Back again, and I hope your
week was as good as mine! I apologize for the title, it is really corny. For those of you wondering where the salt comes in (NaCl), just hold on. As you likely
know, I recently returned from yet another Rotary trip (they never seem to end,
and we’re just getting started!), this one to the state North of Maharashtra,
Gujarat. A bit of background: Gujarat is
pretty traditional it seems, reflected by the nearly twice as many people
adhering to a pure-veg diet as well as the state-wide prohibition of
alcohol. The people speak Gujarati, a
language that looks like Hindi without the line at the top of the letters, and
the state has quite a diversity of ecosystems including a large section of desert.
On the night of the 10th we
departed for Ahmedabad, the largest city of Gujarat, in our 16-person mini bus
which became our home for the week. It
was rather cramped and we all got little sleep on our several overnight bus
journeys. With relief we arrived in
Ahmedabad and were greeted by some Rotarians, our host families for two
days. The hospitality shown to us while
in their care would blow your mind. Not
only were we given free stay, but they paid for all of the great food we ate
and places we visited. We experienced a
traditional Gujarati meal, a temple, an ashram, a boat ride powered by an
Indian guy with a long stick, and the opening of the kite festival which turned
out to be a weird rock concert (including an…interesting interpretation of Bon
Jovi’s “It’s My Life”). It was generally
very fun and we enjoyed our time in Ahmedabad.
Another overnight bus ride
took us to Bhuj and our hotel for the next three days and two nights. From this base we visited the Kutch desert
festival, which was essentially a small touristy place in the middle of a very
dry place. There was a fair amount of
information on the desert and people who have lived there, but this was not the
most popular event among our group.
After this, however, we drove to the vast expanse of flat land that we
simply called the “Salt Desert”. The
area immediately surrounding the parking area was some interesting kind of sand
(presumably mixed with salt) which had the properties and consistency of a wet
beach, but somehow accomplished this without the water. As we began walking (skipping, running, and all
other manners of frolicking), the ground became gradually covered by an
increasing layer of salt until it appeared that we were in the middle of rural
Minnesota after a snowfall. Since I have
been missing my Minnesota weather, it was fun to pretend.
The next day we experienced the true kite day festivities
from the roof of a local Rotarian’s house.
My only basis for what to expect coming from The Kite Runner, I was surprised to find that the festival involves
essentially the entire city flying kite after kite endlessly from the tops of
buildings, stopping only to reel in a wire cut from a neighboring kite in order
to tie it to the next kite on the pile.
From my rooftop I could see hundreds of kites filling the sky, and
witnessed many humorous attempts by our group to send a kite up into the
fray. The rest of the trip found us
riding camels on a beach (not quite a desert safari, but enjoyable
nonetheless), running into the Arabian Sea (in the middle of “Winter” to the
amazement of all the Indians near us), lifting floating lanterns into the sky,
and watching fireworks. It was a full
and exciting two days, and though I did not get a satisfactory picture of the
kites in the sky, a photo I took on our final morning gives a good sense of the
extent of the festivities. I genuinely
enjoyed this trip for both experiencing an alternate side of Indian culture and
for the pure fun we had. Now that I have
finished this post, I need to get working on the next to wrap up the tales of
South India since I leave again in just over a week on another trip. Tough life, huh? 
