Pink Beach

Pink Beach is the story of India's largest salt desert, the temples and palaces of Gujarat.

This trip that a bunch of us took to Gujarat a few years ago starts with Ahmedabad, but only up until our flight lands there. We took a little bit of a detour before we could start exploring the city. Mount Abu is a hill station in the neighboring state of Rajasthan and isn't very far, so we decided to drive up there.

Here, we stayed at Hotel Gujarat, which is an old house converted into a commercialized old house. In Mount Abu, we first went over to the absolutely serene looking and welcoming Gyan Sarovar or the Om Shanti Om complex, which is home to the Brahma Kumaris. The lessons of listening to your inner soul were repeated so many times, it's imprinted in my head now.

We woke up the next day to noise of rain droplets and a foggy sky. Maybe staying back an extra day was a bad idea after all, voiced everyone. But it didn't take very long for that opinion to change as the sun came out, clearing the sky.

Another place to visit when in Mount Abu is the Dilwara temple. When we got there, the place didn't seem very exciting from the outside and photography was banned too, so we weren't expecting much as we entered. Seems like expecting less to get more is the mantra to go with, for we were spellbound as soon as we entered the temple complex.

Every pillar, every step was carved and done so beautifully. It was after a long time that I was starry-eyed, in the day. We were upset that we couldn't click any pictures, but no camera could capture the appeal of the temple as against watching it with the naked eye.

Next stop was Guru Shikhar. This temple was atop a hill, and to my delight, I found tender coconuts on the way. At the foot of the temple was a giant bell. The locals believe that if you ring it thrice, your wish comes true. Rookie mistake on my part, I didn't note down what my wish was, and now, five years later, I don't remember. So, I can't validate if that theory was myth or not.

The last place we visited in Mount Abu was the sunset point. It was here that I learned that one can measure the approximate time left for sunset without the use of a watch. Four fingers from the sun to horizon means about half an hour for the sun to set.

At multiple points in this trip, Ahmedabad becomes a stopover for us to go to another location until we finally did go around the city in the end. So from Mount Abu, we took 10 hours to reach Ahmedabad via road from where we took a train to reach Bhuj. After talking to a fellow passenger on the train, we figured that our hotel was quite close to the station and as described by the man, Hotel Dollar is high-fi!

It was pretty decent for a hotel in that area. We then got dressed for the location I was most looking forward to, the Great Rann of Kutch. But before we could get there, there were three other places in Bhuj to sightsee on the way.

First, we stopped at the Prag Mahal. The palace was complete with beautiful mirrors and magnificent floor work. After this, we head to Aaina Mahal. This palace housed kori coins which was the currency of Kutch until 1984. It was later replaced with Indian rupee at a rate of 1 rupee being equal to 3.5 koris. This place had an exquisite ivory door. It is said that labour charges for creating this masterpiece was only 1 kori.

As we reached closer to one of the world's largest white desert, we made the last stop at Kala Dungar. This place was at a height and acted as a viewpoint of the desert. We could see the Great Rann of Kutch from up here and couldn't wait to get there.

The Great Rann of Kutch is best viewed on a full moon night or even a half of it would do, but to our bad luck, it was a low moon day. It had also rained in Kutch, so our hopes of being at a desert went down the water, quite literally. We couldn't step on to the desert as it had turned into a beach or rather an ocean. Nevertheless, it's such a gorgeous, gorgeous place, it looked like I was on a pink beach.

The next day, we saw the Kalp Vrish near Sarovar Lake, which has a rare phenomenon associated with it. It turns out when the tree, which is about 100m away from a temple, sheds its fruits and flowers, they directly land at the foot of the temple owing to the high speed of the wind at the place.

The last destination at Bhuj was the Koteshwar temple located near the India-Pakistan border. This place was a treat to the eye. The temple is surrounded by water, the Arabian Sea to be precise.

We finally took a train back to our base location, Ahmedabad. On the way to Sabarmati Ashram, we saw the systematic public bus system in the city and we were quite impressed with it. The Sabarmati Ashram is a real life wikipedia on Gandhi's life and it also houses his residential home.

From here, we went to the World Vintage Car Museum which was rather far but worth the travel and wait at the queue. From pink cars to classic red ones, the place looked like a British colony. One of the staff explained to me the mechanism of how engines used to start back then. A stepney-like tool placed at the front of the car was rotated to start the engine. There was another series of cars he showed me that had no headlights because apparently, the concept of headlights had not yet started. Hence these cars were only driven during the day.

We ended this trip with dinner at Dinner Point and a coffee-toffee Sunday with Brownie at the popular joint Havemore. If you're looking to shop in Ahmedabad, the Alpha 1 mall is a good place. We got a great bargain on authentic Gujarati clothes there in a series of stores called Rani Ki Hajori.