Continued...
We hurry up to Dholavira so as to not miss the sunset from our resort for the night - Toran Tourist Complex, and it was a beautiful sunset indeed. With the sun snugly set in the salt pans, we too retire for the night after a dinner of the local Kutch delicacies.
The next morning, we head over to the nearby fossil park to catch the sun rising from the island of Khadir Bet. Like all sunrises and sunsets, this was beautiful too, with the added bonus of flamingoes flying all around us and the air filled with the cacophony of their shouts.
After spending some time in early morning chill, we head back to our rooms, pack up, and start on a 300 km ride to the town of Bhuj in Western Kutch. The road took us through various scenic vistas and beautiful highways that were just a pleasure to ride through.
We reach Bhuj after 7 hours of riding and check in to City Guest house, a small quaint property in the middle of the old city. We had nothing in our schedule for that day, so we took a walk in the city streets hunting for a hotel that could serve non-veg in a predominantly vegetarian state, in which we were successful too!
Day 4 saw us riding through to the White Rann to attend the Rann Utsav festival. Rann Utsav happens in Dhordho in the northern part of Kutch, and there is only one road from Bhuj which leads there.
We start riding at 0530 hrs, a huge mistake considering the cold. We reach the check post of Bhirandiara from where we need to pay for passes to visit the White Desert.
We ride into Dhordho at around 1230 hrs after a break for lunch at Hodka village.
The Rann Utsav is a big area of tents put up that house a handicraft exhibitions displaying the local handmade artifacts and other stuff. You can not take your bike into the White Desert. You have to park it some 2 kms from the white desert, and the rest of the distance needs to be covered either on foot, or by camel or horse cart. We chose to do it by foot, and spent a good two hours in the desert.
Unfortunately, by this time, our cameras were out of juice, so we could not click much pictures.
From Dhordho, we were set to reach the fort town of Lakhpat, the westernmost settlement of India for the night. Lakhpat is the last place in India where Sri Guru Nanak Saheb stayed before he journeyed off to Mecca, and hence, in commemoration of his travels, a Gurudwara was built here which houses travellers from all over the world without charging anything.
The road from Dhordho to Lakhpat is non-existent. We could backtrack our way to Bhuj, and then swung around west to reach Lakhpat, OR we could cut across a featureless desert, without even the white poles that existed in the LIttle Rann, and risk getting lost, but if successful, cut down 200 km in our ride for the day.
We chose the second option.
To be continued...
