October 15-16 - Ahmedabad

Plan: Pune to Ahmedabad, visit Ahmedabad, bus to Udaipur

After spending half a day doing 3 15 minute presentations (why they took that long is a mystery to us both!) we were finally heading to Rajasthan, a State I have been waiting so long to see! We had booked our train ticket from Pune to Ahmedabad a couple of days before and we took a rickshaw to the train station. Once there, we tried to figure out exactly what platform our train was leaving from, but since it wasn’t coming up on any of the electronic screens, we decided to go to the enquiry window to ask. We made our way there and quickly remembered that we were in India…not Canada. There, there was a throng of people, all pushing and shoving each other to try and make their way to the window in order to find answers to their questions! Yan bravely made his way through trying his best to reach the window…fortunately he didn’t need to because he heard another man shouting the same train number as us!! Yan asked him what was going on and the man said that the information would come up later, but that apparently the train was delayed and he didn’t know which platform it would depart from yet. Not wanting to miss our train, we stuck to this guy like glue!!! He had been travelling with multiple family members and accepted that we hang around them until we got an answer. About 20 minutes before departure, we finally learned that it was leaving from platform 3 and quickly made our way!

This was exactly what you’d picture travelling in India to be like. They’ve installed pretty electronic boards with train information but of course none of it was providing any information while we were there, only flashing a pleasant but useless “Welcome to Pune.” First we wandered around the station a little and asked an employee about our train. He seemed to point to the very platform we were on, indicating the train would be here. But this being the first person we had randomly asked, and with a significant language barrier in place, it also seemed a little too good to be true. We kept looking for a sign just in case and eventually gave up, heading to the enquiry counter. Pune is a city of 4 million, with one main train station. This one main train station has exactly one enquiry counter. Ahhhh India! And while every other counter to buy tickets had a semi-proper line formed in front of it, the enquiry counter was literally a mosh-pit of men and women trying squeezing their way to the front of the pack to read something on a board there and to yell out their questions. I nudged my way near the front, worrying about my feet (train stations are a good place to wear shoes) when I thankfully heard that guy yell out the same train number as we were taking. I helped him squeeze through in front of me and ask. Like Emilie said, we then stuck to him like glue and he and his family were pretty amused by this. I followed him when he headed back to the enquiry counter later and lo and behold, a police officer had ordered people to form a line at the enquiry counter. Apparently he didn’t think the pushing and shoving was all that safe. Where were you 15 minutes ago buddy?!? As we waited in line though, I noticed a lot of people budding to the front and by the time we had our answer as to the train, the line had almost dissolved back into a pit.

We found our seats (that convert into beds) and settled in for the journey! It was actually quite pleasant (since little cockroaches definitely don’t bother us after the humongous ones we’ve encountered)! The doors of the train were open and people were enjoying the view from there, the scenery was gorgeous, and of course, people were walking up and down the alleyway selling everything from chai to idli to locks for your bags to toys and jewellery!! Sleeping on the train was actually wonderful, best sleep I had had in a while and before we knew it, it was 3am and we had arrived in Ahmedabad!!

We made our way out of the train, checked our bag in the luggage room and being extremely tired and it only being something like 5am, we headed to the retiring rooms reserved for the sleeper class, found ourselves a nice mettle bench and took a nap! We woke up around 7 am and began our visit of Ahmedabad!

Ahmedabad is Gurajat’s major city and a mini-metropolis. It has a bustling new city feel, but with old world charm architecture. Making our way through the streets, the first thing we spotted, besides cows eating in the trash can (Yan commented saying that while we have raccoons, India has cows!) was the Teen Darwaja also known as the triple gateway. This gate was the gateway into the Royal Square where royal processions and polo games used to take place. Although the gate was supposedly damaged in 2001, it was well repaired because we saw no signs of it!

We made our way through the streets trying to find the Swaminarayan Temple and trying to navigate through the streets using the Lonely Planet map. We finally stopped at a temple thinking it was the right one. A nice man invited us in to visit, talked about the temple a bit, went off to get us some fresh water, and later told us we had the wrong temple but that he would accompany us there. What a nice man! He also showed us his house before leading us to the temple. Once there, we found another man who was speaking with some girls from France about the temple itself. This temple was a grand haveli that dated back to the 1850 and was enclosed in a large and beautiful courtyard!!

After this little explanation, we started to speak with them and before we knew it, Aisha’s roommates showed up! What a coincidence, in a country as large as India, for us to meet people we actually knew!!! We had no idea they were going to be in Ahmedabad! While we had made Ahmedabad our pit stop to Rajasthan, they had made it their pit stop to the north of the State of Gujarat!

After speaking with them, we decided to all head out together to visit the textile museum…but before doing so, the second nice man took us on a little impromptu visit of the temple dedicated to Vishnu. He spoke great English and explained a lot of things to us! Once we got to the temple, he explained to us that many girls came in the morning in order to pray to Vishnu for a rich and healthy husband…and then proceeded to ask me if I was married! Since I wasn’t he got me to pray to the gods as well…I guess we’ll see if it works! He gave us a typical yellow flower and a lotus, blessed by the temple gods for good luck and then asked a boy to get some leaves from a special tree that we were to put in our living room for happiness. He directed us through another entryway where he pointed out a birdfeeder and explained to us that there were a lot of these in Ahmedabad because PIGEONS are considered very special birds and seeds are left for them everywhere for them to eat….PIGEONS!!! LOL! He then stopped, took out
some funky cigarettes, offered some to Yan who politely refused, offered some to me but would not listen to my refusal, and so I ended up smoking a cigarette with this old retiree from Ahmedabad. At this point, he told me, by reading my face, that I would have a very successful career…he also explained to us that we shouldn’t divorce, that in life we were meant to be with one person and that it was important to stay with that person…he also did not understand why we were single…foreign concept to most Indians why two 20 something individuals are not married yet. After finishing our cigarette, we told him that we needed to go the museum because the tour started and he asked us to come back after and he would show us around the streets of Ahmedabad. We agreed and left to meet up with the French group.

We went to grab two rickshaws and made our way to the textile museum. This museum was quite impressive! It contains one of the world’s finest collections of antique and modern Indian textiles. There are actually two parts to the museum and we got to tour both for free! The first is the main textile gallery and the second called Invisible presence: Images and Abodes of Indian Deities, explores the depictions of Indian gods. Quite interesting!

After the tour, we split ways; the French going to the bus stand to catch their next bus and Yan and I to a travel agency in order to book our next bus out of Ahmedabad. We decided to grab a rickshaw and go to one of the recommended travel agencies, got our tickets and then asked the rickshaw driver to drive us to a good and cheap lunch place…when this just didn’t work out (he took us to a really expensive restaurant) we abandoned our driver and stopped at a cheaper lunch place across from our next destination, the Sabarmati Ashram, which is set on a river bank. This Ashram was Gandhi’s headquarters during his long struggle for Indian independence. A little background for those of you who are not familiar with Gandhi and India’s struggle for Independence:

This Ashram was founded in 1915 and was moved to its current site a few years later. It was from here on 12 March 1930 that Gandhi set out on his famous Salt March to the Gulf of Cambay in a symbolic protest. Gandhi’s poignant, Spartan living quarters are preserved and there’s a great pictoral record of his life. This was a very inspiring visit and gave me a great insight to Gandhi’s life and his struggle to help his native land. If you’ve watched the movie Ghandi, you’ll see the Ashram in it and it really looks exactly the same, though I’m not sure whether they shot it on location or not.

Next we headed to the City and Kite museums, both housed in the same building. Neither was spectacular but still fun to go through and permitted us to waste a little time before our bus left!

But before getting on the bus, Yan and I decided to treat ourselves to the best Thali For those of you who don’t know, a Thali is the Indian version of all you can eat! It is comprised of 6 or 7 little dishes that are filled up with different sauces (including dessert!) that are to be eaten with rice, papad and rotis that are continuously being refilled on your plate! As soon as the waiters noticed that one of your dishes, or one of the items is no longer on your plate, they come by and offered you some…take that North American all you can eats!!! Imagine one waiter per item, walking around with a pot of it, constantly at the ready to refill your plate... pure genius! Completely full and satisfied, we took a rickshaw to the bus, settled in and tried to sleep (although I wasn’t too successful at this!!)