An Exciting Road Trip to The Polo Forest from Ahmedabad

This Sunday, we planned a weekend road trip from Ahmedabad to Polo forest with some driving, trekking and biking enthusiasts whom I had connected to on FB. 

We left in the morning from Ahmedabad with our riding gears and our breakfast was already booked at the Dowlat Villas Palace The Heritage Homestay at Himmatnagar. We ordered vegetarian food as some of the members were vegetarian. It was a pleasant surprise the owners Karni Singh Idar and Geetanjali Idar who belong to the royal family of Idar themselves looked after us and made their own house specials like something they called Toasty Posty which was a fried open faced sandwich with corn, cheese and masala, Batakawada, and a sumptuos Aloo Puri. 

It was all set in right royal style in the dining room, full of antiques.

The highlight for us was the collection of vintage cars and buggies in the palace. Being from Udaipur, I think this would be a worthwhile place for anyone travelling on this highway.

After breakfast, we travelled to the Polo forests, and enjoyed beautiful waterfalls from the mountains and nature beauty of the forest. The forests hide some architectural beauties like 16th century Jain temples and Shaneshwar Mahadev temple.

From here, we continued to Kadoli Farm in the Polo forests. This is the jungle lodge of the Vijaynagar royals. The former Maharaja and Maharani of Vijaynagar Polo received us personally and treated us to delicious home cooked food like bhindi masala, dal, and mouth melting gulab jamuns. He showed us his guns, pets and heirlooms.

We did not feel like the leaving the beautiful environment of Kadoli farm but by 6.30pm we had to leave to get back to the city - after all today being Monday is a working day.

Heritage home stay tourism can really be a boon for tourism in Gujarat. Anil Mulchandani sir told me that almost every highway in the state has at least one palatial property where a hot lunch or breakfast can be enjoyed if we book prior!

Looking forward to many more road trips to such hidden gem