Junagadh, Keshod, Saradia - Rural Travel... at its GREEN Best !

nex destination was Junagadh.. at about 105 kms from Rajkot, this place really surprized me...

The entire region was green... covered with lovely stretches of lush green fields and trees doting the entire road. I was told that this place is normally this good even when its not raining. The rains and the weather just added to the beauty around.. even the walls of the old buildings in Junagadh were covered with Algae and moss.. (maybe that explained the age of those walls or the proximity to the sea)... there are a couple of things worth mentioning about Junagadh.. one is the fact that it is situated at the foothills of the Girnar Mountain, which could be seen from the city easily covered in clouds at the peak.. and secondly the remains of the fort which has till date undergone 16 sieges during various times from the mauryan empire to the last of Mughals.. it was built by Changragupta during the Mauryan empire in 319 BC !! so it was roughly built before 2300 years... !! and it was covered for about 300 years in between after which it was rediscovered... Amazing !

The first thing I did was to eat after reaching there.. i was damn hungry and we got hold of a small shop which was dishing out lip smacking 'gathias' and 'bhajiyas'.. now, as a kid and at my hometown, i normally never liked those 'gathias' but here it was totally different.. once i started hoggin on them, there was no looking back.. within minutes i ate almost 200 gms of these delicious things with fried chillies... the entire region, the whole Saurashtra for that matter gorges on these delicacies apart from the Kathiyawadi food that i was mentioning earlier..

so now, we had to travel to a village called 'Saradia'.. and the dealer we met in Junagadh arranged bikes for us... and this was one travel i would always remember for many reasons.. one, it was a bike ride of almost 60 kms (one-way), second, it was interesting to note that each remote part of Gujarat is connected by very good roads, third, there was greenery all around and rivers and water bodies coming over the way just added to the serenity. fourth, i got hit by a stone in the eye.. it was nerve-wrecking for me for sometime coz i guess, it had damaged my pupil a little.. but i was fine in sometime..

Saradia - a village which had just one main cross-roads and some shops here and there... we inspected a tractor tyre tehre and were on our way back.. when we realized half way that one of the bike had to take a detour and we would have to go triple seat on the single bike.. that was adding to the already paining ass of mine and now my back and legs were added to the pain-tally.

finally we got a bus from a village called 'Vanthalli' to Keshod..

Now keshod is another town situated in this region, and i was told that though being smaller than Junagadh, it is more prosperous than the former... there was a road that led to 'Mangrol' village that was where we were supposed to meet a customer... what is worth mentioning here is that Keshod has an AIRPORT !!! yes!! it was used earlier by the nawabs to escape to Pakistan... today it is not used for regular flights, but it is used for chartered air-planes of ministers and big shots...

the meet went fine and we were back in a bus that took us from Keshod to Rajkot.. and on the way, i couldnt stop seeing the greenery and feeling the fresh air through the window panes that was gushing inside...

one more thing worth observing was that Vodafone has branded all the bus stations in Gujarat almost.. or at least the entire Saurashtra region.. wondering if vodafone has left any stone unturned in branding activities...

that took care of the day and was back in Rajkot by around 11 pm.... all in all it was a GREEN day... nd it also inspired me to write a poem while i was in the bus returning from Keshod... which is in the other post..

Total ODO = 320 kms
Date of Travel : 21st July 2009