Rann Utsav : A unique experience

RANN UTSAV means celebrations in the desert. It is a unique way of celebrating the Kutch's culture, food, artwork, music, dance and etc organized by Gujarat's tourism. Kutch refers to the district in western India in Gujarat state. And Rann of Kutch is a seasonal salt marshal located in the Thar desert in Kutch District of Gujarat, India and the Sindh province of Pakistan.

About Rann Utsav

Rann Utsav is an annual festival which is hosted by Gujarat tourism and operated by White Rann Camping and Hospitality. The festival starts from November till February. Remaining months the Kutch region will be filled with water. Literally, kutch means something which intermittently becomes wet and dry. 

For more information about Rann Utsav and available packages, please follow the below link.

http://rannutsav.com/

http://whiterannresort.com/ 

Basically, they have 1-night, 2-nights, and 3-nights packages, either we can choose from that or we can as for a customized package. Apart from White Rann resort, there are other resorts like Kutch Resort (http://www.kutchresort.com/) but it will not be so grand and marvelous like White Rann resort. 

How to reach the White Rann Resort

White Rann Resort is located in Dhordo, which has another name called as Tent City. All the home, hotels & resorts in Dhordo are temporary structures as the Kutch region will be dry only for four months; thus this place got 'Tent City' as a nickname. 

We can reach the White Rann Resort by our own mode of transport or we can take the complimentary pick-up and drop service arranged by Rann Utsav committee. This Rann Utsav committee has a base camp in Bhuj Railway station and Bhuj Airport and the service starts from there and they have this complementary service at a defined time by air-conditioned bus. Also, they provide complimentary snacks and water bottle after boarding the bus.

1. Bhuj Railway station
2. Rann Utsav Base camp in Bhuj Railway Station
3. Air Conditioned bus service to Dhordo

If our time didn't sync up with their defined time then on a chargeable basis, they will arrange a taxi service. 

About the White Rann Resort

White Rann Resort itself is like a small village in Dhordo. It spreads over 5000 square meters area with nearly 450 tents. It houses reception block, recreation block, indoor games like billiards, table tennis etc, outdoor games like paintball, ATV ride, segway, duo bicycle, paramotoring etc, shopping complexes, two dining areas, cultural and activity zones and much more.

Main entrance to White Rann Resort

It has few others restaurants inside the resort like dominos but I doubt people will enjoy it when tasty local food being served in the dining area. Even we could see people drawing their thoughts in a canvas in recreational center.

1. Dominos and other restaurants in the main road inside Resort
2. Recreational center and indoor games

Tents are organized in clusters from cluster A to I. Each cluster has series of tents in a semi-circle fashion. And each cluster has its own cluster in-charge who takes care of hospitality of the guests and their requests. I should admit that all employees in White Rann Resort are extremely welcoming, helping and friendly. We can completely enjoy the walk inside the resort as walkway and pavements are so neat but we can make use of 24 hours golf-cart vehicle for going from one place to another within the resort. Even we can use the free bicycle to go between the places inside the resort.

1. Entrance to a Cluster
2. Non AC Swiss tent
3. Series of tents in a cluster

It even has VIP lounges and VIP tents which will be used by public personalities like ministers, business magnate, cini peoples.

The resort has four types of tents from economy swiss tent to premium A/C tents. All tents have attached toilet and bathrooms with basic types of furniture and pedestal fan. There is no locker facility and no lock to our tent, though the place to safe it is advised not to leave valuables inside the tent when we go out.

Inside Non AC Swiss tent

For food, they provide a list of coupons which we need to produce. There is a coupon for Lunch, Hi-tea, Dinner and Breakfast. Food will be served in two dining areas in specified timings. There is no question about the quality and hygienic of food being served and obviously, the taste was awesome. During dinner, even a live lite music also organized. If you are a non-vegetarian lover then it might disappoint you, they have only two types of food, vegetarian, and jain. Jain food does not contain onion, garlic, potato etc. But trust me, lavish varieties in vegetarian food will make you forget the absence of non-vegetarian food. 

1. Food Coupons
2. Dining area

At night time, we can observe lots of police personnel in and around the resort. It has a reserved ambulance and fire engine vehicle within the premises. 

1. Craft Bazaar
2. Clock tower inside resort
3. Make in India promo
4. Golf cart for commuting within the resort

What covered as a package

  Camel ride to Rann

      Rann of Kutch is situated nearly 6kms from Dhordo village. To go to Rann, the resort team arranged for a camel cart shuttle service to ply people from resort to Rann and back to resort. The ride is an enjoyable one and must try.

Camel Cart ride to Rann

In the Rann, we can take a ride on top of a camel at our own cost. This Rann is very close to Sindh province of Pakistan, maybe hardly a 20 Km distance to LoC. As mentioned earlier, this place will be under water for the most part of the year. When the water recedes, we could see the salt deposits all over the places thus this place is called as the white desert. We could also feel the wetness in some part of the land, so we have to be very much careful while walking in this desert.

1. White desert landscape
2. Wetness in desert

  Sunset in Rann

       To observe sunset in a desert is a unique experience. After going there I understood all sunset are not same, seeing a sunset in a sea is completely different from seeing a sunset in a hill and seeing a sunset in a desert is completely different. Each has its own mesmerizing beauty. To entertain in the desert, some local folk musician will sing songs. We can enjoy dancing to their songs and can give show our gratitude by giving some money to them. Also, we can try the wearing the traditional kutch dress and take few snaps with that. 

1. Dancing for a folk and bollywood songs
2. With traditional kutch dress

Panoramic view of Rann during sunset

If went as a couple, don't hesitate to ask others help for capturing a photo. Also, extend the help to others. The beauty of white rann should be captured because it is difficult to explain in words.

After sunset, we set our way back to the resort for more fun and joy. If it is a full moon day then the moon will add additional beauty to white desert. And of course, people 
enjoy staying back even after sunset.

  Activities and Cultural

In the late evening around 8:30 cultural activities will start in the huge activity zone center of all the clusters, program will go until midnight. They do not static agenda for cultural activities but it will be like a folk song, dancing, tribal shows, standup comedy, drama, bollywood or anything related to art. The main aim of the program is to entertain the guests and to keep our country's traditional arts alive.

Cultural programs in Activity zone

  Sight-seeing in Bhuj

 One night stay in White Rann resort is not sufficient to explore completely on what it offers. With hard feeling, after breakfast left Dhorda, the tent city. The Rann utsav committee arranged for a complimentary sight seeing for places around Bhuj. First we went to Aina Mahal and Prag mahal which are 18th and 19th century palaces. After palace, we went to Swamy Narayana temple, the temple shrine was closed but we could see the architectural beauty of this marble building. Following that, we went to Bujodi craft bazaar which is famous for selling the handcrafts directly to consumer without a middle man.

1. Prag and Aina Mahal
2. Swami Narayana Mandir

Foods to try in Singapore

As Singapore is a multiracial & multicultural country, we could see many different native cuisine. Also since it is a tourist attracting city, we could find cuisines from all around the world from West to Europe to Asia.

Singapore chicken rice is one of the most popular & must try food among the people who live here and also for tourists. It is also considered as national food of Singapore. Unfortunately I could not try this as I follow vegetarianism.

Singapore chicken rice

There is a place called 'Singapore Food Trail' in Ground floor of Singapore Flyer complex in Raffles Avenue Road. The concept of the trail is to bring back the nostalgic feel and experience of Singapore in 1960s, so the theme of each shop looks different to give the best possible old charm.

Singapore Food Trail

I did a full round around the food trail and again my bad luck, I could not find a type a food I wish. The shopkeeper will not understand the definition of vegetarian food, we should ask for food which has 'no fish, no chicken, no meat, no..' then based on our luck, he would say YES or NO. Finally I found one Subway nearby and asked for Veggi Delight. I guess the subway guy use to get so many Indian customers, he was asking me 'Kaise ho' while billing !!

If wanted to try seafood then Boat Quay is the best place to visit, here we could see number of restaurants lined up in the bank of Singapore river. 

1. BoatQuay captured from other side of the bank
2. Restaurants lined up in BoatQuay

If looking for Indian cuisine then 'Little India' is the perfect choice. If we enter 'Little India', we will get a doubt whether we are in India or in Singapore. As soon as we get down from bus or MRT, we will start hearing tamil songs from petty shops, hotels & garments shop; this makes us feel more localite and closeness to Singapore. Even we could see pure vegetarian restaurants and few restaurants even serve jain foods. In this area we could see all popular food chains like Hotel Saravan Bavan, Anjappar, Ananda Bavan and more.

1. Chennai Flood relief
2. Little India main street

Andhra meals in one of the Indian restaurants

Another popular snacks which we could see in most of the places is corn flour chips, this they serve with flavored cheese to make it more delicious. This would be a quick, healthy & yummy eat to break us from hungry.

Corn flour chips with flavored cheese

I wanted to try some Chinese food too but majority of it are meat, pork, chicken and fish. Still I explored each and every shop in ChinaTown area to find out veggi options.And my exploration didn't turn me down this time, and found a new, completely different food called Pau; Pau literally mean bun. We could explore the ChinaTown food centers only if we can bear the smell the meat.

1. Pau in the steamer
2. Pau in the basket
3. Sliced pau

 I do not know how to explain the taste of the pau but it was completely different taste to me. The outer surface was so soft like sponge and stuffing inside differs. The one I tried was Lotus seed pau and red bean pau, both are sweet and tastes yummy.

Another new snacks I tried was roasted chestnuts and Chinese Veggi Pancake.

1. Seller roasting the Chestnut
2. Closer look of Chestnuts

Chinese Pancake

If going to Bugis streets then do not miss this cool yogurt roll. It is a Thailand dish and taste was yummy, more that the taste the preparation was awesome. We could see the live preparation of the yogurt roll, after each order, they start making it freshly and each preparation time take 5 mins atleast. So patience is important. It is prepared by pouring fresh yogurt in freezing pan, spread equally, cut it & roll.

1. Pour fresh yogurt with fresh fruits in freezing pan
2. Smash the fruits and mix
3. Spread it equally on the freezing pan
4. Cut it and roll

1. Shop name
2. Cool Yogurt roll

I tried coconut chips in AirAsia flight. When I saw the name initially, I thought they would have just added coconut flavor to normal chips. But when I opened, they literally fried the coconut slices and the taste was heavenly. Its a Thailand snacks, almost all tropical countries have lots of Coconut tree and different countries different food out of it.

Foods I tried in England

It is not difficult to get vegetarian food in UK but it is difficult in finding the right place where we get vegetarian food. Within couple of days, we could find plenty of Indian restaurants in the city but I wanted to have a balance between Indian and English food during my stay.

Vegetarian logo in food products

If we are buying some packed eatables from shop, it is better to look for this logo << 'V' - Suitable for vegetarian >> for veggi food. Food allergies are intolerable here, it is government  rule to list all the ingredients which may be causing allergy. In almost all the restaurants, I saw the board which says << If you have food allergy or special dietary requirement, please talk to a member of staff >>. 

Egg is considered as vegetarian food here, if we don't want to be served with egg then we should ask for vegan food; which do not include egg and dairy products.

Quorn & mushroom pie with fresh vegetables

Quorn is a meat substitute for vegetarians and very popular among people in UK, Ireland and USA. I do not know this before; after eating a little, I was afraid whether I was eating vegetarian food. I did quick google check to satisfy myself that it was a vegetarian food. They stuffed this quorn and mushroom inside the bread and served with boiled potato and cabbage.

Spinach & Mozzarella pancake with Smashed potato and salad

The preparation of pancake is similar to Indian masala dosa but the flour for batter is different. They folded to make it like a triangular pancake and stuffed it with spinach and mozzarella; mozzarella is a cheese from Italy and it was so delicious. Along with the pancake two scoop of smashed potato, green peas and salad were server.

Wild mushroom stroganoff with boiled rice, chips and garlic bread

Stroganoff means a dish in which the central ingredient is cooked in a sauce containing sour cream, here the main ingredient is wild mushroom. This mushroom was big and tasted differently. To be honest, I didn't like this mushroom. Along with this they served chips and garlic bread. Yeah, we call it as French fries and they call it as chips.

Roasted vegetables frittata with potato wedges & beans

Frittata is an Italian dish and the word 'Frittata' means fried. They added roasted vegetables along with it and served with potato wedges and beans.

Brie and roasted red pepper quiche with bean, peas and mushroom

Brie is the best known French cheese and has the nick name "The Queen of cheeses". Quiche is a pastry crust with fillings of cheese, vegetables, meat or seafood; here they filled with brie cheese and red pepper. Along with quiche, I had beans, green peas and mushroom. The mushroom was bland and we need to add salt to taste better. Not only mushroom, even the chips they served do not have salt, we need to sprinkle a little salt before eating.

Pilaf rice with chickpeas curry and chips

Pilaf is another name of pulao, I am not able to identify the spice they added to make this pulao with the taste. Along with this they gave chickpeas curry and chips.

Quorn and lentils pie with sweet potato toppings

Mixed the quorn and lentils and prepared a pie with sweet potato toppings.

One of the Indian restaurant which serves only vegetarian food

This restaurant is located in High Street, Southampton and to my surprise they serve only vegetarian food. All south Indian dishes too was available. There were few more Indian restaurant in the same street; Coriander Lounge, The Everest to name few of them.

DIY : Pizza Dosa

Dosa is a staple food in southern region of India. The first step of dosa preparation is its batter; the batter is prepared from urad dal (white lentils) and rice. Once the batter is ready, it will be poured on a hot pan. 

As it is boredom to have same dosa everyday, people came up with onion dosa, masala dosa, podi dosa and much more varieties like that. One such variety that recently started up among younger generation is 'Pizza Dosa'; this after the mania on Pizza.

I use to make this pizza dosa on a relaxed Saturday afternoon for a delicious & drooling lunch. The main ingredients is a set of favorite vegetables. One of my friend told me the secrete of cooking is on how we cut vegetables; for each dish the type of cutting differs and it plays important role is taste & easiness in eating.

Main ingredients are as follows

1. Dosa batter
2. Set of vegetables
3. Cheese
4. Ghee
5. Chili flakes 
6. Oregano flakes
7. Dry fruits (Optional)

Cut Vegetables

 As I mentioned earlier; the shape of cut matters for best taste of vegetables and easiness in eating. I sliced the onion, did round cut the tomato & horizontal cut for capsicum.

TIP: Watch Youtube videos on cutting different vegetables if very new to cooking.

While making pizza dosa, keep the flame low, this is because it need more time bake the upper part of dosa. In hot pan, pour one or two ladle of batter (depending on the size of pizza we want), spread the cut vegetables on top of it, Lay cheese on top it and pour ghee on the sides. Sprinkle oregano & chili flakes and close it with lid. Open it after couple of minutes, we can feel the smell of oregano. 

Ready to eat Pizza Dosa

Closer look

Now the vegetables would have cooked properly and it will cut easily when we bite. Enjoy & indulge into the taste of freshly prepared Pizza Dosa. 

DIY : Delicious and simple dessert

I prepared this very simple yet delicious dessert. It wont take more than 5 mins to prepare. I first ate this dessert in VV Puram food streets in Bangalore. When you are going to VV Puram, try it out. It is available in the corner shop which is diagonally opposite to Nandini milk parlor.

Ingredients:

1. Banana
2. Gulqand/Gulkand (Rose petals jam)
3. Almonds
4. Cashew
5. Ghee
6. Honey
7. Vanilla ice cream (optional)

Slice the banana into equal pieces and arrange it properly in serving plate, spread 3 spoons of Gulkand above the sliced bananas. Put broken cashew and almonds above it, now pour one spoon of ghee and honey. Optionally we can add a scope of vanilla ice cream before pouring ghee and honey.

Must try dessert

Now its ready and time to get mesmerized by the mixed taste of gulqand and banana. Enjoy !!! :)

Food in Meghalaya

Majority of Meghalaya dishes are non-vegetarian. Their major food is with pork, chicken etc., Since we are vegetarians we have not tasted. For veg only few options are left but it is good.

For breakfasts local people mostly eat poori-sabji, paratha-sabji, bread-omelet, jalebi, sooji, tea, coffee.

We liked veg momos very much. I have tried it in Bangalore but momos in Shillong tastes different and so good. Also we tried vegetable chops, it is like a cutlet but it is deep fry. Samosa and puff are available. They call samosa as Singara and puff as pop.

It is their custom to have betel leaf and betel nut after every meal. The kashi people always have bettle leaf and nut with them and have it often. Even we can see many road side shops which sells betel leaf and nuts. The nuts are called as sopla in local language.

We tried following restaurant and are good
(1) Hotel City hub – ambience and varieties of food is good, you can try some dish in Bamboo shoot which is Naga/Burmese food
(2) Hotel Broadway
(3) Madras café – for south Indian foods. The owner is from Trichy city in Tamil Nadu. Taste is not exactly same as Tamil Nadu food but better Tamil Nadu food when compared to other hotels. Even you can try Dosa in Regal restaurant. 

For TamilNadu style food

(4) Café Shillong – very less options for vegetarians
(5) Dejavu

If you want try authentic kashi food then must go hotel is Trarroria in police bazzar. The restaurant looks like a canteen/mess inside; they have bench and table for eating.
Rice is the staple food in Megalaya and their rice is very small, it is called Jowai (is name of the place in Jaintia hills) rice.

Authentic Kashi food hotel

Pineapple and orange are cultivated locally and it tastes nice. Many roadside shop sells orange and cut pine apple to try. Teas are not cultivated successfully in Meghalaya but the horticulture department is doing some research on it.