What’s a bit bad about Bhuj is that it’s a bit out of the way and you drive a similar route to the east again. The good thing is that you can see the industrialisation of this area again in an impressive way. And at some point it stops again and there is desert on the left and scrub on the right.
And then I discovered a village with my name on the map. I absolutely had to go there!
That was also very special for Deep, he didn’t know the way at all and we then drove through other small villages according to my navigation. ‘Highway’ on the map is a bit of an exaggeration. Unfortunately, we hadn’t realised that there were no restaurants there and had missed the last opportunity for lunch. So I was a bit hungry and only had time for one photo. But that’s exactly what I wanted! There was no village entrance sign written in English, just this signpost, but the village was already there.
Everyone was surprised at me. But I was actually very pleased. Strange wishes like that make you experience something a little different. Like the unfamiliar village streets and whether you’ll find what you’re looking for. In any case, rural Gujarat is quite pretty – even if I didn’t take any photos.
The big destination for the day was the Rani ki Vav step well. India printed new banknotes a few years ago, i.e. INR 50, 100, 200, 500 and 1000. On these are sights from the west, north, east, south and central India that are not so well known. And on the 100 INR banknote it is the west with the Rani ki Vav.
For me, it is one of the most impressive buildings in India that I have seen so far. And it’s definitely worth making the journey there. From above, it doesn’t look all that bombastic and I also had the misfortune of seeing loads of excited schoolchildren shouting around and being repeatedly admonished with whistles.
But when you go there, you get more and more huge eyes. At least I do. Despite the screaming children.
Rani ki Vav is the most beautiful, bombastic and marvellous of all the step wells in India. A queen (Rani) had it built. Vav is pronounced ‘wow’ – and that’s exactly what it is. It’s a kind of temple built downwards instead of upwards with loads of sculptures (over 500 large and over 1000 small ones). It was built in the 11th century, then flooded by the river at some point and rediscovered at the end of the 19th century, with just a little bit sticking out of the water. In the 1940s they started to make it pretty again and in the 80s they were finished. I tried to capture it photographically, but it didn’t really work. But I’ll show you a few pictures anyway. And some with crowds of children.
At some point the children had gone and I started to take a closer look at the figures – and it was really worth it because there were some interesting figures and details.
Well, that’s enough for now – I certainly enjoyed it and was amazed.
Then I marvelled again at the Patola House. Photography was absolutely forbidden there. They have been practising a certain type of dyeing and weaving there for generations – the thread is dyed first with ‘tied offs’ where no colour should go. There are also different stages of dyeing for multi-coloured fabrics. These parts then become the pattern. You have to work super precisely – the result is actually a very impressive pattern, but as you can never dye and weave soooo precisely, it looks a bit blurry. Fascinating nonetheless. Incredible what human beings are inventing!
The ladies of society wore and still wear these silk saris, which are very expensive and a status symbol. This technique is also known as ‘double ikat’. If you want to know and see more, you have to google it.
Nothing happened after that. At least nothing that stuck in my mind. It was anyhow enough for the day.