आditi

Biking Pune-Great Rann of Kutch-Pune Part I: Pune to Dholavira Biking Pune-Great Rann of Kutch-Pune Part II: White Rann, Kalo Dungar, India Bridge, 1962 War Memorial Day 5, November 27 (Friday) Hodka to Mandvi (123 km) We left from Hodka at around 6.30am after chai towards Mamdvi. On the way, after a small village called Ismailpada, we were on a small bridge, with the sun rising on one side, and moon setting on the other.  The bridge With this on one side And this on the other side The clearest of sun rises that I have ever seen After about 45 minutes here, we proceeded towards Mandvi. It was a pleasant ride and we reached the Mandvi beach camp at around 10.30am. We had not waited for breakfast and requested the beach camp manager to give us breakfast, to which he agreed.  View from our breakfast table After breakfast, we decided to visit the Mandvi ship building and windmills project on the beach. However, as we entered the cit...

Biking Pune-Great Rann of Kutch-Pune Part I: Pune to Dholavira Day 4, November 25 (Wednesday) Dholavira to Hodka (279 km) We left from Dholavira at around 6am. Woke up Rajan from his slumber to switch on the air compressor and top up air in the punctured tyre so that it will last till Rapar, about 100 km where the nearest possible tyre shop would be available to get a new tyre. We rode back on the Khadir bet road..couldn't help stopping for another half hour to take pics there, The White rann where we could actually step inside. And yes, we did taste the salt! Zombied couple We reached Rapar at around 9.30am and found an MRF shop, but he did not have the tyre size. After enquiring in 2-3 more smaller shops, we found it in one place. Though the shop owner claimed it was also a tubeless tyre, we were not sure...so we asked him to also put a tube. Finally, we were done by about 11.30am. We had breakfast of batatawada, dabeli, fafda, jalebi at the tyre shop only. ...

First things first..we went to Great Rann of Kutch and visited Dholavira, Hodka and Dhordo white desert, and Mandvi. This is Part I of the travel diary with details about our ride to Dholavira and the stay there. Links to Part II and III are given at the end of this post. We skipped the Little Rann of Kutch, wild ass sanctuary, Narayan Sarovar, Koteshwar temple, and Lakhpat fort. Day 1, November 22 (Sunday). Pune to Baroda: 552 km As planned, we left from Aundh at around 5.15am. Aai-Baba had come to see us off. Ovee was already told that we are going on bike for a week and she was ready with all the activities she had planned with grandparents. We did not wake her up in the morning...while leaving, we just kissed her on the cheek, whispered to her that she is a very strong and brave baby, and left. We met our biking partners and my cousins -Sukhad and Alka at Jagtap dairy chowk, and left from there at 5.45am. We had to cover a long stretch, so we waited only for breakfast, l...