Monday, November 15, 2010

Visit to Champaner - A World Heritage Site

Children's Day could not have been better than spending a quality time with couple of friends away from the city at Champaner, a World Heritage Site located some 50kms away from Baroda. All of us were happy and to have spent a sumptuous Sunday, roaming around like a child from one place to another completely carefree.
The journey to Champaner began from Baroda on Sunday morning at 6 a.m. Me and Aekam on Yamaha Fazer and Ninad and Ronak on Bajaj Pulsar.
We were wandering to catch the early morning sunrise on Baroda-Halol highway and hit the road for about 20-25 kms to have a picturesque landscape and ended up our bikes in a village called Kotambi on the Baroda-Halol highway. I was bit disappointed as the sun had already started to rise and we're still searching a picture perfect place. From the information given by the local guy we ended up our biking adventure to the so called river of the village, which was actually a water stream. But that was satisfactory as we managed to get some good shots of the morning mist and the sunrise along with the villagers doing their house hold chores by the water stream.
Sun Rise @ Kotambi Village
Women performing household chore @ Kotambi Village

After a bit of satisfaction we started moving towards Champaner and saw some beautiful places on the way and capturing few of 'em. We reached Champaner and visited few World Heritage Sites which includes, Shaher ni Masjid, Jama Masjid, Kamani Masjid and Saat Kaman (7 Bows.)
Shaher ni Masjid is a beautiful location in the heart of the village with some nicely carved stones. So is Jama Masjid, but a bigger place in area having different entries to the place, an octagonal tank for the abulations, and beautifully hand carved stones and pillars with a Picturesque Pavagarh landscape in it's backdrop.
Out of all these the best place to be was at Saat Kaman which is located near Manchi in the ghats of Pavagarh while en-route. We went there after having our lunch at Hansraj Hotel near to the ST Bus Depot. You just don't feel getting back from there. The view of the whole Champaner and it's surrounding is just more than mesmerizing from around 2000 feet or so (just an approximation.)
Saat Kaman (7 Arches)

Panaromic View of Champaner from Saat Kaman

Kalpvriskha Carvings @ Jami Masjid
Foothills of Pavagarh





 







Thanks to Aekam, Ninad, Ronak, Aviral, Rushabh, Ashish, Ruchee and Vaibhavi who joined along made it a memorable trip.
P.S. Others had joined us lately at Champaner.

7 comments:

  1. :):) I wish i was there tooo....
    Gr8 keep visitng...may be we will plan out some trip ..soon..:):):)

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  2. great man...do upload some pics too. i also visited it a few months back, right in the middle of the monsoons. here is the post for that...

    http://www.sid-thewanderer.com/2010/10/pavagarh-champaner-and-monsson.html

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  3. yea have gone through that... nice one... :)

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  4. Its a lovely travelogue... The photographs are great and that pics of the carving is exquisite...
    Just came across your blog and loved it a lot and am following yours now..
    Do drop by mine sometime.. :)
    My Travelogue

    ReplyDelete