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The trip to Abu-Ahmedabad – I

On 29th of June, my parents celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary. To commemorate this event we went on a trip to mount Abu and Ahmedabad. The planning for the event was done well in advance; in fact information about Abu and its tourist attractions had already been found on the net before I reached Bhopal. I have always been the ‘working-son’ for my parents. What that means is that both my parents wait for me to come before they launch any new work. For example – planning a trip or painting the house or buying a new appliance etc.; even things like changing the position of a wall clock and sofa set are delayed for my arrival. It is this training that has made me an enthusiastic and ardent worker even outside. I am known for my working spirit and ability to get things done.
So, when I came home, I was pushed into operational planning – dates, travel plans, tickets, hotels etc. All this done, we set out soon for our trip. Everything went to the clock. We left Bhopal by train on evening of 26th June and reached Ahmedabad on morning of 27th at about 8:00am. We had our next train from Ahmedabad to Abu at 10:00am. While we refreshed ourselves at the station, my father tried out calling a hotel in Ahmedabad which I had discovered on the net. He finalized our stay in Ahmedabad (which was to start 2 days later) at this hotel right on the phone. Everybody had to appreciate the convenience of telecom technology – mobile phones in specific.
The journey to Abu road was enjoyable. Day time, we all had had a good night’s sleep and it wasn’t hot. We passed the Sabarmati River and a power plant on its banks. This inspired my father to explain me the design of a power plant; and the discussion spilled over to our Indira Sagar trip also. As I am an electronics engineer this all was new for me. I realized how thoroughly my father’s engineering studies had been that he remembered all design details even 29-30 years after his engineering. I wonder whether my own studies have been thorough enough.
We reached Abu road and hired a cab to drop us to Mount Abu. It was a good ride along the ghat. The cab driver himself suggested a hotel which we found good and put up there. We were in our hotel rooms by 4:00PM evening.
We went to the local market in the evening; wandering about the place. Abu as such is a small city and there’s not much of walking to be done even if you want to cover the whole city. In fact the whole city is set around a circular road track of 10kms length. The rest of the area is pure tourist locations – no urban shades to it, all natural. So it didn’t take us much time to get around the whole city and finally settle down for a nice dinner. On our round trip we finalized a tourist bus for the next day. The travel agent told us that Abu was just a one day affair; while we had a plan of spending two days at Abu. So during dinner as we pondered over the issue it was decided to cancel the ticket for 30th June morning and instead book a bus to Ahmedabad for 29th June. All set we went back to our hotel and slept – it was a nice fulfilling sleep in the natural environs of Abu. . . . . . .

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