Visit to Statue of Unity(SoU) and returning Bangalore
6th Jan 2023
On 6th Jan morning around 8.30 am, we started for Statue of Unity(SoU). It is around 200 km from Ahmedabad. We hired one car to go there. Around 10.30 am, we reached Vadodara and had our breakfast. Then started again at around 11 am and reached Statue of Unity at around 12.30 pm.
We had to stop some 5-6 kms before and park the car there only. I already had booked the tickets, so there was no need to stand in queue for tickets. The ticket charges are around 385/- Rs for adults and for kids around 200/- Rs. There is app and website available for SoU, where tickets can be booked online. The entry time is from 8 am to 6 pm. From this parking place and ticket counters, buses were arranged to take to SoU. We stood in queue and after some 15 mins our turn came, and we boarded one bus. It took around 10-15 mins to reach there. Here also SoU is visible only from some near distance, not from the parking place. So, you can’t see it from that far.
The bus dropped at bus stop, near to SoU. It was little ahead of SoU, so we walked back to this place. At entry we showed our tickets and there was some security check. We finished these formalities and then started walking towards SoU. It was around 400-500 meters from the entry.
At base there is gallery where old photos were kept to visitors see. These photos were depiction of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s life, with various other freedom fighters of that time. Along with this photo gallery, there are elevators which would take you up near the heart of SoU. It was 45th floor. So, it was my second time after Vishwas Swarupam to go to such a tall statue. Though it is world’s largest statue around 182 meters tall. We went up, there was a viewing gallery where you can see Narmada River flowing next to this place. This was awesome view.
Then we came down and went to bottom of SoU. I was astonished to see this monument. It is simply massive and marvelous. I was not able to cover whole statue in a single photo. I was not able to see the statue without bending the neck backwards. It is so huge. I enjoyed the place very much. I and family took lot of photos. After spending sometime there, we cam out of this place and went to bus stop. You can get buses to go to few more places like Valley of Flowers, Sardar Sarovar Dam, Zarvani Eco Tourism area etc.
We thought to cover just 2-3 places. So we first went to see Valley of Flowers, then went to see Sardar Sarovar Dam. It was around 5.30 pm, so we thought to return. We came back to bus stop and took a bus for initial entry area where we had our car parked. We started from there around 6 pm. There is a laser show also happens in the evening around 7 pm, but we were tired, so thought to skip this.
On the way to Ahmedabad, near Sanand we had our dinner. We reached Ahmedabad around 11 pm. It was a good trip and we all enjoyed visiting this place. We visited world’s tallest statue that day. Even though we were very tired, but the happiness to seeing this place was even more than the tiredness.
7th Jan 2023
Here comes the last day of this trip. We had our tickets booked for Bangalore on 7th afternoon. We kind of did most of the packing in the morning only. One good thing with Ahmedabad airport is that it is very near to my sister-in-law’s place. So, it hardly takes 10-15 mins to reach airport. We had our flight at 3 pm, we reached there around 1.30 pm, did check-in and other formalities. Our flight started on time we reached Bangalore around 5 pm. It took some good time to collect our luggage, then our cab also took some time to come. So finally, around 6 pm, we started from airport. As usual weather was awesome, but as it was Saturday and evening time, and thanks to the Bangalore traffic, it took 2.5 hours for us to reach home.
After long time we went for this trip. Earlier due to covid and various other reasons, we could not execute this plan, but this time we made sure that we would visit all these places. Though it was a tight schedule trip, but we could cover lot of places like Kankaria, Adalaj Stepwell, Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, Somnath, Girnar ropeway in Junagarh Pali, Shrinathji’s temple in Nathdwara, Kumbhalgarh fort, and then finally Statue of Unity. Overall, thankfully we could complete this memorable trip without any hassle and came back to home safely.
Dec 2022 – Winter Vacation Trip – Part #1, Part #2, Part #3, Part# 4