Diu n environs..weather report...

indiawise

Diu weather report…

Its been raining non-stop since the 19th june afternoon. And right now its coming down in torrents…12 days!!

Ok everybody I take back all that I said about Diu having just small spells of rain in the monsoons. This must be a record of sorts after years. But its great because the land needed it and somehow because Diu is clean, it feels pretty good. The whole island turning a lovel green and washed trees and so on…Right now we could compare the rain to Goa.

…. bit of info is that: the roads via Bhavnagar to diu are in a bad way and were closed a few days..until yesterday.(the bridge at Nageshri got washed away) So if any headed this way then you have to come via Rajkot to Verawal. Most of south gujrat and this side is experiencing pretty heavy rain right now…so travel plans this side should be after a week or after a dekho at the forecast...

steven_ber

Is the bridge at Nageshri the one at the east side of the Island?

I heard that parts of Gujarat had 30 cms of rain in 24 hours.

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sticky

Are you a bit of a Diu expert indiawise?


I have been tossing up whether to include Diu in our trip. It is quite a long way out of our way, but then I guess its the same for a lot of travellers which probably ads to its charm.

What is it like? Is it well worth the devotion to our route?

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darthmilmo

Sorry to hear about the downpour mate.... it really sucks to be rained out, specially for that amount of time. Give it a chance though... Diu is a wonderful destination.... charming Portugese architecture and a feel of old Cuba to it as well.

suerte,
Fernando

steven_ber

He lives in Diu.

sticky

I guess that makes you alot of an expert then, youre the right person to ask!
You obviously must like it if youre still there.

indiawise

sticky..i live in diu and run a small hotel…though I would rather be holidaying here and someone else doing the fawlty towers act..not myself...

Diu is special in its own right and has a quiet charm. However you must give me an idea of whereabouts you would be travelling in India, ‘cause diu is a good idea if it is 1. sort of on your way 2. you have time and 3. just want to chill and 4. also which month. And 5. No fun during the extra crowded time of festivals etc. And I think it’s the sort of place that needs a few days to get into…
Steven Ber, nageshri is about 57 km on the hyway from diu whilst heading towards bhavnagar. Its still closed and the situation has not improved..only got worse with the rain not stopping. Theres no bus service this way at present. A taxi ride from diu to Bhavnagar which usually takes 3-4 hours with the new road today is about 12 hours!! with various sections washed out.. one needs to almost get to rajkot first.
But i think that it should normalise in a week or so.

As regards the bridges of Diu..they r doin fine ...though the one at the western tip has beeen shut to heavy traffic for a while...

indiawise

Sorry i must add... that i don't mean to sound too 'off-hand' about Diu..its just that there"s so much to India and so much to discover and so on...so you could mark Diu as '*' (special) but then see it if it fits into the other many 'specials' in front of you..along our travel route..!

i think for a feed back..that i have to once again have tete a tete (pidgin french..i am telling u mister..) with Indiamike who's a pretty much expert on Diu...

sticky

Hi Indiawise

Thanks for the reply. In answer to your points, its sort of on the way for us, we will land in delhi and then travel round rajastan, and we are happy to spend a few days chilling out. My girlfriend and I will be landing in delhi around the begining of november, and will be traveling for 6 months (possibly more depending on funds).

We have both read about Diu and liked the sound of it. I guess we got put off because it is a quite long journey which you have to backtrack on (unless there is a ferry to mumbai?)

machadinha

From previous threads there doesn't currently seem to be a ferry no. (There seem to be flights however, the hovercraft when it existed wasn't much cheaper or at least so I was told.) I don't know what your other plans are but if you have six months and you're coming down from Rajasthan you could do a lot worse than do some exploring in Gujarat & including Diu. Heading on to Mumbai, I took a slowish day train once from Ahmedabad to Mumbai and in the coastal region you pass along these lush paddy fields (or similar) with a low mountain/higher hill range in the back, reminded me of African scenes, with farmers working their fields and water buffalos and what have you, and the sea on the other side. Looked like the kind of area to just get out at any place of your liking and hope they have a hotel, which I never did. I couldn't tell you where this was exactly but it must have been somewhere between Vadodara and Mumbai, quite possibly the Surat/Daman region but I really don't know. There seem to be some beach places being developed up there and I've seen names or links pass along here but never bothered to note them down. You'd probably find yourself the only (western) tourists there.

But in short, if you're remotely near it Diu is certainly worth it, from what I read here it doesn't appear to have changed all that much from when I visited, and your journey there and away doesn't have to be boring backtracking at all, and it's not *that* far away from things.

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sticky

sold.

Thinking about it, after our first month or so in india, im sure we will be dreaming of a sleepy town where we can get away for a while.

I have alos seen some amazing accomodation in Diu, like an old church that you can stay in, and old portugese houses etc.

What is your hotel like Indiawise? is it expensive?

machadinha

I was thinking asking Indiawise for acco might be an idea I've never seen her/him advertising themselves here so that must be a plus A while ago someone recommended a housestay kind of place, did you do a search on Diu on this forum? There's some good reports around. Ah and don't take too little time for Diu, it's just nice to hang around there, unless you easily get bored with just hanging around. Avoid the main beaches on weekends as half of Gujarat (dry state) comes over to get stonkered and watch the tourists, it's a good time to get on that bicycle you hired and ride around the island, or stay indoors or on your balcony and finish that book you were reading. Oh and the beaches or those I saw were all unexposed except to the wind (if you're at a guesthouse there'll be shades of course), a surefire combination to get a massive sunburn so take care. I still have the marks on my leg of a sunburn about a decade later, got pretty ill with it at the time too.

sticky

!!!!!!!!!!!!! mate, that sounds horrible !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

slip (on a shirt), slop (on some sun screen), slap (on a hat) as we sat down here.

I got burnt pretty bad a couple of times when i forst moved to australia, but i learnt pretty quick. We dont have much of an ozone down here.

I have done searches one Diu here before, and have never seen anything negative. and i saw the post about the home stay too. there is only 3 or 4 places in the hotel listings for Diu though.

I didnt think to do a search today, but then im not thinking about much today. I am nursing a.... well i was going to say hangover, but that doesnt do it justice.... a weekendover would be better.... its preventing me from thinking about much. which is a bit of a pain because i have shit loads to do.

Chilling out for a few days in Diu sounds fantastic. I could really do with that right now!

machadinha

Haha yes well the burn sounds worse than it is. It was quite ugly at the time though, today it's mostly flaky skin that won't go away for some reason. Whatever. My friend at the time was a sunlover and I should have known better than to follow her to an unvisited and unshaded beach at 11:00 in the morning, when I thought about an hour later Man this is getting hot it was too late. I had deftly covered myself in a lungi and shirt but I guess the leg was sticking out. What can you do, all the pleasures of exotic travel right

I shouldn't really comment on today's accommodation as I gather quite a few new places have sprung up and some new beaches have seen development etc. At the time the only real beach to go was Nagoa Beach and the only place to really stay there was the Ganga Sagar Hotel. It was very nice, slightly "pricish" to us meaning not as flabbergastingly cheap as elsewhere, and the woman who ran it was renowned for her somewhat no-nonsense don't-f***-with-me approach to running a hotel, which also meant no hassles for you on the premises as long as you stayed on her right side. There was a nice and funky little bar next to it and not only does Diu have the only alcohol in the whole state but some of the cheapest in India too so go figure.

There are a number of places in Diu Town, the favorite budget place at the time seemed to be the Hotel Mozambique. We stayed there for just a night. From what I remember it was a nicely dilapidated colonial house with a verandah overlooking the market, can't remember if we had a private balcony or shared but it was nice to watch the goings-on, not that there generally is a lot going on, it really is a small place. If I ever return I'd try to go longer and spend some time in town, it's quite nice really. There's a vaguely Portuguese atmosphere still clinging to the town and something of a pub life which is/used to be exceptional in much of India, don't expect anything wild, most places would close early and they're more about drinking than about socializing but it's nice enough for a change.

You could hire bicycles or mopeds in town, maybe elsewhere too today. I don't really remember but to Nagoa Beach was a half hour's bike ride or so, maybe a little longer (an hour?) That's about halfway across the island and you can easily ride around it in a couple of hours. Rickshaws go up and down but count on paying for both ways if you just want to head out to the beach. Staying at Nagoa or whatever other beaches have been developed is nice for its own reasons of course; you step out of bed and onto the beach and basically just laze about or ponder tonight's seafood order. Swimming is perfectly safe which is another plus because it often isn't in India (tricky undercurrents, no such thing in Diu). The water in January was about lukewarm I'd say, like stepping into a pleasantly underheated bowl of soup.

It would be really nice if Indiawise could give us the lowdown on how it is today. Has it been developed much more, is the island overrun by tourists much more, what are today's hot picks as far as beaches/acco/eating and drinking possibilities go, etc.