Veraval Trip (May 09, 2010)

Veraval is a small coastal town about 3 hours driving distance from Diu. The main industry here is fishing and related exports. The other attraction is the Shiva temple in the nearby town of Somnath, that is frequented by Hindu devotees.

There are many places to stay but none met our standards, but we finally settled on the Park Hotel. This is a privately owned place and the owner has made quite a name for himself. He is involved in the efforts to save the Whaleshark that frequents the coast and was being hunted by the local fisherman. Whalesharks are an endangered species and nobody knew that they frequented the local coasts also. In addition he has started home industries with the help of local women in need of help. We found him to be a nice and hospitable businessman.

At first we were not impressed by the Park Hotel but later the staff turned out to be very friendly and they let us customize our meals. They got us connected to Bhavesh a local rental car owner, who drove us all over for the next few days. There was a swimming pool in the hotel but we decided to give it the skip.

Veraval is pretty much rural India, even though infrastructure wise it will not match the big cities but there is a abundance of cell phone towers everywhere. Mobile phone technology is really a major revolution for India.

The Somnath Shiva temple is very famous but getting in and around is all chaotic, we felt that being nearby was good enough. There are a lot of local craft stores around, plus garment based handicrafts are big in this area.