A Trip to Gujurat

November, December, January and February seem to be the best times to visit most of India because the temperatures are more reasonable than most of the rest of the year.- though a couple people we asked were not sure what it signifies- and lots of people were working that day too! There are also a few holidays in Dec- Feb. period that make it a little more advantageous to tour while using fewer vacation days. Our visit to Hampi ended on the 14th- a Holiday. We just returned from a visit to Gujurat- the home state of M. Gandhi- bordering on southern Pakistan. This trip covered Jan. 26 which was "Republic Day".
One of the things Gujurat is known for is its textiles. We flew from Bangalore to Mumbai and then on to Bhuj in the western part of Gujurat. That part of the state us known as "Kutch"- which we see spelled different ways. People we met speak of the region as if it were a separate state or even separate country from Gujurat, India and Pakistan. We arrived in Bhuj a bit later than planned because the flight from Mumbai was delayed. Our friend Linn also made the trip and made most of the arrangements. Our Friend Anita also made the trip, but had different flights from ours.
Our plan was tot try to travel "light" and only carry on our bags, but this went awry for both Janet and Anita when tiny scissors they had di not pass through the security screening and rather than give them up they checked the bags. Fortunately, the bags arrived safely.
The temperature in Bhuj was warm, but not bad. A driver met us at the airport and took us to the only hotel in the city that seemed to be recommended. We checked in and decided to go to a folk art museum, but Linn and Janet had a bit of an argument with the guy at the desk who claimed we had to pay 500 Rs (about $11 these days) to go there, but he said it was closed anyway. The guy was a lower level person, so later Linn dealt with the manager and our car for the next 2 days and to drive away from Bhuj on the 26th was arranged for the fees she had been quoted earlier. We got two auto rickshaws and found the museum to be open and quite happy to have visitors. Anita is from New Delhi and spoke Hindi to the drivers, which helped.
The folk art museum is small, but has a nice collection of old textiles among other things. They also have several small buildings one can see decorative styles from the area.
We left the museum near dusk and went to the central bazaar where we found a couple interesting shops, but ran out of time before going back to the hotel by auto rickshaw. The rickshaw drivers here did not seem as earger to take all our money as they seem in other cities. Perhaps it was because Anita was with us. We had dinner at the hotel and then went to sleep.
On Sunday Jan. 24 we got in our nice hired minivan with pleasant driver and went to one of the old palaces in the city to try to find a good map of the area. We stooped there only briefly and took a few pictures- earthquake damage seemed evident, though we read that the places have not be kept up over the many years either. We road off to a textile maker's business to the south east of the city. They do a special kind of processing at the place that starts with blank cotton fabric and after about 10 to 14 steps of block printing, dyeing and washing steps, end sup having beautiful patterns in 3 or more colors. They use carved wooden blocks to make a repeating pattern on the fabric. It was quite remarkable to see and impressive to see how such a complex process was developed. The owner said that he is the 9th generation to be doing this and his sons now run most of the operations- so 10 generations! Of course, we bought a few sample fabrics.
We then visited a couple of other villages and shops where local women make hand embroidered textiles that range in quality from mediocre to spectacular. Though hand embroidered anything is rather expensive in much of the world because of labor costs, they are not so expensive here. We learned that the quality is starting to decline over the past 10 or 20 years. We ended the evening with a stop at a sort of handicrafts village that is obviously newly built for the purpose. Different artisans show their wares in nice brick buildings and they rotate new people in each month. There were some good items, but not a lot. We think the buildings were built in the past few years with funds from the central government to help out after the awful earthquake that struck this area only a few years ago. (official death toll was around 18,000, but people here said it was more like 45,000). We then went back into Bhuj and called a textile dealer who is very well known and listed in some of the guidebooks. We were welcomed at their home and shown many very nice old textiles. We bought a few and then were invited to return the next night for dinner and to see some very special items from his personal collection.
On Monday the 25th we went to the police station to get permits to visit some villages north of the city. When you go close to the border with Pakistan you need a permit. We had to list the villages we wanted to visit, so we made a short list the night before. We knew we would not have time to see them all, but listed 5 places. We made it to 3.
There are a few cooperatives who sell items made by many groups of women and they give the women a fair share of what the items sell for. Our first stop was at such a place where they have a small research facility and are putting pictures and information into an on-line database for people to see around the world. They had a nice shop too.
We made stops in a couple villages and also went to the "Great Rann". This is a huge salt flat tha borders on Pakistan. It was hot in the sun and extremely bright due to light reflected from the salt. Later we were told that this was formed about 1890 after an earthquake. We have not studied the subject but someone told us that a river once flowed here, but its course was changed in 1890 and sea water was trapped to lead to the salt beds. In any case it was interesting to see white salt as far as you could see. Except for the Bromine factory.
We made our way back to Bhuj to change clothes at our hotel and then go for dinner and to see the special textiles. The dinner was very good vegetarian cuisine. The textiles were amazing. Two were hand embroidered pieces 100 to 200 years old while another was a block printed and hand painted wall hanging with great patterns and colors. Remarkable stuff of museum quality.
On Tuesday, Jan. 26 we left Anita in Bhuj and she flew back to Bangalore later in the day. Linn, Janet and Jim road to Ahmedabad with the hotel driver. We wanted to see the contry side between these two cities and took the 6.5 hour ride.
The country side is very flat. We saw a huge area where salt is gathered. We were impressed by the quality of the roads- on the average, much better than around Bangalore. We had planned to stop at Lothal- site of a city of 2500 BC(!), which was on the rive rback then and now is quite a distance from the river. However, our driver said that since it was a government holiday, the site would be closed. He might have been right, but we don't know. He proposed to take us by a different route to go through a part of the "Little Rann" where we might see some wild jackasses roaming around. So, we decided to follow his suggestion. We did see some wild asses. They are tan and white in color and were not as shy as we were told.
We arrived at our hotel in Ahmedabad about 5:30 PM. We checked in and a friend of a friend came to meet us at the hotel. A few months back we mentioned that Janet bought Jim a painting from a relative of the Maharaj of Mysore. This was the artist. He lives in gujurat about half time and he came to show us around the city.
The night we arrived he took us to the "Utensil Museum", which was actually a fairly interesting collection of over 3500 implements. Most were metal, but many wee pottery. We then had a Gujurati Thali for dinner. We returned to the hotel.
On Wed. the 27th, Linn returned to Bangalore as she had to work. We stayed at the hotel until "Choata" (this is spelled approximately as it is written, but not how he spells it.) arrived and he then took us on a walking tour of old Ahmedabad. This was an interesting walk and we saw many old wooden buildings where the facades were intricately carved out of Burma teak. Most were in poor repair, but still intersting. A few places have been restored.
We had lunch and then road off to visit a couple of nice textile shops plus an art book shop that had many very nice volumes. We ended the evning with a simple dinner at our hotel.
On Thursday the 28th, we were joined by Choata again and we had arranged for a car and driver to take us to the Calico Museum. We were not sure we'd get in so we arrive dearly to get in line to see the museum. They only allow 25 or 30 people a day to visit. We were the first ones there and we waited. It turned out not to be a problem as most people arrived AFTER the tour started. The museum collection seemed to be spectacular, but we were a bit rushed through and the place is dimly lit to help preserve the fabrics. The guide has a well deserved reputation for being rather stern.
We had a little lunch and visited a couple other textile shops before we parted from Choata and went to the airport. It was big help having him along- partly because he speaks the local language and partly because of his family history. He was also very pleasant and helpful to us. Our flight back to Bangalore was largely uneventful, but we did note that the announcements at the airport were difficult to understand and the text messages on the tv monitors were not up to date.
At Bangalore we were met by our driver Joseph and came home to find Ziggy and Zoe seeming happy to see us! Unfortunately Jim caught a cold or maybe it is allergy on the 27th and has been a bit under the weather ever since.
It was a very interesting visit, but much too short. We needed at least another day in Bhuj and more days to see other parts of Kutch. Then we needed a couple more days to see other areas around Ahmedabad too.