On a trip to India last October, our week finished in Ahmedabad, a city in the state of Gujarat. The team planned an excellent team-building event, a trip to the hill station of Mount Abu in Rajasthan.

Before I go into the narrative of the trip, here is a teaser picture to get you interested enough to read and look further. This is a view from Guru Shikhar, the highest point (5,650 ft / 1,722 m) in the Arbuda Mountains where Mount Abu lies.

We left after our morning meetings on Friday, setting off on the highway heading northwest from the offices in Gandhinagar. The roads were generally good, but also filled with commercial as well as personal traffic. The drive was about 5 hours.

Large trucks were not the only commercial traffic on the road. We came upon some cattle being herded in this rich agricultural region.

Rajasthan is a major tourist destination in India. There are many great palaces and other attractions. Note that Mount Abu is 9th on the list from Trans India Travels. Perhaps because of all of this tourist travel, vehicles entering Rajasthan must pay a tax. There are booths located near the border where you can pay the tax.

The state government had recently implemented a new on-line system to collect the taxes and the booths were converting to the new system. I believe you could register in advance, but we were paying on the way. At the first booth, we spent 15 minutes while the clerk tried to get the system to work, but with poor connectivity and other complications, the drivers were unable to complete the transaction.

One of the drivers said that he knew of a place down the road where they completed the transaction manually. Off we went. The manual transaction was completed in less than five minutes. New technology does need time to settle in.

Cattle were not the only animal commercial traffic along the road. We came across a large flock of goats.

Gujarat is a dry state — no liquor is sold. Once you cross into Rajasthan, there are many stores called “English Wine Shops” which generally do not sell wine, but do sell liquor. We stopped in the small locality of Danav to check out one of there shops and where I captured this colorful scene. Interestingly, this was the first place on this trip where a stranger asked to take a selfie with me. I must have looked like someone interesting.

We navigated the mountain road with the goal of reaching Sunset Point. But we arrived at the parking area but discovered that it was a 2km walk to Sunset Point. We would miss the sunset and so headed directly to our lodging at Cama Rajputana Club Resort. This was an excellent choice of accommodation. It was built 135 years ago during the British Raj and hosted the leadership as Mount Abu served as as summer capital.

The grounds are extensive and well kept. The food and service are excellent.

My room was comfortable too.

The next morning we headed off for Guru Shikhar. As I noted above, it is the highest point (5,650 ft / 1,722 m) in the Arbuda Mountains where Mount Abu lies. We had a good guide who was able to describe the history and surroundings of the area. You can drive almost all the way to the top and the views are most impressive.

There are many shrines on Guru Shikhar. Here is the entrance to a tiny one just off the sidewalk leading to the top of the mountain.

Many pretty things arranged inside the carved-out cave.

I wrote of impressive views, so here are some for you to see. This is looking south, with the town of Mount Abu in the distance on the right.

This is looking east toward Udaipur.

This panorama was taken at the highest point near the Shree Guru Dattatrey Charan Paduka temple. This is looking west and the far distant land is probably in Pakistan. There is a major military technical facility right next to where I took this picture.

As an astronomy buff, I was very happy to see two observatories up on the peak. The one farther on and on the right is the PRL Infra-Red Observatory. This observatory, run by the Physical Research Laboratory of India, does very interesting imaging in both visual and infrared wavelengths. On the left is a brand new observatory built to track space debris — the many small things left behind by our activities in space that can pose a danger to future missions.

We walked down from the peak leisurely, stopping for a bit of shopping. At the parking lot I spotted two friends chatting in the shade with a great view behind them.

We returned to Cama Rajputana and walked the grounds. This is a nice path by a pond.

A highlight of our day was a game of Cricket. They hotel’s activity director prepared a proper pitch for our game. I have great photos of the game, but not for public internet consumption.

After a good dinner and watching a Cricket match, the local cats were seen prowling about.

Altogether a fine visit with fun had by all.