Junagadh -> Muli – The partridge was just shot without being killed

12. December 2024

 

 

The next morning we gave the fort another chance and visited it. It had been extensively renovated in recent years and was now resplendent. But somehow the charm had been lost in the process.

 

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But what I was really keen on were the Buddhist caves. I wonder if there was anything more worth seeing here than in Talaja? And it also fascinates me to see evidence of a religion that had extended its tentacles much further back then than in the core area and where today there is no trace of it at all – except that you can see such very few old things. And there was at least a little bit left here:

 

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Well, I needed some imagination to see Buddhism in it.

 

But what also fascinated me was this new form of loo:

 

new loo

 

I absolutely had to use it! Completely clean. However, it wasn’t working at the time. Something had gone wrong with the electronics. It should have worked like an aeroplane toilet.

 

clean smellless loo

 

Then we left Junagadh and on the way to our next destination there were more Buddhist caves to see. 12 years ago there was a tourism campaign for Gujarath, in which the ever-popular actor Amitabh Bachchan was the main contributor. He also spoke about the Buddhist traces – you can see them here on youtube.

 

Great things were probably expected from this site, which also features very prominently in the film. An area with many installed pavilions for picnics and play equipment etc. But nobody there. Not even a guard. There was this to see:

 

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I think that’s it for my explorations of the Buddhist traces in Gujarat for now. There were also some small puppies to see with 3 girls:

 

offspring

 

Our destination for the day was Muli, a kind of large village, but also a sub-district. There is a royal family there who have converted part of a palace into a hotel. I really like that sort of thing! It was a bit more elegant here than in Palitana and there was also a princess who talked to us a bit and also told us how she was looking after more accommodations like this. It’s probably just the best way to preserve the old charm, fill it with life and boost the coffers.

 

Princess

 

There is also a story about a partridge in this place. In 1474 there was a people here who were hunters and who did not kill a partridge but only shot it. It was then rescued by the queen mother of another local people because it was lying injured behind their temple. The hunters thought this was not their right and demanded that the partridge be returned. But the others didn’t want that and then they fought fiercely over it and over 600 people died in the process. I don’t know who actually won, but the Queen Mother’s people swore never to kill a partridge again.

 

Here are a few more pictures:

 

my room

 

living room

 

Veranda

 

And we’ve also taken pictures of us here, so I can introduce us all a bit more. That’s me, but you already know me moreorless:

 

me

 

And this is Raghu, or that’s just an abbreviation of his name. He is from the Pune area and his family was not very wealthy. He had to carry water home from further away and the toilet was somewhere outside. His parents were very religious and his father was well versed in astrology. Both died of Covid. He was an inquisitive child and was interested in various fields. He was most enthusiastic about animals and combined this with photography and tourism. But he also did a lot of other things. Unfortunately, I don’t share his passion, but apart from that we get along quite well. He is divorced, has no children and is 40 plus years old. I don’t know that many Indians ‘like that’. He’s usually cheerful and sometimes a bit of a show-off (not that I’m free of that myself…).

 

Raghu

 

Sanket is also 40-plus and has a more eventful professional life, which eventually led him to become a guide. He tends to be a little more reserved, but what he says usually shows good acumen and often dry wit. He is good at telling stories, just a little too long-winded for me. He mainly guides travellers through his Ahmedabad, other parts of Gujarat and once he was also engaged for a large tour group to Germany (Cologne and the Black Forest). When not travelling in Gujarat, he is also active in Uttarakhand. He has been married for 10 years, but only recently became a father. The fact that his little girl made it is almost a miracle, she was a 520 g premature baby.

 

Sanket

 

And then there’s Feroz Khan, our driver. He’s from Udaipur in Rajasthan – there aren’t supposed to be such good drivers in Gujarat. He is a very proud driver who would like to have his good driving skills (rather slow and safe) praised more often. His 2 children are 5 and 9 years old. I don’t have a photo of it, but I always sat behind him in the car and was fascinated by the fact that he has a lot of hair on (not in) his ears. He also introduced me to the new standard of tourist cars: a basket always filled with water, biscuits and chips between the seats, WiFi in the car, plugs for charging various mobile phones, cushions for snoozing….

 

Feroz Khan

 

I thought I was going for a simple walk around the village, but no such luck. Somehow they don’t seem to have it that way here anyway. But I did get to marvel at something fancy. In the old days, there were lots of travellers, traders and so on. And the villages had an exit/entrance that was locked at night. So that these poor travellers could have a good place to spend the night and have water, special wells were built at a distance. It’s called a stepp well, but it was something else. It was a construction in the ground with water at the bottom and platforms built above it, airy. You can sleep there cool in summer and warm in winter. And right next to it was a normal well to draw water from.

 

There are two small temples in front and a guardian who looks after the cleanliness and well-being of the deities. He wakes them up in the morning, dresses them, gives them something to eat and the other way round in the evening. In between, I don’t even know what the needs of the deities are that have to be fulfilled.

 

well from above

 

from one side

 

and from the other

 

well next to it

 

caretaker of temple

 

dieties group 1

 

dieties group 2

 

Then it went on to a village, but what I experienced there fits in better with other subsequent experiences and will therefore come in the next blog post.