Gir Forest and National Park - 2011

With lot of problem finally I got off from my office and we decided to go for our first trip to Gir. A full 5-6 days trip was shrank by 4 Days exhausted but full of fun trip.

I never witnessed a wild animal like Tiger/Lion/Leopard in national park and this was my 7th trip to forest/national Park. We decide to split our trip in two forms first two days we diced to spend in Gir forest area where we are allowed to drive our own car in dedicated route with/without guide and on third day we decided to do a Lion Safari in Gir National Park with gypsy and forest guide.


Botad - Ahmedabad Train

Day 1
We, I and my lovely family decided to start our journey in the very early around 4:00 AM from Ahmedabad but I need to wait for my office work till 2:00 in the night then did a quick sleep and started our journey from Ahmedabad early 6.00 AM. We decided to enter in Gir forest from Tulsishyam Gate on first day and then will again enter in Gir Forest from Jamvala gate in the evening. We headed towards Ahmedabad-Limbdi highway 8A and passed Sarangpur-Gadhada @ 10:00 AM. We did lunch @ Gir Garden Restaurant just before Tulsishyam Gate.


Gir Forest from Gir Garden Restaurant.

We entered in Gir Forest from Tulsishyam Gate at 1.30 and did some halt at Tulsishyam Temple and visited Hot Spring. IMers, Tulsishyam is only one place exist in the Gir Forest which allows you to take night halt but you are not allowed to leave temple premises after 9:00 PM. You will not get all amenities but basic amenities are available in Temple Guest House. We were not aware and it was not in our plan, so we decided to leave from Tulsishyam @ 3:00 AM and started our journey in Gir Forest towards Babriya Gate.


One Deer was very near, we can touch it as well.

After driving 1 KM, we saw one Mongoose then we watched a family of Deer, one of them was so near that we can touch it. We saw one Nilgai, few pugmarks of Lion, one old skeleton might be killed by leopard and one unused killed.

We exit from Jasadhar Gate @ 3:45 PM and headed towards Jamvala-Gir gate. We continue on SH 104 and after crossing Dhokadava Village we took right turn which is short cut for Jamvala. We passed Fatasar and Itvaya village and joined on SH 98. This road was so bad that we were able to reach Gir-Gadhada/Babriya Gate by 5:00 PM. IMers SH 98 is passing from Gir Forest and available for travllers through out the day but you should avoid very late driving (say after 11:00 PM).

We reached Jamvala Gate by 5:20 but Forest Office did not allowed to enter in forest as cut off time is 5:00 PM, we requested him a lot but then also he did not allow us to enter.

We had two option either we leave Jamvala for Sasan (which is 1:30 hour journey) and return back to Jamvala on next day morning. IMers Jamvala Gate is only open between 7:45 AM in the morning (only after entering first Una-Visavadar State Transport Bus) and closed at 5:00 PM, but some time due to bad road condition in forest officers are not allowed to enter after 4:00 PM).


Gud (Jaggary) Factory in Jamvala

We inquired in village and manage to get one room in one villager’s house. We just have to spend one night, only beds available for sleep. We thought to room around village and visited a Gud Factory (Jaggary Factory) and test pure fresh Jaggery. HemantBhai Patel was the owner of that house and he bought us a good home made food. Food was so good and delicious. In the night we started chatting with villagers and they advice us to drive some odd 10 KMs on SH 98 as they heard about sighting of Lion Family in Babriya Village. We drove on absolutely lonely SH98, we did not see Lion but saw Fox, Wild Cat running behind Rabbit. We back to Jamvala village @ 11:00 PM and slept.

Day 2
We heard Lion’s Growling in night which is usual for villagers. We woke up early in the morning and after finishing our daily jobs we reached to Jamvala Gate sharp @ 7:30. We were first and after us there were two more vehicles came. We were ready with our entery pass and sharp @ 7:45 AM State Transport Bus came and after that officer allow us to enter into forest.


Singhoda Dam in Gir Forest

We were driving slowly barley at 5 KM/Hour speed and were driving on off beat trail and after passing 2 KMs it was dead end. So again return back to main road and started our journey in forest. We visited Singhoda Dam, where we heard continuous Lion’s Growl in valley. IMers road in the route is so bad that you even not able to speed above 10 KM/Hour speed. We saw lot of Deer, Sambar, and Wild Boars. We reached Chhodavadi Check Post @ 9:00 AM, from Chhodavadi Check post there are three ways, one going to Dhari Village, other is going to Banej and third way is going to Kankai Temple. We decided to visit Banej Temple, which is 12 KM from Chhodavadi Checkpost. We need to return the Entry pass @ Chhodavadi Checkpost and need to create new entry pass for Banej. Authorities told us that earlier visitors are allowed for night stay in Banej/Kankai temple but recently it banned as few years back one college group did campfire which caused wildfire. For 12 KMs it took 2 hours, as road is so bad and there were lot of things to see.


Peacocks in Gir Forest

We reached Banej @ 11:00 AM, it was in valley and a thick dense forest. We saw Snakes, tortoise and few wild birds. On return near Choodavadi Check post we saw two fox lot of parrots and peacock; we played with peacock as well.

It was 1:00 PM and now we headed towards Kankai Temple, we passed through two rivers and again saw lot of deer, Sambar, Jungle Eagle and a Nilgai. We reached Kankai Temple @ 2:00 PM; we had our lunch there, temple authorities serving food to all visitors. We spent some time over there, and started our return journey @ 4:00 PM. Until now we saw lot of animals and birds but unlucky to see glimpse of Great Asiatic Lion.

We were driving very slowly to hope for best and reached Chhodavadi Check post @ 5:30 PM, we took our return pass for Jamvala. We were driving slowly and exploring Gir Jungle. We witnessed something happening in our right side, a group of Deer running into North and a Sambar family keeps walking into North. By that time sun was already set and it was 6:15, we crossed a forest check-post and officer advice us to go. We saw milestone that Jamvala is 5 KMs away and again we saw that a Sambar running towards north. Then we saw two fox keep running in front of our Car.

It was 6:40 and jungle was too dark that one can hardly see anything except muddy dumpy road and that was with help of car headlight. Suddenly I saw two typical Red Eyes (eyes of animal due to light of our car) on road at about 100 Meter distance and I immediately stop my car. To our surprise it was one Lioness crossing the road and I immediately closed my Car Light. I never experienced any wild animal in jungle and my father suggested switching on the lights thence might be due to switch on the light that Lioness change her path and walking towards our car. One more Lioness cam to muddy road from sideway and two young lionesses walking towards our car from 100 Meter distance. It was our first experience of any wild animal in jungle. When they were about 30 meter or something in hurry my wife forgot to switch off Camera Flash and she took a photo, photo did not come but those lionesses stopped for while and again coming towards us. One came on our left side of car and other came on our right side and they were looking on us and continue their journey on our opposite side. In all this I forgot to take video but what a good 5 minutes drama. I thought to reveres my car to follow them but it was too dark do see back road and we have to reach at Jamvala gate by 7:00 PM. So we decided to leave that place and with a thrilling experience we reached at Jamvala Gate @ 7:15 PM. We explained our story to forest officer for coming late.


Two Lionesses see bottom of the Image

We left Jamvala with good memories and started our journey for Sasan Gir. We passed a Siddi Village on way to Talala, Siddi community is of African Origin and it was funny to see an African Habsi is answering in pure Kathiawadi (A sub-language of Gujarati).

We reached Sasan Gir by 9.30, we were late by only 2 minutes and not manage to get accommodation in Sinh Sadan. We took halt @ Rainbow Hotel, which is good and affordable. We took our dinner and slept as we have to wake up @ 4.00 in the morning.

Day 3
We reached Sinh Sadan @ 5:15 in the morning and took our Entry Pass for Guide and Gypsy. We were first to enter in forest, we entered 5:40 against its official time between 6:00 to 9:00 AM. IMers, Gir National Park is only park in India which is doing 3 Jungle Safari in a day, 1) 6:00 to 9:00 AM, 2) 9:15 to 12:15 and 3) 3:00 to 6:00 PM.

Our guide was good but that day was not for us, no one in that timeslot was able to see Lion. But we saw Maldhari Village, who are only humans allow to stay in Gir Forest/National Park. We saw Deer, Sambar, Hawk and few more birds. I am very impressed with work of Gir Forest/National Park. Forest Officers are not just sitting in their Cabins but they are keep watching and gathering data in forest. They are spending at least 6 hours of their duty in Jungle and I think that is why Gir Forest is not witnessed any poaching or illegal activities.

We return to our hotel and found that our Car got punctured in its rear wheel and we were late by 2 hours so we drop our idea to visit Devaliya Park (a 20 Sq KM Park), where you will easily get Lions but they are not in their natural hebetate.

We started our journey for Somnath Temple and reached Somnath by 11:50 and did Aarati by 12:00 PM and after taking Lunch @ Veraval, we headed towards Dwarka.


See Eagles at Madhupur Beach from Porbander to Dwarka Road

We visited Madhupur Beach, which is clean and blue water beach. I am amazed with such beach in Gujarat. We reached Dwarka by late evening and hotel dwarkesh was already waiting for us.

Day 4
Visit Dwarka temple early in the morning and then went for Bet Dwarka by sail.

Sharp @ 12.30 PM we started our return journey to Ahmedabad, we passed huge Reliance Jamnagar Refinery. Jamnagar Marine National park was closed so we skip that and reached Ahmedabad by 9:00 PM in the evening.

That is all from our Gir – Somnath – Dwarka Trip in after 5 days we have to go for VaishnavDevi – Dharamshala – Manali so I back to my work.


Regards
Rushi

What a wonderful trip Rushi, seeing those lions at night must have been so exciting. You said that you could touch the deer and the peacocks, they sound almost tame.

How is that?

Did you drive from Pune to Gir?

Do post more photos. Thanks for all the information which will be most useful to anyone planning a trip there.

Great trip report, what an experience to see lions like that, you were so lucky.
Thanks for sharing

Hi Rushijoshi,

Great Trip, very lucky.

Regards
Mani

hey rushi sounds like a good trip. Only thing for me is how to get to the other gates of the park. I was only at sasan. the other trip sounds like fun but i dont have a vehicle. do they give you a jeep at the other tulsishyam gate etc? how to go there from Rajkpt or Jamnagar? do post that info.
thanks
arun

Any good condition vehicle should work, we had Hundai Santro

From Rajkot there is one more gate (Satadhar Gate) which leads you directly to Kankai Mata Mandir. But you must have to return to this gate after visiting Kankai Temple. This is core and dense forest and there are very good chances of sighting lions.

A Tip : Tigers are best in the Morning and Lions are best in the late Evening.

From Rajkot/Jamnagar, you can hire a full day vehicle and tell driver that you will be ready to pay for entire day but driver should have patience and drive slowly and wait wherever it is possible. From Rajkot it is 160 KM one side journey but from Junagadh it will be very near. Best option is you can stay at Dhari/Satadhar and hire a vehicle from there it self.


Regards
Rushi

You can find few photos @ http://cid-86b8639ace64a665.photos.l...0&sa=250093962

Nope we went to my native Ahmedabad in Train and from there drove to Gir.

There is a amazing wild animal forest that is called the gir forest
there are diffrent types of animals are there.The gir forest is a famous as a sasan gir it's called lion forest
There is a tulshisyam temple is there so that is seen places are there so you can travelled here.

hi rushi,
wonderfull trip report.
please tell me if i cant manage a booking in Sinhasadan, where should i stay, near the forest.and whts the rent of rainbow hotel and how far is it from the forest. tell me if there is any gypsie facility available.
regards

There are other hotels near Forest Gate. Sinhsadan is nearest one and forest Entry passes only available at Window near Sinhsadan only. So if your plan is fixed then you can book it, otherwise hotels available on Gir Talala road at affordable rate.

Yes like other natioanl parks Gypsy is available at Sinhsadan ticket windows 1200(Entry) + 100 Driver Fees.

Regards
Rushi

Just noticed this thread. Excellent trip report. Thanks for the same.

Ronak.

Wow, It must been amazing watching the lions at night. We also visited Gir, but we were luckier in the morning safaris and saw the lions then.

hey,

it was a informative and wonderful trip report. can you provide me somewhat detailed route map which can be located on google maps?

Hello Everyone,

I am planning to drive to Tulsishyam and Kankai Temple from Ahmedabad. I have decided to take SH 104 for reaching to Tulsishyam and from there I am planning to join SH 98 via Babriya to Jamvala and then to Kankai Temple. Almost the same route that Rushi Joshi followed.

Can anyone suggest how the road condition is? Can I drive my Tata Vista to that road or do I need to hire any private vehicle?

Rushi, your post is very informative. Thanks for sharing this information with us. I am following your post after almost one and half year, but if you can suggest the road condition and any routes to be avoided, it would be very helpful.

Any help will be most appreciated. Your advice can help me plan my trip better.

Thanks in advance,
Jinal.

Planning a Gir trip in Feb '13. This was very helpful.thanks.