You know when I’ve talked about times where something niggling or annoying happens and sets the pattern for the rest of the day or several days? Well it appears the opposite can also be true; Steve was right last night and it seems our fortunes have taken a turn for the better. Firstly we both got an excellent night’s sleep and Steve woke up feeling significantly improved. It’s amazing what seeing 7 rare lions and a leopard can do to one’s spirits.
As we were checking out the proprietor asked us what our onward plans were. By the time we’d left he’d reserved 2 seats for us on the sleeper bus to Udaipur leaving that evening from Junagadh. We wandered up to the main road to flag down the next but into town and bumped into one of the lads who’d shared our jeep yesterday. On sharing plans for that day it transpired they were waiting for two more people for their shared taxi into Junagadh. At Rs50 a head we jumped in and were instantly on our way. Things generally don’t go this smoothly in India so we were ready to believe that Lady Luck hadn’t forgotten us.
In town we soon tracked down the bus office where we paid for and picked up the tickets. Mahashakti Travels charge Rs600 for a sleeper berth and the journey will take around 14hrs so it’s good to know that travel is still cheap in India. We stored our back packs in their office and set off to explore Junagadh. In brief; it’s a small, typically noisy and chaotic India town but today we enjoyed the mayhem of the main market street.
Our main aim was the fort atop a small knoll on the edge of town. It’s not an extensive sight and with receiving view visitors the restoration work has been minimal over the years. Maybe they should charge a small entrance fee to give them the funds to look after it better as it’s definitely worth looking after. We walked around the old fort walls admiring the views over the city and towards the nearby hills. We had the place virtually to ourselves and it was only as we were leaving that groups of local tourists were beginning to arrive. We’d shared our space with sunbirds, kites, pigs, squirrels and langurs. The old Jain influenced mosque within the fort walls was a treat; again nothing spectacular but we enjoyed it. All in all we’d had an enjoyable amble around a piece of history.
The walk back through town was much quieter as we’d hit siesta time – a legacy from when the Portugese ruled this area. Luckily we found a local’s thali restaurant open so stuffed ourselves silly for the princely sum of Rs50 (less than a quid) a head. This time only the dhal was dessert sweet so we think this time we’d been served up a Punjabi meal.
The bus company was well organised with a small shuttle bus on hand to take us to the outskirts of town to catch our sleeper coach. The double upper berth we’d been allocated was substantially better than any we’d been on in previous trips so we settled down for the night. In the end we had quite a comfortable trip and the bus arrived on time in Udaipur.
