Kutch and Bavnath festival inquiries

buddha780

well hope to c u there 2 mineja. buzz me on 09810361780 if u want. wont be checking mails in junagadh. happy journey.

buddha780

Hi for all of u who are in junagadh or planning to arrive, i am in hotel SHIKHAR PALACE room no.3 on jayshree road.
ph.(0285)2626596.
cu
ps. my name is NEERAJ

kinginexile

Hello everyone, sorry, life went on while I was in Junagadh, and I have not logged in since then. I had the good fortune of having an Hindi friend staying there and we both visited the place and went to the festival. It was pure madness , and not much happening until the last 2 nights when 10(0?) of 000s of people start arriving. Nothing in the city, but the roads to the festival site, at the base of mount Girnar, some 4 or 5 kms from the city, were choked full, traffic stalled as soon as you left the city. Surprised?

best were the afternoons til' dusk those 2 days, plenty of people, no frenzy like happened the last night, and enough to keep you fascinated and (camera) trigger happy til' your memory cards fill up.

Well the last night was not too bad, I had been invited to an ashram the day before, and took my friend there again, then we were invited inside another, to be seated on stage while the Guru and acolytes, plus a big crowd, listened to musicians on another stage. At some point the guru (name? no idea, forgot) got up and showered the musicians with rupee bills. All brand new rolls of them ... Impressive, would have been total bad taste back home, but India, you just shut up and take in the show. Dinner ensued, and we were treated like VIPs truly, can't complain .

By then, coming out, it was about 9 or 10pm, people, people, people....Some rather dubious, following us til' we stopped, turned back and confronted them (well, my friend, he is 6ft 5 and some 250lbs, speaks gujarati).

With Sundep, my buddy, as a chaperon it was not too hard to acquaint ourselves with the famous nagas, all naked, covered with ashes, staying along the last path before the road to the mountain really climbs, next to the little fair for the kids (with big wheel and merry-go-rounds). We talked a long time with a couple nagas, thanks to Sundep translating, just chit-chat really, but it was wonderful, over tea.

I did not share the Hashish pipe (not my type of entertainment), but one thing was really funny: just being there, with my white face, a crowd kept surrounding the nagas tents, and every once in a while, they (the nagas) would threaten the crowd with a stick to move back, which the crowd did, laughing but quite obedient. My feeling was that the nagas were more a curiosity item to the crowd than to me.

By midnight we had no idea how to get to the parade grounds to see the ultimate reason why I came all the way to Junagadh, the grand SHIVA parade of nagas, gurus and their white horse floats, a big affair really. Way too much crowd, too many barriers, with the police keeping a tight control on all this (and they ain't laughing). That's where knowing a naga or 2 came in handy. we took off our shoes, to be left behind in a tent (yes, we found them again!), and then one of them naga told us not to worry, and proceeded to walk thru and in front of us. That's when I got an idea of the power with which Moses opened up the Red Sea. Just all obstacles melted, the cops let us in, one hurdle after another and we ended up inside the parade, all barriers containing the crowd behind us. I shot all my content of memory cards, and at the same time praising my good fortune.

Our big mistake was to try to reach again the parade way down, after picking up our shoes. That was the silliest thing to do . We were back in the crowds, never got close to the floats again, were swept off our feet more than once from the crowd movements, and had 2 or 3 blows of lati (the cops stick) missing us by not much . As soon as we saw a hole in the crowd, we rushed our way thru it, feeling like humans again, rather than rats ready to be trampled and buried into the ground, never to be found again... Had a last tea with our naga "friends", then back down to Junagadh .

So, that was my Mahashivatri experience, and it was just great to share it with a friend, though I don't know i would brave these crowds alone again. there are guys, some in gang, who are really meaning trouble, you can easily loose something (my camera was big though and always in my hand, strapped around the neck) and at the end not see much really.

The Hotel, what's its name?, was OK, but sorry, one of the best backpacker hotels in India, it is not, the manager was all business, not unfriendly, but nothing to write home about, and it's not like he seemed to let out more infos than the guidebook I had, did. His son is nicer. The restaurant on the premises is clean and food there quite Ok.

Junagadh has character. Give it a couple days if you get near.

I quite liked Ahmedabad, but that's another story.

mineja

thanks for sharing the experience.
actually i was in Junagadh in the same time....
one IMer from Diu didnt approved my idea to go mahashivratri.he told me about crowds,attencion etc.
i didnt listen him and decided to go anyway,no matter what.
well,
i arrived to Junagadh from Diu by bus and i during this ride i´ve got really ill.
i had fever and i couldnt leave the hotel.so, i spent mahashivratri night in my hotel room.lonely, ill, feeling like a dying.
on the next day i felt better.
i´ve got first train to Ahmedabad A/C 3rd and escaped from Junagad.
maybe that was gods will,very individual sight.