Statue of Unity: Part Two

24th March 2024 noon

Statue Base

We reached the statue base after climbing almost three floors in the scorching sun. The view of Narmada from behind the statue was a little pleasing and can be credited for the few cool breezes we received. 

The height of the footware was equivalent to a human's height. There was a lot of detailing done on the statue, from the nails to the details on the footware. 

We stayed for 30 minutes then got back to the statue plaza and walked the way to the viewing area and had lunch at the food court.

Lunch

Again as expected there was crowd, no seats vacant, long queue at the food counters, etc. We ordered garlic pizza and peri peri french fries at the Amul Cafe and pani puri at Saffron. 

Literally had to grab two seats to have lunch. There were many watching out our food as to when we will finish and they get the seat. Like most of the Indians do, people sat on the groud to have lunch. We left the Statue of Unity premises and had an ice-cream outside. Temparature was so much that it was on verge of melting. 

The next attraction included in the SOU ticket was Valley of Flowers and Dam Viewpoint. We boarded the bus from point no 4. The bus service is already included in the tickets for most of the attractions, you need to check with the helpdesk for the point from where you need to board the bus. The staff at SOU, helpdesk and bus were very simple yet welcoming people. We passed by the Jungle Safari on our way to the Valley. 

Another thing to note is that the bus will only pick and drop, we need to tour on our own, unless we had paid for the guided tour. We skipped the Dam Viewpoint because we were in no mood to walk in the sun. There was Dino Trail adjacent to the Dam Viewpoint. We had skipped the Jungle Safari and Dino Trail since we had already watched the same at other places in India. We walked towards the valley.

Valley of Flowers 

It has varieties of flowers and beautiful grass creations. But the sun was too harsh to admire the beauty of flowers. The smartphone was heated while clicking the photos. There is a Glow garden and Maze garden adjacent to the valley. 

Again we skipped those for we had already walked in the maze and glow garden must be viewed in the night. We boarded the bus and were back to SOU. Now we boarded the bus at point 5 for the cactus and butterfly garden, this was a paid route for rupees 100 to and fro journey per person. On the way to the cactus garden, we halted at the Ekta Nursery. Kindly note that the nearby attractions to the SOU are not nearby and you need the bus service at each point. So if you are paying for the attractions online, then you will have to manage the time to complete the same before closing hours. Finally we reached the cactus garden at 2:30 pm. The butterfly garden is inside the cactus garden premises. More on these in coming posts.

Read next: Statue of Unity: Part Three