25-Jan-2004 -- This is my fifth confluence visit. My previous visit was to 22°N 73°E. I was on a weekend visit to Ahmedabad. I thought of utilizing this Sunday and my colleague friend Rohit Gothkindi told me that he will also accompany me. We took the Vespa Scooter from our colleague Uttam Malviya. Both of them had come with me in my previous visit of 23°N 72°E.
On 25 January 2004, I and Rohit started from Uttam’s home at around 12 pm. While going through the down town area we were caught by the Traffic Police for usual checking. Though I had the Driving License and Registration certificate, I had to pay the fine for not having the pollution certificate. Once we reached the eastern end of the city we took the State Highway which goes to Balasinor in Kheda district.
After some 40 km of drive we reached a place called Kathlal. From here we took the main road towards North which leads to a town called Kapadvanj which is situated 17 km from here. Then after traveling 14 km we reached a place called Dasalvada. Here the GPS was showing the CP to be in the western direction. Hence we had to find a way towards our left. We took the tarmac road towards west and went inside a few kilometers. By this time further we went the distance between us and the CP was increasing. Sooner we realized that we are going in the wrong direction, we took an about turn and reached back to Dasalvada. Here we asked some of the villagers about any way towards the west. As usual they were asking about where exactly we wanted to go.
Not getting proper information from them we left the place and started going towards Kapadvanj. After a few hundred meters we found an unpaved road goes towards west. We took this road and traveled about 3 km and reached a small village. Further we went inside and reached a point in which the GPS reading was 700 meters from the confluence. We parked the scooter and started walking towards the CP. We could see a few farmers working there. We asked permission to one of the person to take a few photographs inside the field. He allowed us and we went through a narrow path and crossed one mound and jumped into the field which was lying low compared to the rest of the place. Finally we reached the confluence point at 2 pm and took the mandatory photos of the NEWS directions and also the GPS. This confluence point was lying inside a field which is surrounded by lush foliage. By this time all the farmers were gathered near us. We did not want to bamboozle them with some stories hence straight away told that since this place was scenic, we just wanted to take some photographs. They took us to their farm house and offered chilled water. It was a harsh sunny day so we quenched our thirst and took some rest in a rope cot chatting with them about their nature of work.
Then we bid a good bye to them and started from there. On the way back we stopped at Kathlal junction and had our lunch. We reached Ahmedabad at around 4.30 pm. There was a party arranged by our colleagues from other department of our organization to celebrate their achievement of exceeding their target. We combined the jubilation with the success of confluence visit and enjoyed with an extravagant banquet.
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