We had been lucky enough to go to the Calico Textile Museum in Ahmedabad not once, but twice so we'd had plenty of time to be convinced of the wonders of Gujarati textiles which, according to our rather scary guide, would die out unless we went to Bhuj. Gosh.
We also quite liked the description in our guide book of a little-visited town that contained several palaces in various states of ruination after the 2001 earthquake alongside cute bazaars and friendly people. Gujarat is an earthquake zone and there have been regular earthquakes throughout the state over the years but in 2001 Bhuj was particularly unlucky to be at the centre of a rather large one which knocked down most of its buildings and killed 10% of its population. What a jolly place, we thought, let's go!
. It was one of three places recommended in Lonely Planet and the only one that sounded nice. It being very early in the morning we couldn't be bothered to look for alternatives. This turned out to be a very good move as the hotel actually deserved its good write-up (unusual for LP) and as we wandered around the town we didn't really see many alternatives.
The first day was spent sleeping (long journeys seem to give me a headache, so I'd not slept that well on the train) and mooching about. We looked around one of the old, mostly ruined palaces, which was very scary. I've never been somewhere before where I've been so convinced I was surrounded by ghosts - we had a horrid crawling creepy feeling wherever we went. The palace has been left to further ruin after the earthquake so in addition to the crumbling walls and broken windows there are decaying stuffed lions and deer, frayed furniture, dusty vases, discoloured mirrors and paintings that are gradually flaking away. Pigeons flutter in and out of the sunbeams filtering through the windows making you jump out of your skin at every turn (and worry you're about to get pooed on...). We walked around pretty quickly...
The second day we arranged to go and visit some local villages that produced the famous textiles
. This turned out to be pretty much a day of shopping by tuk-tuk in the desert. We'd pull into a village to be welcomed by a bloke, or sometimes a woman in tribal dress, who'd show us into their house. This (lo and behold!) doubled as a shop. They would then show us a rediculous amount of blankets, shawls and other fabric-based things. We would often then buy some. Sometimes before the shop and sometimes afterwards we'd be briefly shown how they were made - with impressive hand looms, block printing or girls embroidering (finally, something women seemed to do in addition to cooking and cleaning and having babies!). We would probably have found out lots of interesting in-depth information about the crafts, but unfortunately didn't speak the language. This seemed to come as some surprise to the villagers - 'you no speak Gujerati? no Kutchi even?'. Now how we'd have learnt Kutchi - the local language that doesn't even have a written form - I have no idea, but we were clearly a bit of a disappointment. Oops.
The next day, which happened - in spite of me trying my hardest to forget - to be my birthday, we had decided to go to the seaside to do Not Much and have a nice lunch. We'd hoped to get away with that being the only thing we'd have to do. However, it was not to be. 1) we had to work out how to get to Udaipur the next day, which turned out to need two buses and took several hours to convince the travel agents that we didn't want to go somewhere else and 2) the hotel had noticed from my passport that it was my birthday and I was congratulated heartily by all the staff who insisted I be back at the hotel that evening
. Uh oh....
We got to Mandvi for a late lunch and headed to a posh beach resort. It was really really (really really) quiet - just a few maharajah-goes-camping style tents and a palm-leaf thatched hut for the restaurant, right on the beach. There were a couple of other people finishing off their lunch when we arrived, but for most of the time we were there on our own, looking out at the most pristine, deserted stretch of sand we'd encountered on our trip. Which is very surprising for India - where we'd seen an article in the paper in Mumbai arguing that rubbish bins were unsightly and should be banned. We were then informed that if we wanted to sit on the beach we'd have to pay 150 rupees each. Ah ha, that'd be why it's pristine and quiet then! We were happy sitting on the comfy chairs in the restaurant...
So, rather in trepidation I must say, we arrived back at the hotel and scuttled back up to our room to freshen up and steel ourselves for whatever over-exuberance awaited. There was a big Swedish group staying who had taken all the seats in the restaurant area (about 12) so we hung about in the courtyard wondering what we should do. Eventually we were noticed by the proprieter - a very jolly man who got quite excited that I'd arrived. Turns out they'd ordered a cake with my name on it! He rounded up the Swedes and after the most awful bout of singing you've ever encountered (no one knew my name, and the Indians didn't seem to know any more than the first line of 'Happy Birthday To You', which they just repeated over and over again with growing uncertainty and out of key until Hugh took the initiative and finished it off!) I blew out the candle, dished up cake for everyone (I was fed some by the owner, in the Indian way - thank goodness I knew about this tradition or I'd have wondered what on earth he was trying to do!) and the ordeal was over. Phew. Still, such a sweet thing for a hotel to have done!
No comments:
Post a Comment