A Kutchi Summer: Day 5- The Uparkot fort at Junagadh

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Ten of us skipped the last ride into Gir sanctuary, in order to make a quick dash to Junagadh. For sure, the rest would see spectacular sightings without us, that was a given! But I could not come so far, and go back without dipping into this part of ancient Indian history. Junagadh, linked to the Mauryas, important to Buddhists and Jains, a nawab who wanted to accede to Pakistan, the Girnar range of mountains...
The early morning sun falls on the Hiren river, as we set off to explore Junagadh
A purple moorhen watches us go - an Indica and a Qualis, ten of us peeled away from the lions of Gir.

First stop, the Uparkot fort. Believed to have been built by Chandragupta Maurya in 319 BC! The Neelam and Manek guns are displayed here. According to a board there, the Sultan Bahadurshah of Gujarat invited the Turkish naval force under Suleman in 1538 to fight the Portugese in Diu. the Sultan was killed, the Turks defeated and the guns abandoned! tehy were installed in Junagadh later.

Click on the picture and zoom in on the lovely detailing around that window on on of the walls of the structure that housed the Jami Masjid. The fort was abandoned for several centuries, some historians believe that there was a flood and the city was evacuated.
The inner courtyard. This part is believed to be a later addition when Muslim conquerors occupied and restored the fort, say tenth to fifteenth century AD. The pillars were arranged so that the roof had an octagonal opening.
One of the side corridors
The engravings over the mihrab
A closer look at the marble detailing, surrounded by graffiti. How did they get so high up to scribble, I wondered.
The Girnar mountains must have served as a natural barrier and protection. We did not have time to explore the temples on the highest peak (1100m and an extinct volcano), where you need to climb 5,000 steps to reach the Jain temples as well as aHindu temple.
Kites swooped and soared overhead
The upper ramparts
A view of the walls after we had descended to the site of the Buddhist caves
The entrance to the Buddhist caves, which are scooped out, in three levels from the surface downwards. The ASI board dated the caves, "stylistically" to the second century AD, the Satvahana period. There was a lot of kshatrapa pottery found buried in the caves, datable to 3rd-4th century AD.
This was the first chamber, a pond that collected rain water directly and also through a sytem of channels! Ingenious no?
Vanishing decorations along the roof. It was a hot day, but down below, it was remarkably cool. There were stone alcoves that probably served as beds for monks.
We could just about make out the carvings on the base of the pillars, down in level 3, floral ornamentations.
Emerging back up, and out from the caves.
A brahminy mynah was busy feeding its young.
A short walk brought us to the top of the Adi kadi Vav, a 162-stepped well!!
Here we are the head of the steps, looking down some 41 m. Its cut in the rock. Its probably one of the earliest stepwells in the country. Imagine, in times of siege, the fort thus had its own water source, but then again imagine walking up those steps laden with water!
The walls reminded me of the Petra rocks in Jordan, but what was really really sad was the state of the well. If you have the stomach, click on the picture and zoom in, the muck you see at the bottom of the steps is the well. I did not descend further because there was a foul smell emanating from below, and it is a shame that the ASI, which is charging an entrance fee, is not doing anything to keep this well clean.
A little further up was the Navghan kuvo, another stepwell, with a more elaborate forecourt.
I enjoyed the play of light and shadow, as I peered down those innumerable steps.
And was that a whole bank of pigeon-holes in the walls? The home for the official courier pigeons of the kingdom?

The sun was high in the sky, and we were glad to bundle into the cars and head out of the fort. Next stop, the rock edicts of Ashoka!

A Kutchi Summer day 4- The diary

They were flowering everywhere. Doodla?, the guides said. Used to make junior cricket bats (not strong enough for the pro ones) As per Dr Rajaram via Mr Ramanan, it is Wrightia tinctoria, the indigo tree. Doodhi, not Doodla)

The Rainbow hotel beds were obviously not made for comfort, and with much groaning and moaning, I made my way towards the loo, in order to complete my morning ablutions. Ablutions done with, there was tea. Tea done with, there was the ride. I'll start from there as the tea was a very routine affair by now.

Adhi, Dhanush, Chandru and me joined Dhruva and Vijay uncle for the ride. The 4 of us juniors shared 4 cameras and not much bird identification expertise. Therefore, Vijay uncle and Dhruva were relied upon completely.

In a short while, a lion was spotted wandering in a nullah.
Adhi, even after much pointing and binocular viewing, was unable to spot the creature, and became the local laughing stock for a bit. After following our fellow Chennai-ites around for a bit, news passed on that Vikas' jeep had seen 3 leopards. Jealousy can very easily turn the least bothering people into the most vigilant and perseverant.

This very same quality overcame our jeep, and silence reigned for the next hour, as everyone kept their eyes doubly peeled for the leopard. To our credit, we came close. Twice. We heard alarm calls and all that jazz. We also saw the monkeys that had seen the leopard. To our discredit, the jeep in front of us saw it. Grumbles abounded as we thought we had been cheated. Wild boar at a water-trough. They fled soon after.

Sambar - we saw more here than at any other sanctuary that we've been to.

Towards, the end of the journey, all enmity, envy and jealousy were forgotten and a cunning story was concocted to show our superiority to Vikas. And of course, being us, the story was completely unbelievable! To my memory, it ran something like this: We saw the leopard and jackal playing cricket. Upon the discovery of their activities, the chital berated them, only to be berated itself by the lion who said no animal would scold another under his watch. You have to admit, its brilliantly ridiculous!

So, we reached the hotel to find the little prodigy loudly proclaiming his achievements of the day. (See how competitive we were?!!) This lent a lot of feeling to our storytelling, and by the time we were done, all the parents were staring very dubiously at us. Shortly after our story was exposed as a sham, breakfast was had and bags packed for our move to the Lion Safari resort, where we would complete our stay.

Jeeps loaded, we waited impatiently for the drivers to show up, because the jeeps were standing in the sun. Adhiaman, after a lot of pleading and persisting, was sent to find a driver, after having being taught two Hindi words 'Driver Bulana'. He walked off gamely, only to come back with a bewildered look on his face. His reply, 'Aunty, avan reply pannitan', had everyone in splits and was the punch line of the anti-Hindi movement for the next few days.

The driver soon arrived and we were off to Lion Safari, where it was tented accommodation with AC. And showers, believe it or not! So once we reached, rooms were slowly allocated, as guests were yet to leave some of the rooms. Once settled and lunched, the kids hit the games room and pretty much stayed there until it became time for the evening safari. The Lion Safari campus, with mango trees. The tents were on either side. My mom saw the trees full of mangoes, and pleaded with the chef to give us mangoes, so they cut a few and made us some salad!
The view from the resort down to the Hiran river. Nice area. My mom was always birding here, and I was in the games room to the right, playing billiards, or some form of it anyway!

A little temple on the other side of the river
A croc slithers into the water. Good thing it didnt decide to come the other way!
Cattle egret in breeding plumage posed for me (on the river bank).
Gir cattle - a subspecies of Indian cows. We went for a walk along the river's edge.
The Hiran river - upstream. With a check dam. This is where the crocs are.

Downstream where people were happily washing clothes, so I suppose no crocs.

The kids, after loud protestations, got ourselves our own jeep. And Bikku. Note to all those concerned:Bikku was the unofficial local head of the lion spotters union. So off we went with everybody following us. Round and round we went, with me spotting my Afirst Jackal.Even the chital thought we were crazy
Jackal!

Finally we reached a portion of the forest where four lions were snoozing. Of course, word having spread, all the tourists in Gir were at the spot and the forest guard was rationing time between jeeps which led to much Gujarati we did not understand between Bikku and said guard, and the photos posted earlier. All of us were now suitably happy and drunk with success, headed back, with only detours to see a CH Eagle nest and to go shopping at Sinh Sadan, the forest department headquarters. Hats, shirts and other paraphernalia purchased, we headed back to Lion Safari, to freshen up, play some billiards, and have some dinner.
The Sinh Sadan

P.S.: The story told to the parents was that we had seen four leopards, since the kiddy story would not not fool them. Also there was a CSK match that afternoon, which led to the gathering of cricket watchers in the games room after the evening ride. Since we had seen enough lions, mummy, me and some of the others hatched a plan to visit the historic town of Junagad the next day.

A Kutchi summer - Day 4 - Tryst with the lions

Junior photographed these lions, lazy in the summer heat of Gir.

The lions of Gir, in this home video. Thank you iMovie!

The Day 4 Dairy continues.

A Kutchi summer - Day 3 - On to Sasan Gir!

A Kutchi summer - Day 2 - is here.

Once again I was prodded awake (I was getting used to this and woke up on the second prod) at some unearthly hour, told that we were reaching Veraval. All morning rituals were done and our compartment sat in groggy anticipation of our imminent arrival at Veraval station.

Scheduled time came and passed and mutterings arose that 'the Railways was not like this in the old days'. Minnie, being enterprising and also the one with the internet on her phone, decided to check the schedule. She then very calmly proceeded to tell us that we were an hour late amidst much groaning and moaning from yours truly. Oh well, nothing I could do there.

Finally, we reached Veraval, which was significantly cooler than LRK. Bad news awaited us on the platform, as Pritam uncle had to head back due to personal problems. Upon hearing the news, we all morosely headed for the exit. I missed one of my "roommates" for the rest of the trip.

While we were winding our away down the over-bridge, Shantaram uncle delivered the best news of the day: Chennai had won the previous night. I wasted no time in informing Vijay uncle who very vaguely brushed it aside. Round one to me.

We piled our luggage and ourselves into the six Qualises that had arrived and set off to the Rainbow hotel.

We were now in Junagadh district I learnt. It was very different from LRK, green, with mango orchards and farms all along the way. It was about an hour and half to reach Sasan Gir, the town for the Gir lion sanctuary. All along there were boards proclaiming, how we were nearing the ONLY remaining home for the Asiatic Lion in the world!

Dhanush next to me dozed off while I tried hard to stay awake. Suddenly we noticed a small building where everybody was staring at us. Suddenly Vijay uncle realized that that must have been Rainbow Hotel, and we turned around.

Indeed it was Rainbow, and our companions of the other Qualises had been wondering where we were heading to. All snafus sorted out, we buried ourselves in breakfast and hot tea, before heading out for a very late morning Safari. My jeep for the morning was the photographer's jeep and I ended up getting loads of tips from Doc Alaganandan, Sivakumar sir and Hariharan sir.

We spotted our first Lion, enjoying his morning siesta in the shade of a small dried up nullah. Much excitement for us, as for me and mom, it was a first ever wild lion sighting. OK, it had its back to us, and slept through our excitement but what the heck?)

We moved on, hoping to perhaps spot more, but we spent the rest of the morning going around in circles, ending with me dozing off in the jeep and the others actually spotting some birds. We then headed back for lunch and a nap.

The afternoon saw everybody in their respective rooms and nobody strayed out, now seasoned veterans of the Gujju afternoons. The evening ride saw me doing what I never thought I would do, I climbed into mummy's jeep.

No lions greeted us, though several raptors put in appearances to save our evening from being a complete flop (Though Vijay uncle scared away an Eagle by yelling at everyone else to shut up!). We also passed through a Siddhi village. For those who are clueless, the siddhis are Africans that moved to India as slaves and ended up setting up establishments in Gujarat. They speak such fluent Gujarati, you will NEVER make out the difference.

Passing through the siddhibari village, where a game of football was on. A few of our guides were also from this community.

Siddhis soon done and dusted with, we saw a Changeable Hawk Eagle enjoying a dry martini in front of us. Cameras snapped away!

The Changeable Hawk Eagle, with my film camera

With efficiency to make the Red Bull F1 pit crew proud, the jeeps loaded up and headed back to our safe sanctuary at the Rainbow.

Upon arrival, the customary baths were had and Panneer Butter Masala Dinner was cooked, but not before one of the greatest Indian traditions was embraced- the power cut. Dinner done away with and beds looking inviting, the number of people staying outside their rooms slowly dwindled away and the day merged into the next.

Methi parathas being made

NOTE: The Asiatic Lion (Panthera leo persica) is found only in Gir and in Iran, unlike the African Lion which is found in larger numbers. It has a small population that has increased in the past 5 years.

(The lions are coming, all of us saw loads the next day, so be patient!)

Read about our tryst with the lions.