First Day in Bhuj
Trip Start
Dec 01, 1992
1
106
125
Trip End
Jun 01, 1993
Bhuj, Gujarat, India
Saturday, March 20, 1993
We strolled the deserted roads and lanes till we came to the City Guest House and there sat waiting for it to open up. Unseeingly, I walked into someone sleeping on the road and that set off the barking of stray dogs. A dogs chorus started up all around the town.
Finally, a whining yappy dog awoke the young hotel attendant who peeked his head outside and on spying us secured a room for is to collapse in and catch up on our sleep.
On awakening we found a bank to cash more money, and I got into conversation there with another English traveller who happened to be wearing the same Sri Lankan reflexology flip flops as me. Thus guy had been working for a charity in Bangalore, looking after handicapped children. He reckoned Bhuj was great and said he had been travellikng around, visiting neighbouring villages on a hired moped.
In the bank Andy, having a talent for magic, did disappearing tricks for Jai with his encashment token, refinding them on different parts of Jai's body, which served to amuse not only us but others as well.
We explored the curving bazaar lanes of Bhuj, quite a rabbit warren of them that one could easily get lost in. Though the streets were narrow a lot of small traffic passed through them and quite soon I found myself involved in an accident with a bicycle. It collided into my arm and ignoring what had happened continued onwards. It freaked me out and left me in tears.
A man from our hotel hurried out to see what was the cause of my upset. I know I cried too much for a minor incident, and think really it was a release from the dread fear and anxiety I had gone through on that terrible bus journey during the night.
We carried on, roaming the streets past many ethnic handicraft shops, one of which we entered and spent a lot of money in. Then we looked for a place to drink. I fancied a sugar cane juice, until I saw the health risks those presses posed. The big troughs that the squeezed sugar cane fell into were thickly populated with flies, and as we gazed at this sight, we noticed that a mouse was crawling in there too, none of it which the vendor seemed at all bothered about.
Back home I read Jai bedtime stories from the Panchatantra.
