Junagadh

We made it to Junagadh after an aborted first attempt and going via some place called Vereval. The first time round we got to the bus station at 5:30 for our 6am bus only to find that the bus was leaving half an hour early that day! We were actually there in time but in the confusion of someone saying we would have to change buses half way and me walking off to check the time of the bus on the board we missed it....but we didn't realise that it was our bus until 45 minutes later, so at that point we went back to our hotel room to sleep until check out time as we'd left it open, only to find that someone had been up at that time and locked it, and then vanished!

Fortunately after about half an hour of waiting around we found someone and got in to have more sleep. The next bus went at 12:30 we were told so we went back for that, knowing we'd have to change now as the early bus was the only direct one. We were told to change at Biovar but it became pretty clear that there wasn't a stop there! Michelle realised that we could change at Vereval to get there which we did eventually, but not after the bus driver told us to get off before that, only for a kind passenger who spoke English to put us back on the bus! It's pretty tricky working out where to get off when the people in charge of the buses don't speak English and we don't speak any of the 17 Indian dialects!

When we finally made it, Michelle wasn't happy with the first room we looked at but we went to the guest house opposite and that was real squalour so we went back with our tail between our legs to the first place to ask for the room they showed us...it wasn't that bad really. We went and looked around the very old town - these kids were desperate to be in a photo....

That evening the only other incident of note was that the hotel owner took me to one side and explained that "while you are here, I treat you like my son and my daughter, so I feel I must tell you Sir that we are very conservative here in Junagadh and your wife will need where clothing that covers up more than at present." (what she was wearing was hardly risque) He didn't really need to say all that as he'd proved just how conservative it was by talking to me rather than talking to Michelle direct - perhaps men tell women what to wear in India - I of course said that it was up to her what she wore!