New state, new cactus
Udaipur to Ahmedabad, 10th - 14th November
The hostel in Udaipur was very cute. It was small enough that you could get to know pretty much everyone, and it was a cosy little community to be part of for a few days. Every evening we'd go up to the rooftop cafe for sunset and hang out, watch a film or sing karaoke. I didn't do loads of sightseeing, only visiting the City Palace, but I did get a group of us to go visit a nearby wildlife sanctuary. Apparently there are crocodiles there, which would've been really cool to see, but we didn't spot any. We saw plenty of birds and interesting plants, though, and I really enjoyed getting to have a nice walk in nature away from the road noise which is generally omnipresent in India. After four nights, I got back on the road with just a touch of reluctance to leave my new friends.
I had at one point been planning to go to the Rann of Kutch and Dholavira in the Gujarat peninsula, but I now think I'll skip those on this trip. It's a big detour and I've already spent a long time in the north of India. November brings crop-burning pollution and I want to reach the coast for the clearer air, as well as the novelty of changing landscapes and cultures as I head south. I'll come back to Kutch some other time and bring a birdwatcher along with me. That's not to say I can't take any detours, though. The direct route on to Ahmedabad would be National Highway 58, but I decided to take a slightly roundabout route which would keep me in the hills a little longer, taking National Highway 27 around west to Palanpur before going south to Ahmedabad.
I was hoping that it'd also be more chill - yes, it's a national highway but, unlike NH58, it has the benefit of not carrying all the Ahmedabad and Mumbai-bound traffic. This broadly proved to be true, and for the next few days I had smooth roads with gorgeous hills around and manageable levels of highway traffic. Just after leaving Udaipur, in fact, I had the funny feeling that I was back in rural England. Cute little brick cottages, fields enclosed with drystone walls, and just the right number of potholes: I was sure I was in the Home Counties. I also encountered a rare establishment, a grocery store, and I wandered around the shelves staring at the Head & Shoulders and instant noodles like they belonged to an alien planet. Perhaps, I thought, this was how things would be from now on: grocery stores (if small ones) and brick cottages. That would certainly be a change, and I found myself already nostalgic for the less polished India I'd been seeing so far.
That wasn't the case, and I was soon right back into regularly scheduled Rajasthan: cows on the road, run-down roadside restaurants, and not a brick cottage in sight. Just for good measure, I saw a man walking down the highway with a hatchet on his shoulder. I know that these days are numbered, though. Everyone tells me Gujarat is very developed (whatever 'developed' means) and it wouldn't be long until I crossed the border. Even since leaving Jaipur, I've noticed that the landscapes have gotten more lush and green. I still haven't seen a snake since my first day in Rajasthan, and I'm beginning to think I won't see another one. That's the nature of things: you never know if you'll see something again, so better enjoy it while it lasts.
My breaks in India have been quite different to the breaks I had been taking in Europe. Often in Europe I would find a green spot by the road to sit down and have a snack, but that's harder here. Highways are concrete and loud besides, and quieter roadsides are usually either populated, fenced, or scattered with trash (or a combination of the above). Of course, there are still occasional places where I would be able to sit by the side of the road without being in someone's front garden, and I do occasionally have a roadside snack, but this is also an open invitation to any passersby to start asking me about the bicycle - or a group of children to start playing with it. Depending on the time of day, I might have had enough of those interactions already and just want some time to myself. Hence, I usually take my breaks in places that have walls and where I can remain, if not undisturbed, at least less interrupted. I'm a little sad about this; it would be more authentic and certainly more convenient to stop in the less formal corrugated-metal roadside establishments more often. However, I'm trying to look after my own sanity as well, and I need time to myself sometimes. I think this is what really makes bicycle travel through India hard in particular for white travellers, and I'm glad I'm able to blend in sometimes and get some peace.
I continued down NH27 in a routine for two days stopping in a roadside hotel for lunch and another for dinner. They're much of a muchness and soon blended together in my mind. I got a bit of change, though, as I entered Gujarat. The Gujarati language has its own script so it was time to learn something new! It looks fairly similar to Hindi, with a lot of letters in common, but Gujarati doesn't have the top line that's so striking in Devanagari. Another change was the disappearance of alcohol shops, since Gujarat is a dry state (alcohol is banned). They'd been a common sight by the roadside in Rajasthan, sometimes nothing more than a painted shipping container with a window, and their absence was noticeable. The natural landscape wasn't much different, since southern Rajasthan had already been lush and green, but there was a fun new cactus which frequently began to appear by the roadside.
After a solid few days on the bike, I wanted to take a few days off. I spent two nights in Gandhinagar, the rather less exciting planned-city capital just outside the metropolis, and two nights in Ahmedabad, the biggest city in Gujarat. I had a break, had some good food, and observed big-city Gujarat life.
For India's seventh-biggest city, Ahmedabad had a pretty conservative culture. People seem to work long hours and society has more restrictions than usual. It's not just that alcohol is banned - there's also a lot of stigma around eating meat. Apparently it's common for rental contracts to specify that you're not allowed to cook meat in your own kitchen, since the smell might bother your neighbours. I still had a perfectly fine time, though. I don't need alcohol to have fun. My favourite feature of Ahmedabad was the sheer number of birds; the riverside has countless black kites flying lazy circles overhead and I was mesmerised. The riverside area has clearly seen a lot of money put into it, with a long concrete promenade and a wide new road along the river.
I was also lucky enough to be in Ahmedabad during a couple of cultural events: the Ahmedabad International Book Festival and an arts festival called Abhivyakti. I spent some time in each of them, although I didn't catch the most interesting parts of the book festival. Supposedly there were live performances and creative workshops, but when I visited I only got to see lots of books for sale and food stalls. The food stalls were enough to make me happy, anyway. I'm usually pretty careful with street food, but these looked slightly more trustworthy and hygienic, and still at pretty normal street food prices. Any day where I can eat pani puri without worrying for my stomach is a good day.
Abhivyakti, the arts festival, was definitely my scene. Held in the university campus with art installations and theatre and dance performances, it had a great vibe that I'd been missing in the smaller towns. I befriended a group of locals and went around with them, catching a dance performance. Through them, I got a view of a certain kind of normal Ahmedabad life: working long days in IT, staying in a paying-guest hostel, getting to have some fun on the weekend hanging out with your friends on the riverfront. Lots of family responsibilities and not a lot of time off, as is normal here. They were most comfortable in Gujarati, but frequently switched to Hindi as one of their group was from another state and didn't speak great Gujarati. English was much trickier, with one guy essentially taking the role of 'good at English' and translating the occasional joke for my benefit.
Hanging out with the locals was fun, and made me feel as though I’d gotten a better impression of the city than I could get through just observing in the streets and cafes. They invited me to join them hanging out and playing music on the riverfront, and I was quite tempted to join them, but I was honestly exhausted. I’d leave the night there and give my body some rest. Besides, I already felt like Ahmedabad and Gujarati culture wasn’t for me. The final straw came when they could play some western music so that I could join in the singing: “you like Ed Sheeran”? I’ve got nothing against the guy personally, but his music seems to be the go-to for any Indian my age singing an English song, and I had more than enough of him in Jaipur and Udaipur.
Looking forward, I wanted to get moving southwards - towards the coast, towards Mumbai, towards the South. I wanted to escape the North’s population and pollution, with November crop-burning season upon me. And I wanted a change of culture, too. Even though Punjab, Rajasthan, and Gujarat are all different, they feel on some level still quite similar. On a bicycle, I thrive on getting new things to learn. For now, I had the Gujarati script to chew on, as well as the Gujarati food, but I wanted a more dramatic change to come.