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9-day vacation in Gujarat: Visited many places in rented Toyota Glanza

20th November 2024, 13:37 by Utkarsh Chaudhary

I preferred to drive from Bangalore in my Kia Seltos but that demanded more days hence it was decided to fly to Ahmedabad and take a self-drive rental car.

BHPian amitnair recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

In early October, I posted my queries regarding routes/hotels etc Route/Travel queries.

After taking all the feedback and reading through various travelogues from fellow Team bhpians and also taking inputs from YouTube etc, the plan was set for a 9-day trip to Gujarat during Diwali.

We (wife, son and myself) wanted to cover Gir, Somnath, Dwarka, Rann of Kutch, Nadabet & Ahmedabad. We tried many tour plans from MakeMyTrip and other operators. But couldn’t find one that covers all these places. Most of them had tours to either Gir or Somnath & Dwarka or to Kutch.

I preferred to drive from Bangalore in my own vehicle (Seltos), but that demanded more number of days and was perhaps more tiresome. Hence it was decided to fly to Ahmedabad, take a self-drive rental car and go around all the places that we had on our list.

While on the trip, we made some tweaks to the plan. Nadabet was omitted (though I had taken the permit ) due to the distance & bit of wrong planning. Instead, we included Bhuj (to cover Nirona, Ajrakhpur, Smritivan etc).

Choosing Rent a car

I could find many options for self-drive rentals in Ahmedabad. There are many posts on Instagram and in other sites. But most of them lacked proper reviews & transparency. Justdrive and RAS (Rent A Self-drive) were the two options that I zeroed in. RAS has an outlet in Ahmedabad airport which made it convenient, and they were quick to respond over WhatsApp to any queries that I had and I also had multiple conversations with them. So I decided to go with RAS.

They do not take any deposit nor ask for advance rent payment. I made the payment just before picking up the car. Here again, you have the option to make payment for the total number of days or make part payment and later pay the rest on a daily basis. You can book the car for 8/16/24 hours with unlimited kms. They will return any extra amount on fastag recharges. You are expected to match the fuel level upon returning the car. And there is no reimbursement on extra fuel in case you have filled in more. RAS has multiple car/SUV options. I chose Toyota Glanza AT. The car that I got was in good condition.

Day 1 – Bangalore to Ahmedabad (flight), drive to Junagadh; 350km

Took service of Shoffr from residence to BLR airport. The cab came on time (3.15am). Indigo had intimated early departure at 6.20am. But eventually took off only at ~7am. After reaching Ahmedabad airport, we approached the RAS (car rental) airport counter. The procedure at RAS was very quick. I provided a copy of my DL and Aadhaar earlier. Both parties took photos/videos of the car (as is condition), fuel gauge etc. Paid the rental and we were off in 15-20 minutes.

Ahmedabad to Gir was around ~8hrs. As I was skeptical of flight keeping its time and was not sure of how much time would be required at RAS (readiness of car etc as it was my first interaction with them), I didn’t want to take the risk of late evening driving, and hence the plan was to make a night halt at Junagadh (~6.5hrs from Ahmedabad). Junagadh to Gir is ~1.5hrs.

But since there wasn’t much delay with the flight & at RAS, we had the car with us by 10am. We could have directly gone to Gir. But a hotel reservation was already made at Junagadh.

We started from Ahmedabad airport, filled up the tank and we soon exited the city. The road conditions were a mix of good to bad roads. We had a stop over for lunch at HFM (Highway Food Mall). They have multiple options for Punjabi, Kathiyawadi, Subway, Pizza etc).

We reached Hotel Click Junagadh by 5pm. Hotel was good, had parking space within the premises and had a good restaurant. We went for a stroll in the vicinity. The hotel is adjacent to the railway station. There was an old building across the road which housed the police station. By then it was getting dark. We didn’t get time to visit Maqbara Palace. Had dinner from the hotel restaurant and called it a day.

Road condition – Good and bad. Most of the stretch had a rough top surface and random deep pits and undulations. Road reconstruction is in progress at multiple places.

Day 2 – Junagadh to Gir and then to Somnath; 100km

We had our safari booked for 9.30am. There are two safari options:

Gir Jungle Safari which takes you to the open jungle
Devalia Park Safari which is an enclosed forest area ensuring higher chances of seeing lions.

We had taken the Jungle Safari.

There are many sites that offer safari booking. Please use govt site only. Others are overpriced.

At Click Hotel, we had requested a packed breakfast as we had to leave by 7am in order to reach Gir Safari as per the schedule. You are expected to report 30 mins prior to safari. En route, we took a tea break at Honest restaurant. We reached Sinh Sadan (which is the safari booking office/Safari starting point). Please note that in Gmaps, please search with Sinh Sadan. If you search by Gir forest, it will route you to a point 1 hour away from the booking office.

At the safari office, there is a bit of formality for the officials to validate your booking, checking ID and assigning a guide and safari route number. Due to the Diwali rush, had to wait for 30 minutes for the guide to bring us the open jeep. You can not carry plastic water bottles for the safari. The guide will help you get RO water in a steel flask (GIR branded) from the safari office at a nominal cost. You need to return the flask upon completion of the safari.

Kiddo busy with Gir brochure

Gir branded water bottle that I mentioned earlier

Please carry dark glasses and a cap as it's very hot. Jungle Safari takes 2.5hrs+. We weren’t lucky enough to spot an Asiatic Lion. There are two restroom points within the jungle where they stop for a few minutes.

Post safari, we had lunch at one of the restaurants opposite Sinh Sadan. Kathiyawadi food was good. There was a lassi shop that served yummy varieties of lassi. We grabbed a few. They also sell aam ras (mango pulp) and pickles.

The plan now was to head to Somnath which is about 1 hr from Gir. Had made reservations at Lords Inn. We reached there by 3pm. Good spacious room. They had parking within the premises.

Somnath temple parking is just 5 mins away. The temple parking space is huge and well managed & operated by fastag. Temple is 10 mins walking distance from the parking. Mobile, smartwatch, car key fob etc aren’t allowed and need to be deposited at the locker. There are many local vendors operating these lockers near parking. I avoided them and chose the locker run by temple management closer to the temple. Similarly, there is a facility to store your chappals. And these facilities are free of cost.

There wasn’t much rush at the temple. We had good darshan. We then went to the walkway beside the sea, spent some time there to enjoy the sunset and headed back to the hotel.

Road condition

Two lane roads from Junagadh to Sinh Sadan. The exit road from Junagadh was an unpaved one for about 10-15 mins. Rest of the road till Sinh Sadan is good. From Sinh Sadan to Somnath, it's again two lane roads till you reach Junagadh-Somnath highway which is 4+ laned.

Day 3 – Somnath to Dwarka (including Beyt Dwarka); 310km

After a sumptuous breakfast, we left for Dwarka. The coastal route was good. En route we crossed Madhavpur beach, but didn’t get down due to scorching sun. There were options for camel rides. Perhaps a good place for evenings.

We didn’t take any coffee/tea breaks. Made steady progress and soon reached the outskirts of Dwarka. Had lunch at Honest Dwarka beside the highway. We had our reservations at Club Mahindra Dwarka. Reached there by 2pm. After taking some rest, drove to Beyt Dwarka. It took an hour to reach Sudarshan Setu. Roads from Dwarka to Beyt are bad. Along the route, noticed many abandoned boats that were probably used for ferrying people from Okha to Beyt until a year back. Once we crossed Sudarshan Setu, we were surprised to see a mad rush (probably due to Diwali holidays + it was a Saturday). It was chaotic. Police had barricaded the entry and the only option was to head to a nearby parking space. It was messy. It was 5.30pm when we reached there. Seeing the mad rush, we didn’t want to get stuck there and miss darshan at Dwarkadish Temple. So instead of heading to Beyt parking, we managed to find a way out of there and headed back to Dwarka.

There was a lot of rush at Dwarka (few kms from the temple) and the police were not allowing entry to many roads. And Google was rerouting us continuously. Luckily, we spotted a big parking facility at Dwarkadish Temple while on our way to Beyt. So quickly searched for that in Gmaps and went there. Parking there wasn’t well managed. No fastag-based entry, parking ticket was managed manually and hence there was a delay and no lane discipline.

We saw many cars returning from that point. We waited and eventually got the parking tickets. From the parking space, it’s a 20+ mins walk to the temple or you can avail auto to cover that distance. Mobile, smartwatch and car key fobs are again not allowed inside the temple and are to be deposited at a locker. This facility and chappal storage are just beside the temple. There was a lot of rush for darshan. Ladies queue was less, so wifey took that lane. Myself and son were in the gents queue. People were randomly getting into the queue and there was constant push & pull. It took us some 1 hour to reach get darshan. And we were able to pray really well.

After darshan, did a little bit of shopping in a nearby store, had dinner and headed back to Club Mahindra.

Road conditions – Somnath to Dwarka had good roads (combination of 2 & 4 laned). Dwarka to Beyt road condition is bad.

Day 4 – Dwarka to Dholavira; 430km

We started by 8am. Had breakfast enroute. We had to make a deviation to Jamnagar town to get my son’s spectacle repaired. And hence the delayed start from Dwarka so that we reach Jamnagar by only 10am so that the optical shop opens. Got the spectacle repaired quickly and continued to Dholavira.

Enroute we passed through Reliance Petroleum and Nayara Petroleum facilities. The compound of Nayara is beside the highway and it is very vast.

Road condition was good and we were able to progress fast. The plan was to have lunch at Honest restaurant Avadh, instead opted for Dominos (in the same complex). From there, the route taken was via Rapar-Balasar-Dholavira. There was heavy cattle movement in this area. And we got stuck at multiple places.

After a while, we started seeing salt lake. Stopped intermittently for photo sessions.

We had booked our stay at Dholavira Village Resort. Bhunga huts. Reached there by 6.30pm.

The resort has about 12 to 13 Bhungas (few of them are air-conditioned). It is neat, well managed, very good staff and yummy food. It's owned/managed by a person who happens to be the principal of a local school. I had initially booked via Agoda. Agoda started sending spam email requests to transfer money to the resort account. I called the resort to check and they confirmed not having received the booking intimation from Agoda and the account details weren’t theirs. I cancelled that booking and booked via booking.com only to find out later from the resort that the rates at booking.com were inflated. So cancelled that as well and booked directly with the resort (inclusive of breakfast and dinner). Pls ensure that you make an accommodation booking with food included as there are just one or two restaurants at Dholavira.

We had taken airconditioned Bhunga and it was neat and spacious enough to put an extra bed. There is power fluctuation in Dholavira and hence a/c might not be very effective during the late evenings and but it stabilizes post 11pm. The food was great as well.

Please note that only Vodafone and Jio works here. We had Airtel SIMs in our phones. Airtel signal was intermittently available in some parts of Road to Heaven. But signal strength was low.

Also please tank up your vehicle either at Rapar or Balasar. Next pump is only at Khavda. Even at Khavda, there is just one IOC pump that ran dry when we went. But they had stock ready the next day.

Day 5 – Road to Heaven, Kalo Dungar, White desert; 250km

Woke up a bit early. Sun was just rising.

Ready to explore the day

Road to Heaven was constructed prior to the G20 Summit last year. This road connects Dholavira to Khavda. A good portion of the salt lake closer to Dholavira was dry when we visited. And it's all white till the horizon and it was very beautiful. Only a few areas are open where you can get down to the lake. We played Frisbee there for some time, it was too windy. Took many photos and videos to heart's content.

We then proceeded to Kalo Dungar. Enroute we stopped at Magnetic Hill Point where we tried the anti-gravity phenomenon. Our car rolled back uphill in neutral. That was a wonderful experience.

We then wanted to see the famous white desert (Rann). Was curious to know how that’s different or special from the white lake that we saw at Road to Heaven. On the way, we stopped for lunch at Greens restaurant. The food was okay, but the restroom was a disaster. Not at all recommended. There weren’t any other food joints in that stretch that we could find from Gmap.

After Green’s, google routed us via Khavda-Dhordo road which was in very bad shape and was narrow. The road has huge humps and craters. There were very few cars/SUVs on that road. But a lot of heavy vehicles were taking this route. While returning, we took another road that connected us to the state highway at Bhirandiara.

We had taken online permit for Rann, and that helped to avoid the queue at the checkpost. After BSF check, its 5 minutes drive to white dessert.

The lake was brown in colour, which meant that it was still not dry. It turns white once it's completely dry. There are options to take a ride on a camel cart or camel ride. We took a camel ride. I was in the back seat and it was scary when the camel got up and later when it knelt down. If you don’t hold properly, you could easily fall off to the front.

We saw the preparations were going on for Rann Utsav that starts on Nov 11.

We returned to Dholavira. The road from Khavda to Dholavira is good but very narrow, not wide enough for two vehicles to pass. So all vehicles have to slow down, move the left tyres outside the tarred surface. And need to be careful as the road edges are sharp and the mud surface is very bumpy. Same challenge if you are stuck behind a slow moving vehicle and difficult to overtake. Hence the travel time was much more than one would anticipate.

While returning to Dholavira, I wanted to refuel. As I mentioned earlier, the only fuel station in the Kutch area is the Khavda IOC. That evening, the pump ran out of petrol. But we had just about sufficient fuel to take us to Dholavira and also for the next day's travel within Dholavira and back to Khavda. We refuelled the next day and the low fuel warning had turned ON by then.

Day 6 – Dholavira (Harappa Civilization UNESCO World Heritage Centre & Wood Fossil Park), Nirona, Bhuj; 200km

We checked out from our accommodation at Dholavira. Today's plan was to visit Harappa Civilization UNESCO World Heritage Centre & Wood Fossil Park in Dholavira and then to Nirona (famous for Rogan painting) and night halt at Bhuj.

Harappa Centre was very close to the resort, while Wood Fossil Park was ~10km away. So we first went to the fossil park. Enroute we crossed Harappa centre.

After we crossed Harappa centre, there was zero traffic and nobody/locals to be seen. We started to wonder if it's an isolated place and if its worth going to Fossil Park. At one point, there was a direction board which said right for Fossil Park and straight for sunset point.

We took the right. It was kacha rasta from there on. We crossed the entry arch. The gate was ajar, no staff/security. Road condition deteriorated further. We kept going slowly to ensure no underbody hits. After ~250m+, we started climbing uphill and from the top of that we saw an amazing view of the Kutch salt lake. It was vast and the view from the top of the hill was breathtaking. We were glad that we didn’t return halfway through. That road leads to the parking space.

Wood Fossil Park is at one edge of Dholavira at the shore of Kutch Lake. There were many migratory birds. There were hardly 2-3 families there, and one local guy who noted down visitor details. Otherwise, there weren’t any officials or security staff. Lot of wood fossil formations can be seen. We strolled a bit on the banks of the lake. We spent about an hour there and came to Harappa centre.

Wood fossil park

Serious discussion going on

Entry to park

At Harappa, please ensure that you take a guide (who is available at the entrance) who can explain the details. They charge INR500. We really liked the Harappan site, the meticulous planning that the then-generation did and the infrastructure that was developed & managed. They had an efficient water retention system and water drainage system to avert floods. New age hi-tech cities are struggling to control floods.

Harappa site