A beautiful place left ignored and orphan.
How many birds, or types of birds, do you get to see living in a concrete jungle?
If you are to name those, your answers might be crow, pigeon, parrot, eagle, or in rare cases, sparrows.
With the ever-increasing hunger and needs of cities, jungles and water bodies are shrinking. We are also juggling and running a lot to satisfy the thirst and hunger of our bodies in day-to-day life. But between all this, we forget to feed our souls.
To satisfy one such hunger of my retiring soul, I had to take a day off from my bolting life. It was a long weekend from the 26th to 28th of Jan 2018, and I had come to my parents' place in Ahmedabad. Being the 26th and with the possibility of a closedown due to the protests surrounding the movie, we did not plan anything.
But we were also not ready to let this weekend go away just like that. So we planned a trip to Nalsarovar—a trip away from the fabricated life of the city. I had not been to this place before, even though I spent all my college days in Ahmedabad.
On the 27th morning, we left from Chandkheda to Nalsarovar, which is in the Sanand district. The road is good for a drive off NH147. One can take a car from Ahmedabad or self-drive to this place. Driving and listening to favorite music in the cool breezy morning of January did not make it feel like a drive of more than 100 minutes. We reached the destination by 9:50 AM.
My only worry at such new places is always the parking space. Luckily, Nalsarovar has ample space for tourists' vehicle parking.
The place, however, is not very well guided by signboards or assistants. The rate board is very confusing and poorly made by the administration. Poor.
Before you can even read and try to understand what ticket you need and for what amount, the local boat wallas will hamper you with their offers. They start trying to guide you whether you want it or not. I had to shout at one such idiot who thought they had a license to fool visitors.
Please beware of these boards and guides. The parking fee is ₹20, and the entry fee per person is ₹50 on weekends and ₹35 on non-weekends.
I just bought the entry and parking tickets first. To get to the lake from the ticket counter, which is 1.5 km away, there are vans available free of charge that take you directly to the sarovar.
The lake looks beautiful if you look towards the water, but behind you, there is an ill-maintained reception area and basic facilities.
The six-point trip on a boat will cost you around ₹1320 per head as per the ticket board; however, we negotiated with an on-the-spot boat boy and managed to get the entire six-point ride for six persons for ₹1500 in total.
I am sure if we had bargained more, it might have been feasible for ₹1000 or even less.
As soon as you get on the boat, you forget all the mashup and start enjoying the real beauty for which you arrived here.
Cool flowing water, its sound, songs of birds around you and seeing them in their natural habitat, gets you forget the rest of world. In 2hr to 3hr of aqua ride you really can feel your soul relaxing.
I wish to have a solo boat ride on late evening and to relax watching these amazing birds.
It’s a heaven for photographers and ultimate place for writers to think and write from their soul.
Must to visit once for a day trip, especially alone in early morning and in late evening.
Lothal Harappan Archaeological site is also nearby for interested visitors.