By Polomi Mondal:
Some places, no matter how amazing the pictures you manage to click are, can never be captured through a lens. The beauty of such places can be captured only when you see them yourself.
The white desert of Kutch is one such surreal place. You must have seen the most amazing pictures, heard the best stories, but nothing comes close to seeing it for yourself. The full moon experience in the desert is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Soon after sunset, the colour of the sand and the sky looks exactly the same and there appears to be no horizon. As far as I could see, it was white and only white.
The “Khusboo Gujarat Ki” ads of Amitabh Bachchan always fascinated me. You must have heard Mr. Bachchan saying “Kutch nahi dekha to kuch nahi dekha” (If you haven’t seen kutch, then you haven’t seen anything).
The Rann of Kutch is a large area of salt marshes located partly in Gujarat and partly in Sindh (Pakistan). The Great Rann of Kutch is a seasonal salt marsh located in the Thar Desert and is reputed to be one of the largest salt deserts in the world.
During my 3-day trip to Kutch, I spent one evening at the Dhordo Rann. I preferred to stay at Bhuj to keep my budget minimal and travel to the Rann Utsav with a Local tour Operator whose advertisement ‘my travel mate’ I had spotted in a local newspaper a day earlier when I wasn’t quite sure whether to go to Ekal ka Rann or the Dhordo Rann. The deal offered by the tour operator was a good one. Rs 550/per person only, inclusive of the Border charges. It turned out to be the best deal for us as it was a full moon night.
These are the sites we visited:
1) Black Hill, known as Kala Dungar
2) India Bridge
3) Lunch at the Toran Resort
4) Rann Utsav at Dhordo (reached around 4 p.m. and spent the entire evening there)
While we were asked to come back at 6:30 p.m., we made sure we got a good view of the full moon. We came back at around 7:45-8:00 p.m. and had to face other angry travelers waiting for us in the bus but it was worth it. Sometimes it’s okay to make people wait, for example, when you have to get the full moon view at the White Sand desert.
You can opt to walk as far as you can in the desert or try these horse rides or camel rides.
We spotted this very popular transport medium used in Kutch known as a ‘chakda’ in the local language. This was only available for clicking pictures.
Soon after the sunset, you see different shades of colour at the Rann. When we arrived, the sky was white. Then slowly, close to sunset, it started turning yellow, then orange, then red, blue and at the end white again.
I wish I could have clicked a better picture of the full moon, but this is what I was able to capture with my lens (I had an 18mm-55mm).
All pictures were taken with a Nikon D3200.
Visited Rann Utsav on January 23-25th January 2016.
All images provided by Polomi Mondal.