Namaste!

I am back, I am thinking of all the people in the world who ride bicycles or walk everywhere and I know that there is hope for the environment yet :-)

We continued our journey into Gujarat. Our concentration was maxed out trying to weave in and out of the trucks and avoid the impatient cars and their threatening driving habits. The usual hazards were thrown in for good measure, stray dogs, cows, auto rickshaws, pedestrians, you know the kind of things that we are continually mentioning. K and I both perceived the automobile drivers to be particularly aggressive and selfish, they did not seem to be respectful of any living thing or even care for their own existence. We rode through the smog accompanied by the displeasing roadside vistas and pressed on to Vadadora, our chosen destination. We had overestimated our ability to reach the city in one day, the road was sapping our strength and with regards to distance covered our progress was impeded by the volume of traffic.

We agreed after a brief stop for refreshments that we should terminate our journeying for the day when we reached Surat. We tiredly arrived in Surat and both decided that we had too much respect for our health to put our bodies through a night there :-) We continued along the highway a little longer to try and get away from the densely populated sprawl that had replaced the Industrial Zone. A little beyond Surat we pulled into a few different hotels to establish whether they were bearable or not. Our books did not list any accommodation between Surat and Vadodara, it is good that we have now developed our own judgement. The hotels spanning the highway looked as though they were budget options mainly catering for the truck drivers or others on long trips but not for two women travelling alone. We gave them a miss.

Luckily we came across a hotel that looked reasonable, now we were exhausted and really just needed somewhere that we could get some r & r and get moving as soon as possible the next morning.

We chose the Food Inn :-)

It was appeared to be a shining white building amidst a dreary landscape :-) It was a good start.

The proprietor was a very friendly Muslim man. He had a wonderful smile and was incredibly pleasant. He was quite excited to have us stay there, this became more evident when he gave us mementos of our stay in the form of a fake leather keyring just before we departed the next day. He told us about a European traveller who had stayed there just a few days earlier who was touring India on a BMW motorbike. I walked up the stairs to view the room and after smiling at a woman cleaning the stairs I received back a look from her that did not welcome our stay there. Too tired to care, I looked at the room and it passed inspection and was also at a good price. K made a mistake when she carried both of our heavy bags up to the first floor and refused help from any of the men there. Again the woman who had been on the stairs looked displeased at our independence. There were a couple of rooms on the floor that had piles of shoes outside of them, when we passed by later on, one of the doors was ajar and we could see many mattresses on the floor and lots of men in Muslim dress sleeping on them. On closer inspection of the room we realised that there was no sink in the bathroom just a tap that poured onto the floor and that the toilet had not recently been cleaned. It was OK though, the beds were safe enough to sleep in as long as we used the mozzie nets :-)

We went downstairs to get some food after having briefed one another on what we could and could not eat due to our hygiene concerns. How wrong we were. The restaurant in contrast to the hotel bathroom was immaculate and the food that we ordered was fantastic. We had opted for a bread, dahl and vege curry, thinking that these had the least amount of chance of making us ill. We sat in the family room and ate. Not being familiar with the social interactions in a Muslim run restaurant and whether it even mattered we decided to stay away from the many pairs of prying eyes that stared at our arrival into the main dining hall.

Back in our room we settled down for the night. Soon our relaxation was interrupted by a very helpful youth knocking at the door who had bought us a towel, soap and pitcher of water. He was very happy to see us and did not seem to want to leave. I thought that maybe he wanted a tip so I gave him a small token although I was not sure if he wanted the ruppees or not.

The next morning we ate in the main dining hall with everybody else. As soon as K and I sat down anyone who arrived thereafter broke the trend of facing outwards at their table looking towards the highway, to facing into the hall and looking at us. Have I said that there were only men at this establishment barring the displeased woman that we met on the stairs the day before. We had a great conversation with the proprietor and told him of our adventures, he was very happy to have met us and gave us his mobile number citing that should we get into any trouble, absolutely anywhere in India then we should contact him for help. We are now getting quite a collection of contacts :-) :-)

We said goodbye after receiving our little gift and got onto our bikes at the watch of many intrigued faces.

It was Ahmedabad next, we had decided to skip Vadodara as we wanted to get away from this part of Gujarat.......