Roadtrip Day 19: The day I rode my bike in Gir forest

The day started on bad note (yes bad notes are back) but ended with riding in forest & meeting an old friend after 22 years

Day 18 was an exciting day for me. After a long time, I had a no-bike-issue day when I rode from Dwarka to Veraval. Somnath temple was stunning. Had good time with the Bhagwati icecream. I was all charged up & was still not tired by end of day. So I decided to write my blog post in the night itself.

Somnath Rest house, the place where I was staying, has wifi but it is limited to reception area. So I came to the place & sat with Keval bhai, who is one of the co-owners of the place. I was done with Day 18 blog post by 2 AM in the night, I was surprised that I wasn’t sleepy even then.

Nayan & Keval bhai from left - owners of Somnath Rest House

That day, I had decided to let the sleeping bag & mat stay on the bike itself. Somnath Rest house does not have its own parking, so I had parked it in front of the hotel where even the owners had parked their bike. They also told me that the CCTV camera is pointed towards that side so no untoward incidence will happen.

I peeked at around 2 AM to check if the bike is ok & noticed some dogs around the bike. I had covered my bike with the tent cover but it was fallen down & I suspected dogs did it. I moved downstairs to check my bike & lo & behold - this is what I saw.

This place was right at Veraval bus stand & there were

some autos parked nearby. One auto guy came to me & suggested me to park the bike next to his autos, as the dogs dont come that side. I obliged. I tried waking up Keval bhai but he seemed not bothered & pretty deep in sleep. So I did not have a choice.

I tried going back to sleep but then suddenly the thought flashed - what if the auto guy had asked me to park the bike where there is no CCTV camera & it would be gone by the night :). I got up & went out to check if the bike is there & it was there. I did not get sleep in the night & kept checking my bike every 1-2 hours.

I was pretty low on morale when I got up in the morning. I decided to shelve my plan to visit Diu & rather wait for seat cover shops to open, get my seat fixed & then ride to Gir forest directly. After packing my bags, checking out from the dorm & having breakfast at a cart parked right opposite guest house, I asked locals about seat cover shop & started at around 10 AM. I reached one shop by 10:30 & called up the guy as it was not open then. I asked help from the shop guy nearby to help me read the phone number as it was written in Gujrati. The guy came after 15 odd min. He suggested patch work that would be fast & cost Rs 100, to which I agreed. Later, we changed the plan to a more extensive patch work. It took around an hour for bike to be ready & it looked as below. I wanted matching color as that of the paint but then, I did not feel like spending a lot of time selecting a color :).

I thanked the guys (father son duo). I did not ask name as I was feeling pretty low. I got the work done, paid the guys & then came back to the hotel to load up my luggage & leave.

I closely looked at my bike’s seat to try figuring what attracted attention of the dogs to my bike as there others parked closeby. I saw the dogs playing with a strap of my seat which is like extra/hanging part at the edge as shown in the pic below. I guess it would be worthwhile to ensure your bike seat does not have anything of this kind of stuff .

The loading part attracted attention of people nearby & I met someone who wanted to also do a pan india bike ride but hadn’t mustered courage yet. I forgot to ask his name. He is the guy on the left. The guy in the center is the owner of the tea shop behind. This is one of the pretty popular tea shop at Veraval, just next to Somnath Rest House. They told me the name, but I forgot now.

While leaving, I spoke to my friend Anand, he was my classmate in Sainik School Rewa & is currently stationed at Rajkot. He was also traveling to Gir with his family & we decided to meet up in the area as both of us would be reaching there at around 1 PM.

The ride to Gir showed 3 paths (look at the image on the top). I chose the middle one as it looked shorter & I assumed that it would involve lot more ride through jungles, which would be ‘cooler’ compared to highway ride. Later, it turned out, I was wrong. The jungle in/around Gir area are mostly shrubs/grassland. So not much opportunity for tree shade as such.

The road I took was narrow road & looked a bit crowded as soon as I left the city. But it wasn’t painful to ride. The path that got dissected from the road that went right, seemed to enter some village & was largely unpaved. It felt like a bad path chosen but I chose to continue on it. That is also when I realized that there is not going to be much chance for tree shade & it was pretty hot to ride.

At some point, I stopped to have water under a tree shade, which was a rarity to find. I looked up while drinking water & saw this on the tree. This scared me a bit & I decided to move my location so that I am not directly beneath these. I quickly resumed my ride :).

I was heading towards Devaliya park & soon merged with a paved road when I took the right turn before Devaliya. There is a formal gate & signboards of various animals started showing up as below.

Devaliya park had a lot of vehicles parked. I mistook it as GIZ resort. I wasn’t sure if it is the place & I kept riding as I did not feel very safe stopping on that road. Once I exited (I crossed a gate), I stopped to check my map & I figured that the place where I saw the vehicles parked, is the place I need to be. My bike just got into reserve so I needed to be cognizant about the fuel in the vehicle too, as it did not look like a place with umpteen petrol pumps. I called up Anand & he had checked in Daksh Resort & Amusement park. We decided to have a word once I am done with the bus safari. It was around 3 PM by now.

The Devaliya park was fairly crowded but had a lot of sign boards around social distancing etc. The queue to buy ticket (it costed Rs 190 for the ride) had social distancing too. But it was all put aside in the bus where folks were made to sit on all the seats. It seemed disappointing but I did not have much choice. I boarded the bus. The overall ride was disappointing too with view of 2 lioness, 2 leopard, some neel gay & deer. Overall, I would recommend skipping this. It also reinforced my belief that most touristy stuff is just waste of time & money.

I called up Anand & he suggested to me that I come over to his place. I looked it up on Google map & it looked ‘inside’ & around Gir forest area.

The path that google showed, a local person at the start of the path, told me that I would not be allowed as it is the Gir forest. So I had to go further down to Jalondhar & take diversion from there. I decided to get some fuel in my bike too in the meantime. So I rode 6 kms to Amrapur Gir, filled some petrol headed back & took the diversion from Jalondhar.

The interesting bit of road started when I took left at the junction between Jalondhar & Devgam. The road was unpaved & it had a lot of doors which were closed. There was also 3 ft high stone boundaries & it seemed like I am walking in the region outside the jungle. Although I wasn’t sure if the animals would understand this, but it did provide a ‘perceptionary comfort’ to me.

I took the path on the right as per Google map but I was curious what if I would have taken the left path. I also got reminded of the pill choice scene from movie Matrix at this moment.

Things became uncomfortable when I realized that I had to now enter one of the door. I double check google map to make sure I am heading the right way & I was.

I wasn’t exactly sure if I am inside the jungle, but it did feel like that. A thought of stopping & taking a pic did cross my mind, but I decided against it & kept riding. It was a short ride (may like 2 kms) & I soon spotted some kids playing cricket. I asked them Daksh Resort & they told me its around 500m on it.

I was at Daksh resort by 5:30 PM. Earlier I had plans to meet Anand & leave to Junagarh but I thought its best not to ride on these roads in the night. So decided to spend the night at Daskh resort itself. It is a nicely done resort & was completely full over the weekend. Seems like it is pretty popular among the locals.

Anand made me meet Pannu bhai, who is owner of the place, in the night. He was pretty enthusiastic to see someone riding all the way from Bangalore. He also mentioned about a couple who was on a world tour & came to their resort. I guess they were an Indian couple.

I spent the evening talking with Anand & his family. They are a cute 3 membered family & Anand’s daughter Advika was a lot of fun to talk to. She was also pretty excited to be at the resort.

I decided to call it a day at around 11 PM. Plan for tomorrow is to ride to Junagarh, checkout Girnar temple, inquire about some ashram stay (there is one from Shernath baba which is popular) & explore the energies the ashram has. If it turns out to be a great experience, I might stay for a few days, else will head out to Rajkot.

P.S. thanks to Anand for sponsoring my stay. It was great meeting him after like 22 years.