Some known and mosty unknown Tourist Places in Gujarat

Update: Latest parieej lake flamingo photos here  & 

click for more details.  or see the latest post of this blog about upcoming trekking program and family program

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One more time I got chance to saw more than 15 SARAS crane giant birds in a row (group), generally they are found in pair or max three in group.

So Those who are intrested in watching SARAS bird along with other foreigner birds, can contact me. I will guide them for the road and if possible I will come with them also. There are 2-3 fixed places where you can easily find SAras birds. 



In this article I will cover some popular and some un-popular but very good places to see across Gujarat in single piece. List of places which we will cover in this article,

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Mahakali mandir in mountains (abu road), Sundha Mata (near to abu road), Zanzari (near Dahegam), Rupal (near Gandhinagar), Balaram (near Palanpur), Delwada (original delwada village not mount abu one, near to poshina), Galteshwar (near Dakor), Tua & Timba (near Godhra), Mangadh (near Santrampur), Untadia Mahadev (near Kapadvanj), NAL Sarovar (near Sanand), Parieej Lake & Kanewal Lake (near Kheda), Khambhoda (near Gondal), Harsidhdhi (near porbander) …………………………

I will try to give maximum information of place which I have visited like near big town, how to reach there by roads, detail about place, hotels etc. Now going by above order.

Most of us Gujjus have visited Mount Abu, because it is more convenient and somehow better than Saputara. To reach mount abu we need to cross Abu Road town first, when we cross the river bridge of Abu Road, there is cross road, straight way goes for Abu and on left hand side we can go to Sundha Mata. So on this Sundha Mata road just after 1 or 1.5 Km, if you turn right hand side towards mountains at the distance of 2-3 Km, there is beautiful and ancient Mahakali mandir and one old Rishi Ashram with Shiv Mandir. The location is damn good specially in rainy season, in the hills and ancient. Prefer to go there in rainy season. Here are some photographs of the same






SUNDHAMATA: It is somewhere around 70Km away from Abu Road, but it is also worth watching place, now there is Ropeway facility is also available, good bhojanalaya and pathikashrams for stay. Mataji mandir is on hill side, it is in between three mountains and on the fourth side very narrow road is there. So ultimately very food place to visit. There is one small waterfall to watch out. Some snaps.





ZANZARI: It is located at Near Dahegam, approximately 30-35 km away from dahegam, while dahegam is 20-25Km away from Ahmedabad. So in Zanzari you will find lots of walking and one beautiful natural waterfall on the river Meshwo. Location is very good. You can also take a bath there. Nice outing place for one day outers. Preferrred season Sep-Dec. You have to park your car some 2Km away from the spot and then you have to walk for the actual spot. But good parking arrangement.



RUPAL: As this place is near to my hometown Gandhinagar. I will tell you in detail. This is some 10-12Km away from Gandhinagar towards Mehsana side. You all might have heard Rupal ni Palli, yes it is the same place. There is one big Temple with new look, all the basic facilities on the main road. Now the PALLI is done during Dushera night, around 5-6Lac of pure ghee dropped on the Palli (it is wooden make carrier for Mataji Bimb), I have seen the actual one, how it is made. It is made by some Prajapatis in the village, then Rajput made some tilak from his ancient sword and then the Palli starts moving all over the village on some predefined route. During the route at each and every place people are ready with Ghee in pips and buckets, when the palli pass through, they pour it on the palli. Last year around 5-6Lac pure Ghee has been poured. There are lacs of people to watch the same. It was rally amazing experience. I, myself had walked in Ghee where level of the Ghee on the road is about 5-6 Inches.

There is a video link of the same. You can see at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DRZN2yZKzA


BALARAM: This place is located near Palanpur, about 15-20Km away, toward Abu road side. Famous Palanpur resort or BALARAM palace is located near the place. There is a one small waterfall there from some unidentified location, which keep running all over the year and made abhishek on one very good Mahadev Mandir there. There is a one river in front of this temple and small checkdam nearby. The main charm is the location, the slope there and the very cold and natural water that keeps flowing. You can fill your water bottle there with the water that abhishek on shivaling, which is really amazing. If you in rainy season you will have chance of bath in the river, otherwise it is dry after Jan. There is a right hand turn about 10-15 KM from palanpur towards abu road, and this place is just 1-2 km away from there. You can go to AMBAJI on this single track road, which is again very good experience, as small mountains, the landscape and roads like snake body. Ambaji is some 50-55Km from there. One can 5* stay at Balaram resort which is ancient palace.







DELWADA: You all have heard and might have seen Delwada na Dera in Mount Abu. But here I am talking about actual Delwada village, which located near Ambaji. Not much near, because this village is some 30-35Km away from the Poshina, which fall in the Ambaji-Himmatnagar highway. You need to reach first Poshina and then Delwada. Now the real charm about the village is that, it is located at the meeting place of the 7 rivers ( I know only hathmati among them). Two weeks after Holi in the month of March/April, the Chitra Vichitra Fair is held at the confluence of three rivers near the village of Poshina. The fair is attended by tribals in great numbers, sometimes exceeding 60,000. The site is believed to date from the time of the Mahabharata, when Chitraveer and Vichitraveer are said to have repented at the Shiva temple, around which the fair is centred. This fair, one of the largest, purely 'Adivasi' (tribal) fairs is attended by around 60,000 to 70,000 tribal people. Most of the young man who came their to choose brides wear a goggles. Actually my father was a doctor there when I was 2 years old and we specially go there after some 20 years to revise the old memories. Second attraction there is very very deep aaras mines. Now one strange thing about that temple, you can see and feel some gold elements on the ground which is illusion only. Actually there is centuries old stone in that shiva temple, on which something is written in old Gujarati Language or some other language, meaning of same is something like this “whoever build my temple taller than Taranga hill will get this gold”. Now Taranga hill is again good place to visit on the way from Kheralu towards Ambaji.



GALTESHWAR: This place is located near Dakor, a famous Ranchodray(Shri Krishna) Temple. No need to give detail about this. Now the Galteshwar is somewhere around 20Km away from the Dakor towards Godhra. There is right turn after Thasra for the same. It is really awesome place as it is located on heights from the mahi river. There is big rocks everywhere in the river. Actually this place known for its quarry works. There is one very old Shiva temple there which is multi storied temple previously, but it is believed that Mohamud Ghori has cut this temple to only single storied. You can the see the same once you visit the temple physically. Strange thing is that the temple is located some 8-10 Meters height from the river, but one can actual feel the flow of river in its shivlinga, which is deeper by some one hand other than normal shivlings. You can have feel of Somnath temple here. There is a beautiful waterfall near to temple and you can take the bath in the actual river there which is very rocky. Location is again very good. Morning time will be best.




I will post about the other locations after seeing the response from the readers. My intention is not the clicks and traffic on this site, but I would like to have positive/negative feedback, some extra information about these places as one may be native to these places, some interest/encouragement shown by the readers. I want to share everything I know and expect the same from others.


PHOTOS:

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Current Gujarat bashing problem and solution

Current Anti-Gujarat movement by Media and solutions for the same.
By Himanshu Acharya


In today’s media Gujarat-bashing and Modi-bashing is the fulltime business. This applies to print media also not only electronic media. Every channel which needs TRP booster do start Gujarat and Modi bashing and what are thier handy words;

Secularism * Gujarat Riot 2002 * Hitler * Communal * Saffron state * more than 2000 muslims killed * Autocracy * and many more …………..

We gujjus are now acquainted with this because we know the reality on ground, so we simply don’t care about it or ignore it. But wait dear friends, do you know what impact it made on other states, there single source of information is national media and when all media channels shows same picture they simply get the same. All other states people see Gujarat as communal, they know little bit about development works going on in Gujarat, but all know about 2002 and MODI’s role clearly.

Channels like TIMESNOW, NEWSX when started gave neutral views, but as the time passes they are also come in the queue of NDTV, STARTTV, INDIATV, ZEENEWS and the worst IBN7 ……

Just give you today’s example, in Rajkot zoo one black buck has been killed by probably stray dogs in the cage, now NEWX reports it in this way: They start with story of Salman Khan and chinkara killing incident happened in Kutch, and try to relate it with this Rajkot incident (without any logic)

These channels will not ask Hon’ble Rahul & Soniya Gandhi any tough questions, but they will surely ask Modi to apologize on LIVE TV show for 2002.

These channels will not show development, unique schemes implemented by Gujarat, but they will surely show single speech/statement given by Rahul, or any Shaktisinh or any other congress leaders. The worst is Manish Tiwari and Abhishek Manu Singhvi.

These channels will not show more than 110+ cases of encounter in small state Manipur alone, more than 100 cases in Maharaashtra, 87 cases in AP, but they will surely show merely 8 cases of Gujarat Encounter for whole day.

Although no channel is talking about Agriculture development seriously, but whenever they shows regarding the same they will show 2.5% growth rate, poor monsoon, poor farmers etc for their fancy stories but they will never show more than 10% agriculture growth rate of Gujarat and farmers income trilled in last 5 years.

These channels will not show that Supreme/High Court has given stay on
• Andhra Govt’s bill of 4% reservations to Muslims twice, same
• Andhra Govt bill of free trip of Christian to Jerusalem in Andhra,
• Keral Govt bill of making Govt Company which provides interest free loans to Muslims only and report to sharia board,
• Maharashtra Govt bill to promote companies which made bear out of Makka, Juwar, Bajra
But they will surely debate for full two days on
• Gujarat Govt’s Bill of GUJCOC which is similar to already implemented Maharshtra and Delhi law,
• compulsory voting bill

So what is the solution now, the key question:

• We all are mostly aware of all above things, we think a lot also, but ultimately we gave up by thinking that; Nothing can be happened in current scenario,
• There will be no effect of our efforts
• We feel satisfied in writing 2-3 comments in one of such articles.
• Some of us also feels that “I don’t care”, may be currently they are not affected, but in future they will.
• I have tried to change it but failed
• And many more excuses

But wait, there are some solutions and some persons who do not think so, they have tried in their own way and succeeded. And our solution lies in the same only. We have to do the same thing what they are doing, because there are only few examples.

There is a person called Mr. Subramanyam Swamy, who is from Chennai and head of JANATA PARTY, his party presence is not that much, but he stands up in every issues that affects unity of India, culture of India. Lets have a look what he did and how he did it and success he got
• He has filed petition in Supreme Court regarding RAM SETHU and argued very well with all the evidence, so that currently Supreme Court has stayed the dredging process on RAM SETHU. He has also unveiled link of Karunanidhi and his family member links into crores of dredging business.
• He has filed petition in the case of Kerala Govt’s decision on forming Muslim Corporation and got stay on that
• He has filled petition on Sonia’s origin but he failed in that case.
• He has recently filled petition to open the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya for Hindu Prayers,
• He has filed petition and got stay in the case of Chidambaram Temple transfer case.
• The list is very long and he got success in most of the cases.
• You can visit this blog to know more about him and other ongoing issues. janamejayan.wordpress.com/

Now the second solution: Become RTI activist.
There are many success stories in RTI field where Govt irregularities have been exposed by the RTI activists. You ask for information and govt has to give it. See this blog, how this man has utilized the RTI ACT.
rakesh-will-do-it.blogspot.com, www.rtiindia.org

Now the Third Solution: Become active member any nationalistic organization and work selflessly.

Now some practical solutions which we can combine workout:
Arrange fund of something like 15-20 Lacs (NRG help required), there are so many senior citizens who were good lawyers, we may find the same from our local area or gardens, motivate them, give them financial support to file petition against Central Govt or any person who speaks venom against Gujarat be it any news channel or any party. Our intellectual level is far more superior so we may not have problem in arguments in court. Central Govt has engaged Modi in 2002 and sohrabuddin and Ishrat Jahan cases, let’s now do the same to them.

We all were talking about need about our own national media channel which shows the real news and gives accurate information. But this seems still far from reality. But we have once such example which we had used during Gujarat Elections 2007. There was a Gujarat Channel aired on all cable operators in Gujarat on which continuous CDs of Gujarat Development has been shown. This channel has been stopped twice by congress under some law. We need to start it once again and with some more programs and news. All technical arrangement of same channel was done by one Ahmedabad based company which is active in this business. With the help of our NRG friends and local lawyers we can start the same channel on national level. It was web cast channel, which is directly shown on local cable operator network.

Use senior citizens maximum for their knowledge and expertise. Readers please give your practical solution by comments and more than that lets do some concrete, not only talk act also. Don’t just be happy on others take or action do it yourself also.