Day #2 - Surat - Hazira - Kambhat - Bhavnagar

Monday, September 5, 2011

At Budget Inn Belvue the newspaper arrived at 5:20. That was the best part. We should have taken advantage of that and left early... but we did not. We took our own time to get ready... to eat the nice buffet breakfast (Poha, farsan and a banana being my choice) and by the time we left the hotel finally it was 11. I guess we were not yet 'into the groove'... and in days to come we should leave earlier.


We decided to go to Hazira the 'industrial beach' near Surat where the LNG shipping facilities of oil majors like Bharat Petroleum, Essar, Shell, Reliance and others. There was a lot of construction in progress at the Adani Hazira Port and we could not go to the beach due to obvious 'security reasons'. 



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The next stop was Khambhat. Once a flourishing port... now all silted up. Apparently there is evidence of a flourishing civilization of over 700 years - unfortunately the Mosque was close at the time we reached... but it is supposed to be very beautiful.


We did get to see the 'clock-tower and gate'


As you can see in the picture, taken a little north-west of the GPS Marker,  the sea is some '5 kms away... I can take you there, by walk' said to Afzal and his friends who were showing us around. They were very excited about the Xylo - apparently his brother owned a Xylo and operated it as a taxi. He said "it drives very well... I know to drive it" - he was only 16!


The rest of his friends spent time reading all the stickers on the car and as we left they made a note to look up the website - internet has really penetrated these small villages!





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The night halt - after a nice drive along the beautiful Gujarat state highways is at Bhavnagar. We are staying at a heritage property - called the Narayani Heritage, a part of the Nilambagh Palace of the Bhavnagar royal family. The property is beautiful, but is urgently in need of some maintenance. 


Day #2 successfully completed!

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