Feeling at home in Gujarat
- meganagathe
- 12 janv. 2018
- 4 min de lecture
We first arrive in Ahmedabad, which is the capital of Gujarat. Ahmedabad is really crowded and loud but it somehow grows on us! There are many little streets that all seem to have their own business speciality: knife sharpening, thread dying…But the most impressive thing about Ahmedabad is its many mosques and temples dotted around the city.
Although we really enjoyed our one night in the bustling city of Ahmedabad, we are happy to leave its craziness behind and move onto Bhuj, the main reason we are in the region of Gujarat. This hadn’t been on our original itinerary of India, but I read about it being a great spot to visit different artisans and tribes and convinced Agathe that this was somewhere we had to go. I am so happy I stumbled upon it in my readings as Bhuj was amazing and an experience I think we will both keep for a long time. One of the main reasons for liking Bhuj so much was Ankita and Kuldip. We stayed at their really nice homestay and we felt at home straight away, alongside their son Karma! Ankita took it upon herself to not only show us how to make the perfect cup of chai and but also how to properly cook indian food. For both of us who enjoy cooking, this was heaven and we learned so much! Kuldip was busy during the day touring the region with other tourists, but still managed to come home in the evenings and tell us so much about his hometown and spend time with us just chatting, singing and playing music (Agathe and Kuldip mostly!). Kuldip is a great guide in the region because of all the relations he has forged with artisans and locals from tribal villages and because of his passion for the region and its people. When we arrived we had originally only booked the homestay as Kuldip was busy showing Bhuj to other people who had been better organised and booked him far in advance! However on the first night he managed to convince us to stay a little longer and once he was finished with that tour, he would bring us on a tour to the north of Katchchh region. On our first day in Bhuj we went to its nearby seaside town called Mandvi, the city is famous for the boats it builds and has really nice pastel market streets which look like something straight out of a movie. We then went to its famed nearby beach where we spent the afternoon laying on white sand and not seeing another soul!
The next day we visited some of the nearby towns of Bhuj famous for their weaving artisans. This was so much fun to go see how these handful of artisans still manage to practise their crafts. They took time to not only explain and show their process, they also let us try our hand at it…which was quite embarrassing for us, as they had made it look way easier than reality!
The next morning we left with Kuldip to go visit some handicraft villages, this time much further from Bhuj. We saw both the process of making lacquered utensils and cow bell making. We then went on to a small village in the middle of nowhere, consisting of mud huts, this is where we were going to spend the night! The villagers were incredibly welcoming and made us try their jewellery, dresses and played around with us, dragging us from one hut to the next! It was like something I would have imagined in my dreams, watching tv documentaries of tribes lost in the middle of nowhere and still living the same way that there ancestors did! The family who’s hut we were staying at, were telling us (all translated through Kuldip ofc!) how they were applying for visas to go see some relatives who were right accross the border in Pakistan. They were telling us all the things they were planning to bring as gifts, things they knew would be missed from India: tea, spices and materials that they embroidered in the village! Before dinner we went to the nearby white desert, a salt desert right on the border with Pakistan to see the sunset. This was the first salt desert we had ever seen, it was incredible and kindda felt like snow! After goofing around with picture effects and admiring the beautiful sunset, we went back to the village to find an amazing sky filled with stars. We had a really good meal and tea, which we had in their ‘kitchen’. Families usually have two huts, one where they sleep and another where they cook, because of the smoke. The next day we headed off to hike near the biggest hill of Kachchh, were you can get a wide view of the landscape. We then stopped for delicious chicken biriani with local block printers, before having them show us the amazing process of block printing! It was with a really heavy heart that we packed our bags and left. We didn’t want to leave the amazing home of Kuldip and Ankita…but the adventure must go on!
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