I drove 400Km across the state to visit this beautiful and different place,which although being barren has so much life and colour in itself. The Rann of Kutch, an area of 18,000 sq km, lies almost entirely within Gujarat along the border with Pakistan. The Little Rann of Kutch extends northeast from the Gulf of Kutch over 5,100 sq km. Once an extension of the Arabian Sea, the Rann has been closed off by centuries of silting. During Alexander's time it was a navigable lake, but is now an extensive mudflat, inundated during the monsoons, salty and cracked otherwise. Settlement is limited to low, isolated small packets of people ,mainly nomads.
The Rann (Hindi for ‘salt marsh’) of Kutch is a vast flat desert during the seven-month dry season and a slushy floodplain for the remaining five monsoonal months. Its barren vista may look like an inhospitable wasteland but in reality, teems with life.Every year, thousands of greater and lesser flamingoes touch down at this one spot, forming the largest congregation in the subcontinent, to raise their broods. They nest nowhere else in South Asia. Like the mass nesting of sea turtles on the Orissa coast, this ‘aerial arribada’ is one of Nature’s most spectacular phenomena and one of the reasons for the creation of the Kutch Desert Wildlife Sanctuary.
In April 1945, Dr. Salim Ali ( Birdman of India) estimated half a million of these pink birds made up the congregation. It is unknown why generations of flamingoes have chosen this one spot when they could go anywhere on the 10,000 sq km Rann.The rich soup of nutrients from land and sea allows numerous micro-organisms to thrive, providing prawns and fish for humans, crustaceans for flamingoes and fish for water birds like pelicans,yellow winged ducks and so many birds whose name also I don't know but there colours and actvities are like a symphony.
I had decided to stay in a resort named "Rann Riders" (http://www.rannriders.com) which is run by Mr Muzahid Malik,the resort is is an ethnically designed eco-resort, set among wetlands and agricultural fields. The resort has imaginatively designed cottages that blend with the rural countryside in which it is situated.The Chorba "Mud Hut" are designed with such pain that there is no fault which you can bring out.Mr Malik has proved that if you can grow and make the complete society progress along.He has promoted his village Dasada on the world map.He provides oppourtunities to the locals in not only selling their handicraft but also offers all kind of jobs including that of the wildlife guides,using their generational know how. He is supported by Mr Rizvan and extremely courteous and supportive staff. I was damn impressed.
Our first safari was in the late afternoon in a brand new jeep . The driver was our guide too,he is a storehouse of information about the LRK and all that is in and around it. LRK gives a deceptive impression when one enters it for the first time. It looks like a desolate, god forsaken place with no life. But as we moved forward into the ‘never ending’ landscape we could observe that after all it was not a dead piece of land – there was vibrant life everywhere. We visited the local waterbody which had some hundreds of birds ,enjoying their meals ,stocking up for the long journey back ,the migrations begins in early april.These included elusive Pink Flamingos which exist not only in Farmvilla.After emptying my magazine i meant the memory card shooting the birds,we began our journey towards the Rann.
After searching for a while , we encountered some fine specimen of nilgai (large antelope) during the safari. The female of the species is much smaller and has a yellowish-brown colour compared to the grey-blue coat of the male. The bull is quite tall and a very graceful animal. It colour looks fantastic in the evening sun. Then finally we came across the first of our numerous encounters with the wild ass. It is a light coloured animal which would fit in somewhere between a horse and a donkey. These asses are close cousins of the African zebra and the Ladakhi Kiyang. A drive through LRK would bring us close to several hundreds of these animals. They have a predator-free environment with little or no threat from carnivores. Its very salty and ‘unfriendly’ meat puts the humans also at bay. According to a local legend, after eating the meat of wild ass, Emperor Akbar decided to turn vegetarian !
A chance encounter was with a desert fox, usually an elusive animal. It is a small canine with a brownish velvet skin which is not easy to spot.it When the rattle of the diesel engine was too close for comfort it quickly disappeared into it furrow.This was all due to the fact that our guide knew the area so well. .Before heading back, we went to see the salt pans and how the salt is made.. Dotting the parched landscape are desolate desert-like encampments, where a family or two combine forces to eke out a living by mining salt from the saline ground water, the biggest local industry. Legend has it that even after a salt worker dies and is cremated, the soles of his feet survive - a lifetime of labor in the salt pans bakes them so hard that even fire cannot fully burn them.
With the thought of how hard labour is required for the ever available table salt which we eat. We had the opportunity to watch the beautiful sunset which turned the whole sky into an attractive shade of orange and pink. I must grade it better than the ones which i saw in the Mediterranean.
Back in the resort was hot water bath to clean the tons of dust,sand and salt stuck to our skins and excellent meal . The food is local cuisine with flavors to suit anyone's appetite.After a long day it was a time to hit the sack and be ready for the long drive back to work.. I’ve certainly never seen any place quite like the Wild Ass Sanctuary, and don’t know that I’ll ever visit anywhere like it again and I would love to spend more time with Rann Riders.
The Rann (Hindi for ‘salt marsh’) of Kutch is a vast flat desert during the seven-month dry season and a slushy floodplain for the remaining five monsoonal months. Its barren vista may look like an inhospitable wasteland but in reality, teems with life.Every year, thousands of greater and lesser flamingoes touch down at this one spot, forming the largest congregation in the subcontinent, to raise their broods. They nest nowhere else in South Asia. Like the mass nesting of sea turtles on the Orissa coast, this ‘aerial arribada’ is one of Nature’s most spectacular phenomena and one of the reasons for the creation of the Kutch Desert Wildlife Sanctuary.
In April 1945, Dr. Salim Ali ( Birdman of India) estimated half a million of these pink birds made up the congregation. It is unknown why generations of flamingoes have chosen this one spot when they could go anywhere on the 10,000 sq km Rann.The rich soup of nutrients from land and sea allows numerous micro-organisms to thrive, providing prawns and fish for humans, crustaceans for flamingoes and fish for water birds like pelicans,yellow winged ducks and so many birds whose name also I don't know but there colours and actvities are like a symphony.
I had decided to stay in a resort named "Rann Riders" (http://www.rannriders.com) which is run by Mr Muzahid Malik,the resort is is an ethnically designed eco-resort, set among wetlands and agricultural fields. The resort has imaginatively designed cottages that blend with the rural countryside in which it is situated.The Chorba "Mud Hut" are designed with such pain that there is no fault which you can bring out.Mr Malik has proved that if you can grow and make the complete society progress along.He has promoted his village Dasada on the world map.He provides oppourtunities to the locals in not only selling their handicraft but also offers all kind of jobs including that of the wildlife guides,using their generational know how. He is supported by Mr Rizvan and extremely courteous and supportive staff. I was damn impressed.
Our first safari was in the late afternoon in a brand new jeep . The driver was our guide too,he is a storehouse of information about the LRK and all that is in and around it. LRK gives a deceptive impression when one enters it for the first time. It looks like a desolate, god forsaken place with no life. But as we moved forward into the ‘never ending’ landscape we could observe that after all it was not a dead piece of land – there was vibrant life everywhere. We visited the local waterbody which had some hundreds of birds ,enjoying their meals ,stocking up for the long journey back ,the migrations begins in early april.These included elusive Pink Flamingos which exist not only in Farmvilla.After emptying my magazine i meant the memory card shooting the birds,we began our journey towards the Rann.
After searching for a while , we encountered some fine specimen of nilgai (large antelope) during the safari. The female of the species is much smaller and has a yellowish-brown colour compared to the grey-blue coat of the male. The bull is quite tall and a very graceful animal. It colour looks fantastic in the evening sun. Then finally we came across the first of our numerous encounters with the wild ass. It is a light coloured animal which would fit in somewhere between a horse and a donkey. These asses are close cousins of the African zebra and the Ladakhi Kiyang. A drive through LRK would bring us close to several hundreds of these animals. They have a predator-free environment with little or no threat from carnivores. Its very salty and ‘unfriendly’ meat puts the humans also at bay. According to a local legend, after eating the meat of wild ass, Emperor Akbar decided to turn vegetarian !
A chance encounter was with a desert fox, usually an elusive animal. It is a small canine with a brownish velvet skin which is not easy to spot.it When the rattle of the diesel engine was too close for comfort it quickly disappeared into it furrow.This was all due to the fact that our guide knew the area so well. .Before heading back, we went to see the salt pans and how the salt is made.. Dotting the parched landscape are desolate desert-like encampments, where a family or two combine forces to eke out a living by mining salt from the saline ground water, the biggest local industry. Legend has it that even after a salt worker dies and is cremated, the soles of his feet survive - a lifetime of labor in the salt pans bakes them so hard that even fire cannot fully burn them.
Back in the resort was hot water bath to clean the tons of dust,sand and salt stuck to our skins and excellent meal . The food is local cuisine with flavors to suit anyone's appetite.After a long day it was a time to hit the sack and be ready for the long drive back to work.. I’ve certainly never seen any place quite like the Wild Ass Sanctuary, and don’t know that I’ll ever visit anywhere like it again and I would love to spend more time with Rann Riders.
