Roadtrip Day 12: White Rann visit [March 20, 2021]

First milestone of the trip reached

Many people had told me that it is best to visit White Rann (or more popularly known as Rann of Kutch) either in early morning or in late evening, as during the day, it gets pretty hot there. Evenings are better as you can catch the sunset. I had decided to do the visit in evening.

I had lot of time during the day & my day started a bit late. Amit Vyas, the guy next to me in the dorm where I was staying, suggested that we can have breakfast together. We went to the hospital road area where there are Dal Pakwan & Dabeli hawkers are there. Dal pakwan was decent but Dabeli was pretty tasty. Apparently, Dabeli is the THE dish of Kutch. We had tea & then Amit left for Gandhidham (he was at work visit in Bhuj).

This is Dal Pakwan

Thanks to Amit ji for the breakfast tour of the city. He also sponsored the breakfast & whenever I tried paying at any place, told the shop folks in Gujrati not to take money from me. This was the first time I felt that not knowing a language could actually be advantageous :-D

Amit ji suggested that I should have my lunch at a Rotlo shop next to GEB (Gujrat Electricity board) office. It is a makeshift shop but apparently food is good. I spent my morning lazing around & writing the blog post (Roadtrip Day 11) & came to the place for lunch. The setup was bit strange, but the food was good.

The blur in the pics above were not intentional.

At 3 PM, I was ready to start my ride towards Dhordo, the village before White Rann. I had the feeling that I was a bit late to start but anyway, the time was gone.

I had my first view of mirage at around 4 PM. While I was aware how it looks, the new thing was that when you get closer to it, it disappears like evaporating water, one line at a time.

At some point, there were white lines on the ground & I confused them with mirage. I was waiting for them to disappear but they did not. Only when I got real close, I realized it wasn’t a mirage.

I was heading towards Kala Dungar (local name for Black hill) . I was being told that I should visit that place first & then go to White Rann for catching sunset. On the way to Kala Dungar, I came across magentic area. I stopped there & realized my bike was pushed back automatically & I had to put extra effort to keep the bike stationary. I also opened up compass to check any strange activity on it. It did buzz but I did not notice anything like the compass going haywire completely, the way they show when navigators enter bermuda triangle in a movie :)

The ride till Kala Dungar was nice. The ascent was steep at places. As soon as I parked outside, a bunch of kids with their binoculars came but I did not pay much heed. I did hear them saying that they would do something to my bike. Later I realized there is parking inside the premise. On my way back, one of the kid also greeted to me & I was suspicious. They probably stole some petrol from my bike. I would probably come to know when my bike hit the reserve again :).

The view wasn’t any great treat though. You could see the Dholavira lake water & it was all misty .

I was hoping to see a good amount of Rann from there. Anyway, I figured I was late for the White Rann visit so I headed back quickly. I met a family from Hyderabad as well, whom I met again on the road to White Rann.

They are Abhishek, Akash & Kiran madam - relatives from a joint family. Abhishek & Akash are fairly young but had already done K2K (Kashmir to Kanyakumari). They came to Gujrat because apart from NorthEast, this is the only state they had not roamed. They were riding in a white Kodiaq.

We decided to team along & ride. To catch up with their Kodiaq, I drove pretty fast.

The road after right turn at Ludiya, was one of the amazing roads to ride. In a vash stretch of land, it is a straight road. I hit 100 kmph (I usually dont drive at 100) on it. I stopped by to take the pic of the road too.

Sorry for bad light. The sun was setting & I could not get a clear glimpse of the road.

The road lane size reduces as you proceed further but since there is hardly any traffic, high speed is still possible on it.

We reached White Rann just before sunset. The Hyd folks had been at Rann during the day, so I quickly made my way deeper into the Rann. Closer look at the white salt revealed that it is a small layer above earth. I also tasted it to ensure it is actually salt :).

The stretch definitely looked enormous. I did feel that I should have come a little earlier & things would have looked even ‘whiter’ but then I just make did with whatever I could see then.

It was dark by the time I started to ride back. The return journey started great with my light & fog lamp holding up well & I was all excited. Only later I realized how little the lights are on a 2 wheeler for night ride. Because of the insects I had to put my visor down & it makes things pretty hard specially when you have an incoming vehicle.

At one point of time, the side of the road curved in (& the road width reduced suddenly). I remember this happened when there was incoming vehicle as I failed to notice the road change completely. I soon found myself riding off the road. I am not sure I panicked but I do remember that I had not decelerated & it took me good 50m to come back to the road. I was thankful that the offroad part of the road continued as is else it could have been worse. I was a little shaken after this part of the ride & decided to ride under 60 kmph.

At one point, a truck passed by me & the gush of the wind was so strong that it literaly threw my helmet above my face & I was blinded for a few seconds.

In this entire experience of missing the humps & the offroad part, somewhere my 5 ltr can fell of my ladakh carrier which I only found once I stopped at restaurant where I & the Hyd family had decided to eat together. We had dinner & then I headed back to my hotel. I reached back by 11:30 PM or so. Thanks to Akash, Abhishek & Kiran madam for the good time & sponsoring my dinner :).

I was a bit tired (& shaken with the ride) to decide itinerary for the next day. Will I do Rann again as I did not see it in bright light, should I head to Dholavira as there are glimpses of Rann from there too, should I do more Bhuj sight seeing, should I head to Saurashtra area or should I just leave for Jaisalmer. With so many open ended questions, I felt, I need to defer decision making to tomorrow.