive and we see lots of power lines on either side, miles of barren lands lined by thorny trees, few brick kilns, small farmlands, lots of goats and cattle and several trucks carrying loads of Mica. 

NH 27 is 3500+ kms long and is the second longest highway in India, starting from Porbandar to Silchar in Assam. The highway is fairly good, but for some patches in few sections. However, road discipline is nil or non-existent as we see several cars, bikes, trucks and even JCB coming in our lane from the opposite direction flouting all rules. It is suicidal and probably seen only in Hollywood movies.

We saw construction of Mundra-Panipat Pipeline, estimated to cost over Rs.9200 crores, to transport crude oil from Mundra on the Gujarat coast to IOC refinery at Panipat in Haryana. 

We also saw container traffic from Kandla port, located about 70 kms from Bhuj. Kandla is among the largest ports in India by volume of cargo handled.

We reached Gandhidham at about 1.45 pm, and took NH 341 towards Bhuj. For the records, Bhuj airstrip was bombed during India-Pak war in 1971 and the runway was reconstructed with the help of local villagers mostly women!

A short break in Bhuj to fill our famished tummies, we are on the road again at 3.30 pm towards Dhordo.

We reached Dhordo at 4.30 pm and checked in at Kutir Craft resort, a small village hamlet with houses made of mud. The mattresses are on top of mud beds. All of us are in one hut with no aircons and the temp 30c+ when we checked in. We see few bugs crawling around and are bit nervous how to spend the night. Nevertheless, we decided to experience village life!

We unpacked and left our things in the hut and drove to see the White desert, which is approx 25 kms from our place. 

White desert or the Great Rann of Kutch, is a vast area of pristine white salt desert, also called the world's largest salt desert.

It is an amazing sight and well worth the drive to see its natural beauty and ecological importance. We captured both sunrise and sunset from this vast expanse.

We also saw arrangements being made for the upcoming Rann Utsav starting from Nov through Feb 2023. Kutch Rann Utsav is an yearly Carnival of Music, Dance, nature beauty of White Rann where you can experience tent city luxury and much more. Visiting on Full Moon Day is said to be a dream for every traveller. Hopefully, we will come back to experience this sometime.

On our way back to our homestay, we had a close encounter with a bunch of black buffaloes roaming on the road, and not visible in headlight beam. Luckily both the navigator and driver were alert and able to stop couple of meters before we hit them. Close encounters of the cattle kind!

End of day twenty seven - 9311  kms on our tracker.

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Day 26 - Abu Road

25.10.2022

Day 26

Today we are travelling to Abu Road, where we have an overnight stay en-route to Dhordo in Bhuj to see the white desert. The drive to Abu Road is 410 kms and estimated travel time of 8 hours.

We started at 7.00 am and took NH 68. This is an excellent highway and soon we are seeing windmill farms on either side. We had breakfast stop at Hotel Sire a roadside restaurant at Sanger. It’s a nice clean place and they served excellent poori and veg curry. We continued eastward and the terrain looked arid. Several herds of goats, cattle and wild camels on the road slowing us down in many places.

We passed Barmer and took Phalsund-Barmer road to RJ SH 16. Highways and State Highways in Rajasthan are exceptional. Although most are single lane only, the roads are maintained very well and today we had the luxury of light traffic due to Diwali holidays. We covered 300+ kms in about four hours and reached Bhinmal village at about 11.30 am. At this point we had to travel through some narrow village roads, a level cross stop for twenty minutes and the next 25 kms the roads were patchy and driving was difficult. This was the only bad stretch in more than 1000 kms we travelled in Rajasthan.

Just as we are entering Abu Road, we were stopped at a police blockade for a VVIP - the Vice President was passing through the town. 

Blockade was cleared after 30 minutes and we checked in at Sweet Silence Home, an homestay run by Ms. Parool a young and cheerful super hostess. We had found this place through make my trip portal. Excellent hospitality and a nice place to stay.

Afterwards we drove up to Mt Abu, a hill station on Aravalli range. The drive of 30 kms is very good and takes about 45 minutes. The main attractions are Nakki lake and Delvada temple a pilgrim place for Jains.

The hill station was very crowded, presumably Gujarat tourists, as most vehicles had Gujarat registration, enjoying Diwali holidays. Mt Abu is easily accessible from Ahmedabad and Udaipur - both about 3 hours away.

We got back to our homestay at about 7 pm, enjoyed the dinner prepared by the super hostess. (Ms.Parool our host and her dad who is a retired DGP in BSF with fulltankers)

End of day twenty six - 8770 kms on our tracker.

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Day 25 - Jaisalmer (second day)

24.10.2022

Day 25

Today is Diwali and Fulltankers wish all of you a Happy Diwali, the Festival of Lights.

The festival symbolises victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance.

Today team decided to take a day off and enjoy the spirit of Diwali. Some of us took time to rest, some to catch up on personal work and few went to the city to replenish our stock of daily needs. A view of Jaisalmer airport as we drove past the facility.

We returned to Club Mahindra who had organised Diwali dinner. We enjoyed the sumptuous Diwali dinner.

We have a long drive to Abu Road tomorrow and the well rested team is ready for the journey.

End of day twenty five - 8296 kms on our tracker.

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Day 24 - Jaisalmer (first day)

 23.10.2022

Day 24

Today we are travelling further West, to Jaisalmer, approx 290 kms and five hours drive, where we have planned two nights stay. Jaisalmer is a former medieval trading centre in the heart of the Thar Desert. 

We started at 7.15 am and planned to have breakfast on the way and took NH 125 and later NH 11. We could see the terrain changing with cotton fields, quarries and soon thorny desert plants and signs of sand dunes, typical of desert land. Our drive took us close to Pokhran (India’s first nuclear testing site in 1974) and in the car we were discussing about the event still embedded in our childhood memories!!

Both NH 125 and NH 11, though two lane, are excellent roads and at times we exceeded the desired speed limits and were flagged down by Rajasthan Highway Interceptor team for speeding. Time for some introspection, and we gave the officers our license and papers. We also told them of our trip across India and the excellent roads in this state, a reason for speeding. They were extremely polite and asked us to be careful and waived the penalty. They also started following us on Instagram!

We reached Jaisalmer at 12 noon and checked in at Club Mahindra resort.

After a hearty lunch at the resort and a quick nap, we drove about 50 kms to Sam desert camp where we have booked our evening program - desert safari, camel ride and folk songs and dinner at the camp.

Just as we arrived at the camp, the final over of India-Pak T20 World Cup was in progress and fulltankers caught the final moments and soaked in the excitement!

Desert safari in a Mahindra Thar jeep triggered butterflies in our bellies and the camel ride though looked easy, but once on top, it becomes a dicey balancing act for us novices!

All touristy things done, had dinner accompanied by music and folk dances.

More excitement planned for tomorrow at Jaisalmer!

Stay with us!

End of day twenty four - 8221 kms on our tracker.

#fulltankers