On the way to Guwahati airport that morning I was thinking how sad it was to leave the North East. Again it had cast a magical spell on me and I really cannot get enough of this region. At least I would be back in six weeks or so, to tackle Upper Assam, Eastern and maybe Central Arunachal Pradesh before returning to Nagaland for the spring festival season.


During my visit to India last year, I had started in Rajasthan where I had planned to spend a full four weeks before moving south to the neighbouring state of Gujarat, also for one month . I ended up enjoying Rajasthan so much that I never got to Gujarat despite my research indicating that I would enjoy it just as much. So on this trip I determined to rectify that oversight and Christmas in Nagaland offered me that opportunity. Memories of a statewide shut down for three weeks and freezing temperatures were fresh in my mind when I booked a rather convoluted plane journey from Guwahati to Bhuj.


Bhuj was the town where I was keen to start my travels. This would enable me to use a route with no backtracking circumventing the state before heading briefly through Rajasthan and back to the Delhi area to get the train back to the North East in the new year. Unfortunately there were no flights directly from the North East to Bhuj, or for that matter from the North East to Gujarat or Mumbai so the only alternative was via Delhi, with an overnight stop. Armed with a cheap no frills Indian style ticket I arrived at Gujarat Airport to admire the size of terminal (substantially smaller than the size of most of the private residences of Nagaland’s State Ministers). Jet Connect delivered me to Delhi airport on time where I was shocked to see capitalism and boring retails brands had multiplied with vengeance. McDonalds, KFC, Starbucks plus British contributions with WH Smith and Costa Coffee all littered the arrivals hall. What a shame I thought.


My evening was spent in a guesthouse almost underneath a Delhi flyover close to the airport . It was clean with a great bed, but pretty noisy. The next morning I returned to the airport to resume the journey to Mumbai and then onto Bhuj. Here, despite the gleaming terminal and foreign retailers, chaos was still reigning supreme. The check in was fine enough but the army personnel employed on the security checks where either ignorant or unable to stamp all the tickets and bag tags you have to have stamped in India. Unaware of this I was pulled over by one of their colleagues just as I was boarding the plane. He must have assumed that I had managed to get through customs and security without a bag check. Thus I was told to wait for the army to arrive so they could search my bags again at the gate. This resulted in a plane delay and a missed connection In Mumbai. All because a bag tag was not stamped by a half asleep army man.


It was dark when I finally arrived in Bhuj. My irritation at the Army’s lack of security procedures in Delhi had disappeared when I found out there was another late flight to Bhuj. Together with two other Bhuj bound passengers, I managed to avoid an overnight stop in Mumbai. Fours hour late I arrived in Bhuj exhausted from this three day journey. It was a long trip in excess of 4,000 kms I estimate from border to border (Burma to Pakistan). I checked into the Gangarum Hotel in Bhuj and fell asleep quickly.


The following day I was exhausted . I thought flying would have prevented this exhaustion, but in this case it did not. So I decided on a quiet day planning my trip in Kutch. Bhuj is the capital of the Kutch province in Gujarat and borders Pakistan. It is home to several tribes including the Jat, Rabari, Bharvad, Ahir, Soda and the Charans. These tribes are interesting enough, some having migrated here from Persia, Pakistan and Afghanistan around the time of Partition. Yet it is their crafts that are the real drawcard for many foreign visitors. Unfortunately just when the area was starting to capitalise on this advantage in 2001 an enormous earthquake struck Kutch centring on Bhuj, completely destroying the town and surrounding area. That was almost 14 years ago, yet a lot of damage was still visible and many people had been re-housed but in buildings that looked like giant rabbit hutches. Anyway everyone I spoke with was hugely grateful for these new houses.


Bhuj itself was dusty (again) and full of rubble . Cows roamed freely (this being Hindi heartland) and rubbish was piled along every street and at every street corner. Dogs howled at night and fought each other early in the morning. All of this plus the smells of spices and food mixed with urine and animal excrement brought back memories of 2013. Its all a far cry from the North East. The Gangarum Hotel was super friendly and Ishak, the amiable manager put me in a small room with a reasonable geyser and a sloping mattress. I spent the morning digesting the guide books and planning. Again the LP proved more useful as toilet paper, Footprints was good but out of date and Rough guide was more up to date but sparse. I was also interested in the wildlife in this part of the world, the arid dry dessert and grassland areas of Benno and of the course the famous salt flats of the Great Rann. Information on these places was also difficult to find.


One reason I had decided to fly was so I could be present at the first full moon of the Blue Moon festival in the Great Rann . Modi had inaugurated this festival to mark the blue dessert effect during the full moon, but as I awoke on that morning Ishak remarked that I had missed the December full moon by five days. I later realised I must have looked on the wrong year’s calendar online when booking the flight. Consequently I decided to back track (something I had vowed not to do) and return to Kutch in early January to witness this event.


Eventually my planning bore fruits and the trip (now two trips) started taking shape. After getting some sound advice on the phone from Jitu Solanki (with whom I stayed in Bikaner in 2013) I booked a night’s accommodation with Jugal Tiwari of the Centre for Desert and Ocean in Nik. I also met with Pramod Jethi on the recommendation of Bala (whom I met in Kohima) and arranged two Tuk Tuk trips of the local villages around Bhuj to commence after I had finished with Jugal. With nothing more needed I ventured off to visit the Aina Mahal, the 18th century palace in the centre of Bhuj that was left relatively unscathed by the earthquake. It is famous for the Hall of Mirrors built by the ruling royal dynasty in the 18th century, however my enjoyment was cut short by an invasion of epic proportions consisting of bus loads of screaming and rowdy school children. In the end I just gave up and fled vowing to return on a quieter day.


The next morning I travelled on a local bus to the town of Nakhatrana, where Jugal was waiting. He whisked me off to his centre near the village of Virani and showed me his modern, comfortable guest house. In the late afternoon, we started on the grassland safari I had booked. We were pretty lucky as the bird life was great as soon as we entered the dusty grasslands. Eagles, harriers, hawks, the Common Crane, plus Bush larks, Francolin, Starlings, Ibis and Shrikes and various other birds were spotted and photographed. We also met plenty of the local Muslim Jat people herding their buffalos and camels. The highlight was a fleeting glimpse of a Jungle Cat in the evening light. This was excellent and I was reasonably happy with my shots despite the fiercely bright sunlight.


In the evening the desert temperature plummeted and I was pleased to have a great solar powered shower in my room (a luxury after the hot buckets of NE India and Bhuj) plus a fabulous veggie meal prepared from locally grown organic produce. Up at five the next morning I headed off this time with a new guide Veer. We had an early morning objective to spot the rare Grey hypocolius feeding on wild berries at sunrise in the local fields. This small but attractive bird is a visitor in the winter from Oman and emits a strange high pitched squeal. We spotted two (a pair) and I got some reasonable photographs of this shy bird which spends all day hiding in the bushes after it has eaten the berries.  


However the real excitement was when we reached the area where we had seen the Jungle Cat the evening before. Two Jackals were hunting when we arrived, Step Eagles were in the trees and a (probably the same one) Jungle cat also hunting in the long grass. This time we got much closer. We also stumbled on a family of Wild Boar, many Common Cranes and plenty of other birds. All in all this was great and after a final chat with Jugal I decided i would return in January top continue the exploration of this area.


As Veer gave me lift back to the bus station, I spotted a Jat tribeswoman sporting the enormous nose jewellery for which they are famous. The Jat are an Islamic pastoral group who originated from Pakistan. They are intensely shy and avoid contact with tourists. This piece of jewellery was attached to the (I believe) underside of her shawl and then covered almost half the length of her face and attached through the nose. It resembled a huge climbing carabiner but was ornate, beautiful and I guess heavy. The resulting conversation with Veer persuaded me that returning here was definitely a good idea. In the afternoon I caught the bus and returned to Bhuj and the Gangarum.