Vanz - Navsari - 21 km / 13 miles
It is early when we depart Surat for Vanz with Tahir driving. First I step into an ATM booth to begin withdrawing cash for expenses. The paper bills fall into my hands and seem foreign in more ways than currency, triggering a recall of the world at large. Never mind, I love the streets in the morning. I love the sense of beginnings. People are about but it is calm and the air fresh. Arriving in Vanz we drop by the newly opened dharamsala then walk west to the locate the site of the original dharamsala where the Marchers had slept, next to the beautiful Jain temple. In 1930 there were many Jain families in Vanz but not so now and the temple is locked, only open when a service is taking place. But the peepul tree still lives and we walk into the field where it is standing in celebration of the sunrise, its trunk encased in a square concrete seating platform. As the three of us gather round taking photos of it (trees are always too tall!) we are joined by a neighbourhood man, a towel casually wrapped around his waist as if just stepping out the shower. A young woman wanders over from the adjacent house and speaks to us in fluent English. She is wearing the outfit any college-age woman would be wearing back home - a t-shirt and pajama bottoms – and we learn she is home visiting from her studies in Melbourne, about to be married and move to Boston. She offers to bring us tea and brings out two large mugs. Tahir is bewildered by the size of it - this young woman has indeed been Westernized in her tea habits! Wandering around the village I see a Royal Enfield motorcycle parked in a driveway and I nudge Tahir to sit on the bike for a photo op. He’s quite happy to oblige but its owner is watching us closely from a window. Erico and I head down the road, Tahir checking on our path from the van. It is peculiar and convenient that neither Erico nor I have had to deal with bathroom emergencies on the walk. Our food intake has been minimal and I suppose all the water we drink just evaporates. This morning things are different as a result of having indulged in our big lunch yesterday. As we get on the road from Vanz I suddenly realize the need to use the facilities - only we are not in an area where I can disappear into a grove of trees nor can I squat on the edge of the road to do my business as the local children do. Fortunately Erico is hit with the same call of nature and he brings this to the attention of Tahir. We are walking by a factory of some sort. It is closed but the caretaker is on site and Tahir gains us access to the washrooms where we are relieved in western style comfort. If you embark on a pilgrimage, eat sparingly! Back on the highway, sharing the road with cattle, we are directed to keep going but not to follow the Dandi Path arrow as there is no bridge to cross the river in that direction. We keep to the highway a very long distance - and it is not particularly scenic or pleasant. Luxury suburban housing seems to be under development in these parts and just as Erico makes a humorous comment about buying one of the mansions in “Paradise Dreams”, a large brown snake slithers across the road. This one feels serious, not like the slim green vine snakes spotted now and again. We keep walking when it suddenly occurs to me we were missing passing through Dhaman where I recall reading there is a significant Gandhi site. I mention Dhaman to Erico and he calls Tahir. It is so odd how Tahir appears over the horizon when we need him lately. He drives us back several kms and we enter a road passing through a small and friendly Muslim village where they assure us there is no bridge in that direction to cross the Mendhola River. A young teen hops in the van beside Tahir and we continue the drive to the river anyway, just to look at it. He’s right of course, we cannot cross, but it’s another pleasing encounter and when we return him to his home he brings us bottles of water for the road. We drive back along the highway again until we locate the sign- in Gujarati script - pointing the way to Dhaman. Small wonder we had walked right by it earlier! We drive in and discover Gandhi’s rest site, a beautiful sight, a newly built library at the time of Gandhi’s visit and now the post-office. The wall is covered in a faded blue mural depicting the March and a magnificent bust of Gandhi sits beneath a canopy. It has been a very hot day with many surplus kms walked in the wrong direction and facing the Gandhi bust, with its curly twists of cotton and strands of faded marigolds encircled around his neck, has me feeling renewed in spirit. Suddenly the postmaster arrives (word spreads fast in India) and I’m thrilled because I have two letters to mail to friends back home on stationery from the Sabarmati ashram. The postmaster weighs and stamps and cancels the envelopes and off they go! We are invited by an older man to come for tea at his home just down the road. It’s quite the elegant home with tall, ornate columns on its exterior creating a soaring open living room. We sit in a row on the sofa and the daughter-in-law brings us water and tea and a plate of home baked cookies. Trying one, it tastes somewhat like pie crust, delicious, and soon Erico and I have consumed the plateful as we are famished. The son shows us a Gujarati book published in 1969 on The Salt March complete with photos . It contains the name of a local who had met and worked with Gandhi in Durban, South Africa and later we are introduced to his 79 yr old son next door.
As it is still too hot to start walking the 11km to Navsari we climb in the van, park in the shade of a tree and take a nap until 3:30. The walking continues through very beautiful countryside, clean and sparkling foliage, fresh air, lots of water, young sugar cane, bananas and coconut palms. A single file line of slender older women walking home from a day’s work approaches and Erico photographs them as they smile shyly. He offers them a package of his biscuits and they laugh and accept. The road then turns into highway again making it busier as we walk into Navsari , first crossing a bridge over the Purna River. Crows perched on the rail call out a welcome while herds of cattle and goats graze on the banks below. Schoolgirls in classic gingham uniform and braided looped hair stroll home through scattered chickens and roosters. Suddenly we’re hit with large billboards advertising ornate wedding wear, so invasive when one has been away from it, just as money has grown strange.