I came home from Kutch just a couple of days ago. Another amazing trip with rotary and the other exchangestudents. As the title sayd (in hindi) kutch nahi dekha, kuch nahi dekha - if you havent seen kutch, you havent seen anything (their motto). And after our visit to the area i really think that it is true!
We were there for only 4 days and in so little time we managed to see everything from deserts to beaches and mountains. Mandirs (temples), palaces and carnivals. And we even met the Chief minister of Gujarat and we were in the local newspaper.
The same evening as we arrived we went to downtown-Bhuj to see the opening of the Rann Utsav (known as the kutchfestival). It wasa first a bunch of speeches by important people (the CM of Gujarat too) and then, when the sun had set, a carnival/parade began.
Though it was rather long, it was still fun, we managed to push our way into the parade and went dancing in front of the cm along with an ethnic dancegroup (the one with the lion-mask)! Some of the exchangestudents even got themselves onto one of the floats/carts/whatever its called! All in all a great evening.
Our second day there was very busy and we did a million things, and i could write page after page about it, ill just stick to a few highlights and try to get most of it in there.
First we went to this market/bazaar place where we did a bit of shopping, there was also a lot of nicely decorated camels and we spent a lot of time clicking photos with those... Then after a while there was some traditional "wrestling" and that was very amusing - the two guys would stand in front of each other holding on to each others pant or belts (?) and try to throw the opponent down on the sand...
Then we quickly moved on to the next place we had to visit - a temple on a mountain. The bus took us up a little more than halfway, and then we had to walk for a while, but that was only nice! It was an amazing experience because of the fantastic view from up there! We could see the geographic border between India and Pakistan. And we had a clear view of what it is that makes kutch so special - all the different types of landscapes
And then(...) drove to the desert and drove on camel-carts out to the "white-desert" a phenomena that only exists in Kutch. It occurs when the sea level falls at the end of the monsoon season and a huge area of sand is laid to dry in the hot Indian sun. then all the salt from the ocean crystallizes and creates a white cover on the desert sand. We went out there in the evening time, and while we were watching a cultural show (a dance performance illustrating the Ramayana)the sun set and the temperature dropped - I dont exactly know how low, but to us, practically, mumbaikars it sure felt freezing. The combination of a huge area coveres by a perfect white blanket and the low temperatures almost made me feel like home (its snowing in Denmark i hear) and Riina (Finland) and I both started singing christmas songs in our native languages - A lot of Indians stared and some even pointed at us ;D but it was fun, and probably the most christmas-like evening I've had this year...
Here we also met with the chief minister, but unluckily my camera ran out of battery :(
The third day we started out by going to this Palace that is actually still in use :D It was fun walking aroung inside and there was a bunch of stuffed animals (tigers leopards and such) and a lot of really old furniture and a lot of photos hanging around... On the terrace (or rooftop as the rest of the world, except for India, would call it) again we had an almost magical view of the woods and Mandvi beach. The beautiful surroundings set by the old palace (which btw has been used as settings for several Bollywood movies)laid the base for what was to turn into hundreds and hundreds of photos on my camera...
After seeing the palace Chetan bought a round of coconut water for everyone, and we just relaxed and enjoyed the beautiful surroundings, the lovely weather and the natural cold drink under the trees outside the palace...
In the afternoon/evening we went to Mandvi and everyone had a lovely camel ride on the (very clean!!!) beach... It was very bumpy, and when the camel started running Ale(Mixico) and I (we were sharing a camel) were screaming like crazy people along with Beatriz and Leticia (both from Brasil) who were running next to us on their own camel... Ont the beach there were also an exhibition of sandsculptures, some more succesfull than others, and just before the sun was setting 3 people decided to go for this ride where you were strapped into a parachute and dragged by a car along the beach, it looked very fun, but I was too scared to do it :S
After that we went out for the local roadside speciality - kutchi dabeli which is basically a pav with a very spicy potato/masala mix put inside... a Gujarati veg-burger , or something like that...
Then we went home to the Yoga ashram in which we were staying, had dinner and had fun plying games and singing songs around the campfire until late at night.
