A seven days breathtaking tour for the western most land part of India came to an end when my stomach decided to reverse the effect of digestion (vomit) on the return journey to my land Mangalore. On the last day of my fantastic seven days, I decided to ink down my memories, my smiles, my angers, my joys, my anticipations, my surprises, my fears on a digital paper i.e., on my blog and here it is…….
Preparation day: – Luggage packing is one of the part of travelling. It matters most sometimes. My gears for the journey is as below:-
A Duffle bag along with a small side college bag.
2 pairs of T’s and Jeans along with a Jacket and a pullover.
A towel, 5 jockeys, a bed sheet.
A small medical kit, minor stuffs such as brush, soaps etc.
An identity card, electronic gadgets like cellphone, power banks, adapters, cables, speakers, spike busters, selfie stick, mp 3 player and a pair of sandal.
In evening, got ironed some clothes and charged my two power banks and mp 3 player and my cellphone to max. Also got recharged my cellphone and made some photocopies of railway tickets with my friends and returned home at 9.
Day 1: – The day of Anticipation finally came for all of us. We’re a team of 12. Some are married and some not. All luggage are packed and we’re ready to move on.
The train arrival is 5.40 AM at Surathkal Railway station (15 km from Mangalore). About 2.5 km, we should travel for the Railway station from our place called Kulai. We had packed necessary food items required for a day. In our team there’s a Paakapravin (Chief chef) called Naresh kumar. He’s responsible for all the food stuffs. In a Jeep, we 12 people arrived at the railway station. The train arrived to the station on time and finally we boarded the Okha express. The 26 hrs journey in train remembering hundreds of scenaries, falls, caves etc. Had unlimited fun in Cards and ludo.
Day 2: – The next day, we arrived at Ahmedabad railway station at about 7 AM.
As soon as we got down, our luggage was checked by the Railway customs department. No problems whatsoever there. We exit the Railway station and accommodated in the hotel called Sabar-inn. We took 3 rooms each accompanying 4 persons. We got fresh, had our breakfast and hired a Tempo-traveler for a day travel. I can say this 1st day of our tour as a ‘TEMPLES DAY‘. The places of interest include Jain temple, Sabarmathi Ashram, Mahaveer temple, Venkateshwara temple, Kankaria lake etc. The day we got into the Kankaria lake is the same day of ‘Friendship day’. The lake surrounding is filled with lakhs of visitors, thousands of friends, hundreds of couples and many…..We 6 friends in the picture got the tickets for an amusement park which is inside the lake (I mean lake surroundings). WOW….where there is an amusement park, then there will be ‘FUN UNLIMITED‘. After laods of fun and also made our stomach full of Masala puri, Finger chips, and Coke. Ultimately we returned to our rooms and there goes the night sleep.
Day 3: – Lots of expectations on this day. Early morning we catched a train to Vadodara from Ahmedabad at about 7AM. Nearly one and half hour journey in general class. The plan is to go to a place called Pavagadh hills. From Vadodara, we got into a bus to Pavagadh. Again 10 km ride in Tempo trax to the base of the hill. Nearly 4000+ steps to climb for the divine darshan of Goddess Devi. 3 to 4 of our friends dropped in the middle as they couldn’t manage to climb. We remaining people, at last got in to the peak, and made darshan of Goddess, took some selfies and returned back fully exhausted. To get refreshed out, our next destination was a waterfall. Since the water force was not so hard, we enjoyed it to the max. Myself was a group photographer for 10 min. A perfect selfie stick for selfie got us spotted in crowd. We enjoyed there for about 1 hour and our battery ( I mean energy) was very low. Late night at 11, we returned to our room in Ahmedabad by bus. Finally we laid our back on bed.
Day 4:- Early morning we checked out our rooms. Since we had our train booked for Somnath at night, we all kept our luggage bags in baggage room in the same hotel. Our first step is in to a Masjid (mosque). One of the ancient mosques in India, located in the heart of the Ahmedabad city.
A small photo session took place in the day sunlight. The calico museum which is one of the beautiful textile museum we had planned to visit next. But unfortunately it didn’t match our timings (oops sorry we didn’t go for their timings). So we decided to visit one more museum called Lalbai Dalpathbai museum. After finishing there we all had lime sodas and got into a bus for Gandhinagar to visit one of the sacred holy place in Gujarat ‘Akshardham‘. Beautiful, scenic, clean…….etc. words can’t define this holy place, only eyes can.
It is a beauty of calmness,divine,nature,cleanliness……….so on… We spent the whole afternoon there itself, returned to Ahmedabad in evening, checked out our luggage, supper, headed straight to Ahmedabad railway station. Here we go…. Bye Bye Ahmedabad.
Day 5: – We arrived at Vereval in the early morning. From there we hired an Auto rikshaw to Somnath which is 8 km away from Vereval. One of our friend called Kiran felt his worst condition on the tour and this picture defines him.
LOL ……. We hired a room, got freshen up, had breakfast and our ‘Rikshaw run‘ begin. We hired two Auto rickshaws and started to roam around Somnath. Afternoon at 2, we got rid of Rikshaw, had full meals and recharged our power banks and mobiles to max, took rest for 2 hours. Late in evening, we made the darshan of the Lord Shiva, one of the oldest carvings temple located in the shoreline of Arabian sea also it is the 1st Jyotirlinga shrines of Shiva. A wonderful breeze cooling the atmospheric. My friends did some shopping for their mom’s, wive’s etc. We picked the train at 11 from somnath and moved to Dwarka. Good night for that day.
Day 6: – We arrived at Dwarka in the early morning. The city of lord Krishna I can say. Almost there are more cows than humans in the city i guess, Ha…Ha….
We pre-ordered a room in Udupi mutt, Dwarka. There our stomach got the perfect taste of Manglorean food for breakfast, lunch and night food also. Early morning ,we kept our foot on Dwarkadhish Mandir, later we got in to place called Beyt Dwarka. It is an old island with temple in the middle. Had a tasty sugarcane juice there. On the way back to Dwarka, we made a visit to another Jyothirlinga of India, NAGESHWAR. A big idol of Shiva enriched our eyes. After Darshan, we headed straight to our rooms, took our luggage, and in the same Jeep, we headed to Jamnagar Railway station to board our return train to Mangalore. Finally, the topic goes to the 1st line of this blog…..
HAPPY TOURING….:)
sharathkumarb@travel 
Recent Comments