How was your winter break? Did you go someplace during your annual leaves? What did you do during your time off? January office meetings always begin with these questions. Short answers are- Break was good. Yes, I travelled for a few days and stayed home for the most time. Binged on food and music.
Statue of Unity- a trip to Kevadiya- one of the best holiday experiences
- Morning Train- about 2.5 hours' duration- including a U-turn that the train took two hours into the journey.
- Visited the Statue and nearby Valley of Flowers in free-of-cost hop-on/hop-off buses-- realization that public transport can be frequent and affordable (if not free), if the authorities are willing to.
- Noted the availability of clean and free drinking water at regular spots across the town-- first trip where I didn't need to buy bottled water .
- Meal options were brands like Havmor, Gwalia, Subway, Starbucks, McDonalds.
- While December is one of the best times to visit this place, weather was still extremely hot. The only times my family and I used our sweaters/jackets were during train rides to and from Kevadiya.
- Night train- same train, same duration, same u-turn!
Pavagadh- a holy hill station- a trip where everything that could go wrong, went wrong
- We were still on a happy high from our trip to the Statue and planned this hill station trip for the very next weekend.
- Googled about Pavagadh. Read somewhere that there are about 250 steps' climb to the main temple. Our assumption was that ascent, prayer and descent would take about 3 hours and accordingly pre-booked our bus tickets to and from Pavagadh.
- Reality- It was not 250 steps. My guess- 5000 steps. It became very clear very soon that we should have opted for the ropeway option.
- In the first 5 minutes of the climb, my blood sugar level dropped. And of-course the legs ached badly through-out the descent. As someone who wasn't walking for even 5 minutes on any given day, I shouldn't have expected a different outcome(now I walk every-day for at-least 30 minutes).
- Actual trek time was 4 hours going up and 2.5 hours coming down. Missed the return bus. Didn't find any seats in any alternate buses for the next 1 hour. Then decided to take a shared taxi to the nearest big city and try for buses/trains from there.
- As it was a hilly area, the shared taxi skid a bit and bumped into a vehicle in front. No injuries, but that vehicle got many dents. Another 40 minutes or so wasted watching the 2 drivers fight, calm down and eventually settle with money.
- Finally reached the big city. As expected, got some seats in the first bus itself. The very long day came to end some 3 hours later that night.
- Did I mention popular eateries to choose from in/around Kevadiya? In my Pavagadh trek, lunch was 2-3 bottles of Sprite and 1 American Corn cob to keep my blood sugar level in check. Dinner was a slice of Bread with Jam- back home- at midnight.
- And of-course, no photos were clicked during this trip.
- I was so low after this trip, for next several days!
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