Gujarat Visit (Part 3) : Gir Lion Reserve

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Next morning, as promised, Chandu Puri Goswami (Chandu bhai), reached at our Raju bhai’s house around 7:30. I gave him a missed call around and he reached within minutes as he stays nearby in the Prabhas patan area. We are getting ready, packing our bags, had our morning bath , now sipping in tea and and some snacks we carried with us. Gupta ji & family have their train at 9 AM back home to Aamdavaad , so they are ready to leave too. We spent little but nice memorable time together, in less than 24 hours of our stay, together we became like close friends as if we had known each other for years. We invited them to visit Haridwar anytime in future and they asked us to visit their house once we reach Ahmedabad the next day. We exchanged our phone numbers, addresses and said goodbyes and thanks to each other. We offered our final Namaskar to lord Somnath, I too thanked Lord SHIVA for his kindness so I could visit this place with my parents, i am a very unplanned person.

Swayambhu Shivling

Slowly, in Chandu Bhai’s car, we left the narrow lanes of PrabhasPatan and stopped after 4-5 KMs right on the highway , a temple premises on the seashore. On this seashore situated is the, Swayambhu shivling (a natural Shivaling, self-manifested or the one which is created by its own, naturally )
Our next stop was still within Veraval area at the Bhalka Tirtha. This is the famous Lord Krishna temple, the place where Lord Krishna is said to have mistakenly shot by an arrow of a “bheel” who mistook him for a deer. The temple is called as Mahaprabhuji's Bethak.

Bhalka Tirth

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Our next stop was after another 1 hour somewhere in the small town Talala enroute to Sasan Gir. We stopped and had some famous Gujarati snacks ( dhokla, gathiya , fresh namkeen & awesome milky tea ). Chandu bhai is friendly, honest and talkative, all qualities of a perfect guide. I kept asking questions about the villages passing by , standing crops , trees , roads , Narendra Modi ji, perfect roads, house rents in local area, income , life, security , traffic police and happiness in Gujarat and he kept answering all my questions in his style. He loves chewing mava, a local made raw tobacco nicely rubbed n mixed with white lime, in local language called as mava. In every 15 minutes he spits his chewed mava and loads his mouth again with more mava, chewing mava never stops(though he hates if his son chews it in future , one day he will surely, he says and laughs)

I liked the villages and the crops reroute to Sasan Gir, I could sense the prosperity right from the moving car, it was amazing to see almost all types of agricultural and industrial setups. No surprises you are in Gujarat the most industrious, successful and prosperous state of India. Crops of Caster seed plants, Ground nuts , white flowery Cotton, Sesame , Bajara , Mango, Coconut trees and Sugar mill , I was amazed to see the verity of agricultural and industrial progress on the both sides of the road.

Chandu Bhai and me

en route to Sasan Gir

en route to Sasan Gir

Here we come , Lions!!!  

It was already around 11 AM when WE finally reached The Gir Forest RESERVE. The last 15-20 KM stretch to the forest reserve is amazing, as you see jungle on both sides; there are no escapes routes, only one tar road. After 5 or 6 PM no human traffic ,vehicles are allowed , entry is strictly banned. This is the time when King Lion looks out for his dinner. In around 1400 Km Sq area of Gir Reserved  some 400+ lions live with other animals. Its mainly a very dry forest with tall dry yellow savanna like grass. If you have liked the thrills of Val Kilmer movie “The ghost and the darkness”, you would love to see such grass and a free roaming Asiatic Lion once in your lifetime. It was weekend and the holiday season in Gujarat, so the place was well crowded, but our Chandu bhai quickly bought three tickets for us (mom, dad and me), lucky we got tickets. Chandu bhai’s nephew drives his bus for the safari here in the Gir. We four boarded the same bus. I was extremely excited for the next 30 minute in Gir, the bus will take us through a predefined path inside the Jungle and if we are lucky we might see the Lions, roaming freely in the jungle, unlike the pseudo caged animals as in Bannergatta National park, Bangalore. The Lions here roam like real Kings in the open air. We saw peacocks, Chital, Neelgai (Bluebull, a type of big Asian Antelope) , one hyena easily.

Neelgai

Deer

our safari driver

Inside the bus everyone was shouting talking crazy to each other, thrilled and excited when suddenly the driver warned everyone not to make any further sound, as we were getting closer to the lions territory.    Our chances to see lion were high as he was informed by the forest guards. In daylight especially in the hot sun, lions are mostly inactive and can be found sleeping, resting under shade or inside grass but they can go impatient and get irritated by loud human noise and  seeing moving buses. Chandu bhai shared one story from July 2011, to add some more thrill in the air. Around July three men drove their own car into the forest after taking the required permission. Two of these men went crazy after finding the lazy sleeping beauties in the jungle, they came out of their car to get a clearer and closer shot for their lenses and for a lifelong memory. With expensive camera in their hands they bent their backs and slowly walked towards the sleeping, resting, lazy, innocent, silly big cats. Lions didn’t like this day light photo shoot and the bent men , hence jumped over them straight from their sleeping posture. Never underestimate  sleeping lions, they are very good actors too. The third person somehow escaped, for god sake he knew driving and Lions got busy in their raw feast.

Lion@ GIR

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Lions@ GIR

Lion@ GIR- sleeping beauties

Lion@ GIR- sleeping beauties

See, how close the other bus is.

Our memorable moment came, when he suddenly stopped the bus and pointed at the  three resting male lions under a tree shade. Rest is garbage; lions are perfectly a deadly combination of beauty and strength. One of them was lying on its back, killing time and yawning. It was such an amazing , natural feeling to see them from such a close distance, he slowly moved the bus further towards them , lions remained on their place , one stood up for a second, looked around took some notes , grunt decently, said “Hi” to us( I bet he saw me ;) and then laid down again. We stayed there for 5 more minutes, silently, I took photographs using 3X optical zoom of my Sony cyber shot and so we moved away and finally came out of the Park. Watching lions like them in a real jungle is a great experience, I bet those two men would have enjoyed that too in july.

From, Gir-Forest we started for Junagarh, meanwhile Chandu bhai’s car’s horn stopped working. We couldn’t get a single car garage to get this repaired until we reached Junagarh. We reached Junagarh around 3 in the noon, so still had a whole afternoon to spend. Finished our lunch quickly and directly moved to visit temple, the city is located at the foot of girnar hills , and hosts many famous temples. On the way to Uperkot Fort, we stopped at the Shilalekh ( Ashoka's Rock Edict ) dates back to some 250 BC. This Uperkot fort is as old as Mauryan dynasty and is said to be build by Chandragupta around 300 BC . I liked the Buddhist caves at the Uperkot Fort; by this time ma and dad were almost tired, so they stayed in the car. We decided to skip “Girnar Tirth” from this trip; it’s a famous Jain Sidhh Kshetra and a holy place for Jainism and Hinduism. Situated in the 3000+ feet high hill range but we were tired and out of energy to cover those around 8000 steps to reach the temple at the peak.

ShilaLekh

Damodar kund @foot of Girnar hill

Damodar@Girnar base

 

Uperkot

Buddhist Caves, beautiful

Buddhist Caves

photographer

Caves & Stairs

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ColdDrinkwala@Uperkot Fort

But, we still went to see the Zoo at Sakar Bag. Once again in the zoo we saw the Gir Lions along with tigers, leopards, panthers and other inmates. By this time it was already around 6 PM, Chandu bhai dropped us to the Mahasagar’s travel’s pickup point. Our bus to Ahmedabad was at 11 PM. Chandu bhai asked me if I can put his name in internet with his phone number , so if anyone travelling to Somnath , can contact him to book hotel, and in visiting nearby place, like Daman ,Diu, Gir, Junagarh etc.  I promised him and we said goodbye to Chandu Bhai , he then left for Somnath.                                                          

Well we reached Ahmedabad next morning, booked one hotel room in Paladi area till evening. We were tired so slept for few hours, we thought of visiting ISCON temple but it got closed by 1 PM. We had a fantastic lunch once again at Udupi café , slept for few more hours , then boarded our evening flight to Delhi , reached IGI around 10 PM. Reached Haridwar finally around 2AM next morning via a hired car. With this we finished our fantastic Gujarat travel on time and per schedule. This Sunday I phoned him and informed that I will be publishing his name and number soon within this week. Gujarat travel(Dwarka, Somnath and Gir )and Chandu bhai’ as a local, guide, cab owner, driver are highly recommended

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Best time to Visit Gujarat:  Winter season, after Diwali.
Best hotel/guest house to book in Somnath is Somnath Trust. 

P.S. 

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