It surprises me how I could have endured the long trip to and from Kutch without throwing up even once. I have all sorts of motion sickness. You name it, I have it - water sickness, car sickness, bus sickness, and if I ever travel by air, I’m certain I’ll have air sickness too. I went everywhere with a plastic bag handy, just in case.
What surprises me even more is that I managed to see enough of the truly beautiful countryside through the bus window. Normally I am a ball of agony, curled up with eyes shut tight on any long trip. I did a bit of that this time too, (must not break long-standing personal records) but it was prompted more by the principle of the thing.
As we entered the Rann, the landscape changed dramatically. One moment, it was all scrub wood and acacia trees, and the next, it was an empty, salt-covered wasteland. Somehow, the done-to-death ‘desolate’ does not come to mind. It was a wasteland, true, but it had a strange beauty to it. The beauty of solitude and barrenness. Like some kind of weird moonscape.
(signpost along the way drowning in the marsh)
(salt)
We could occasionally see pelicans and other birds on and over the lakes on either side of the highway. Should have stopped the bus a bit. Or, perhaps not. There was not another human for miles, for hours. It really felt like we had come away somewhere far away. Farther than we had ever gone. Or was it just my queasy stomach?
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