Valentine's day

We are just back from two days in the lush and beautiful Gujarat countryside. Snehal Shah was taking a group of students out to the world heritage site at Champaner on which he is completing work on a book on the many beautiful mosques and other monuments in this 'lost city' of the 15th century.

We first visited a hunting lodge at a place called Jumburghoda where we were to stay the night - in fact an old rambling building with outhouses (in which our bedrooms were situated) at the end of a sandy track amonst the fields growing just about everything - including rice. This track is called Palace Road - the reason for which became apparent when we were taking tea and a distinquished woman approached us and to whom we were introduced, Snehal had almost snapped to attention when she came and I did likewise. We discussed our visit and the evening meal - all organic food from their fields and we all broke our strict vegetarian regime to try their chicken dish (peacocks and guinea fowl were wandering about but are apprently not for the table) and we were also introduced to her daughter. Our meal arranged we bade farewell when Snehal told us she was not just the proprieter but in fact the Queen of Jumburghoda - a former Princely State prior to Independence and of course with no remaining powers. The Lodge and grounds are the royal residence - hence Palace Road, a grand name for a sandy track!

On to the Champaner sites, and whilst Snehal took his student group off we were passed onto Professor Joshi as our guide - a 75 year old former Professor of Economics who is a resident of the area and an enthusiast of the monuments. Having been shown around one of the astoundingly beautiful old mosques Joshi asked us where our car was so we could start visiting some of the other widely scattered sites, we replied of course that we did not have one when lo and behold we spotted Ghiselle, a Swiss woman we had met in Ahmedebad who had just arrived with a driver! So Joshi immediately hijacked Ghiselle and driver to make a single group to visit further sites.

After the site visits we were dropped in the village to get a bus or shared jeep back the 25km to the Lodge and our problems began. Noone spoke English nor could anyone understand my obvious mispronunciation of Jumburghoda so we got only vague wavings of fingers or assurances that there were no buses. Finally one shared jeep said 'yes' and we squeezed in the back, Tess with a small child on her knee, when the jeep was full (that is with five in the front seat, people hanging on the side and back and squatting on the roof ) we set off - the wrong way!
Finally we got him to stop and trudged back to the village (and past the dead dog again!)

Snehal was texted, came to our rescue and eventually located a bus, already full but we squeezed in and even got seats at the first village - not for long however as we turned a corner to find a whole bus load of people beside a broken down bus, all plus their driver were somehow squeezed in and we set off - with us now quite unable to see the road and to spot Palace Road - however the driver had been asked by Snehal to stop and he did so. Very hot we walked the kilometer or so to the Lodge showered and took some tea in the shady gardens.

As the sun was setting we decided to take a walk through the fields, as we left the Lodge grounds a car with Queen and daughter and another couple drove out, the man driving wished up good evening in excellent English and told us about a step well across the fields and how to reach it. We replied that we had just been discussing the six storey underground step well at Ahemdebad so would indeed be interested
'Well this is a very simple country one, but well worth the visit' - and as he said farewell and drove on we concluded that we had just met the King!

We found the well, the way pointed out by a woman among what I guess was a tribal group, they all occupied small tents made of blue plastic gathered around a couple of trucks. The well was a large circular construction with a spiral of steps leading down to the water. We passed also coconut palms, all their trunks burned to make climbing easier and with poles and foot holds lashed to the trunks.

Returning to the lodge as the light failed we noticed that all the egrets (which are in every field) had gathered in flocks and were flying low through the trees along a small river valley. Reaching our bedroom block we found the hot water wallah busy making a fire under the old boiler attached to our block wall - for Snehal's shower as it turned out since he had just returned with a promise of cold beer to accompany our looked forward to dinner under what was now a very starry sky. And Tess and I agreed that this was a lovely place to be spending Valentine's Day!

Brian