The next day started early. I and Abhishek (my younger brother) got up early and rushed to the railway reservation counter to cancel our ticket and also to book our bus tickets. After coming back we had our breakfast…. And soon our tourist bus came and we set out for the ‘Abu Tour’. Abu, as I said in the last post, is a small city and there are not more than 4 tourist destinations as such. But the tourism corporations and the municipality of Mount Abu have made it a more enjoyable place than what it could be. Apart from the tourist attractions the Abu tour includes some artificial destinations. The natural tourist destinations include Dilwara temple, Adhar Devi Temple, Achalgarh, honeymoon point, sunset point and the Guru Shikhar (highest point of Gujarat Rajasthan). This fills in just 5 hours of the trip. The rest of the tour is populated with the Nakki Lake, the Universal peace hall, World Peace Park and the world peace museum (all of the Brahmakumari godly university). These non-tourist components make the tour a day-long event.
All said and done, I realized that all the above was primarily due to the people of Mount Abu. The tourist guide in the bus was the representation of the people of this area. They are simple minded and take pride in their city. They follow the old Indian saying “Atithi Devo Bhav” (Guest is the God) to its word and hence make every effort to keep you happy, comfortable and informed. This is probably one of the reasons that they have created so many artificial tourist spots in the city.
Of all these spots the one worth mention is Guru Shikhar, the highest spot in Rajasthan and Gujarat. Because of its height, the military has installed radars on one of the peaks, while there’s an observatory on another peak. The third peak between these two is allowed for tourists and has a temple of lord “Dutt” on it. The observatory, along with the path leading to it is a picturesque structure and the radars sighted at a distance made me stick at this place longer than others (I have always had a fascination for military and its installations since childhood, so whenever I get to see or observe something related, I usually don’t miss the chance) .
We ended our trip at sunset point, but it seemed unlikely that we would get a chance to see it as clouds had been blocking the sun since morning. But by gods grace it so happened that the clouds gave way just at the end and we got to see the sunset. It was late when we came back to our hotel after dinner. I and Abhishek had seen the cliff behind our hotel in the morning and both decided that we should climb it. Our bus for Ahmedabad was to get us at 9:00AM so we decide to get up early and leave for the trek by 6:30AM so as to be back by 8:30 and so we again had a good night's sleep. . . . .
All said and done, I realized that all the above was primarily due to the people of Mount Abu. The tourist guide in the bus was the representation of the people of this area. They are simple minded and take pride in their city. They follow the old Indian saying “Atithi Devo Bhav” (Guest is the God) to its word and hence make every effort to keep you happy, comfortable and informed. This is probably one of the reasons that they have created so many artificial tourist spots in the city.
Of all these spots the one worth mention is Guru Shikhar, the highest spot in Rajasthan and Gujarat. Because of its height, the military has installed radars on one of the peaks, while there’s an observatory on another peak. The third peak between these two is allowed for tourists and has a temple of lord “Dutt” on it. The observatory, along with the path leading to it is a picturesque structure and the radars sighted at a distance made me stick at this place longer than others (I have always had a fascination for military and its installations since childhood, so whenever I get to see or observe something related, I usually don’t miss the chance) .
We ended our trip at sunset point, but it seemed unlikely that we would get a chance to see it as clouds had been blocking the sun since morning. But by gods grace it so happened that the clouds gave way just at the end and we got to see the sunset. It was late when we came back to our hotel after dinner. I and Abhishek had seen the cliff behind our hotel in the morning and both decided that we should climb it. Our bus for Ahmedabad was to get us at 9:00AM so we decide to get up early and leave for the trek by 6:30AM so as to be back by 8:30 and so we again had a good night's sleep. . . . .
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