The original plan was to cycle to Vapi, and then go more or less parallel to National Highway 8 on smaller roads to the north. Well, in Vapi I decided to try the highway. I expected that to be a bit faster, and I can see loads of villages once I’m past Vadodara and on the Kathiawar peninsula. So I rode to Chikhli where I’m going to stay for the night.
Chikhli is a nice little town with friendly people. Pretty much everything is written in Gujarati here (I’m in the state of Gujarat now, after all), but people speak Hindi, too. The script Gujarati uses seems to be somewhat related to Devanagari (the script that is used for Hindi), so I can read (not understand) it to some degree. –Even on TV there’s not a single English-speaking channel.– High time I upgrade my Hindi.
The hotel here is the first one in India where I was not allowed to take the bike into the room. It’s now downstairs in the hall, though, next to the hotel guard.
