DESERT ADVENTURE
Gujarati villagers and the capable Toyota Fortuner help us explore the Little Rann of Kutch like we’ve never done before
Driving the Toyota Fortuner to the Rann of Kutch, but it isn’t quite the same in the monsoons
DESERTS. THEY’RE BARREN, HOSTILE, HOT as an oven and mind-bogglingly expansive. When you desire to break free from your humdrum routine, deserts don’t generally make it to your ‘places to visit this summer’ bucketlist. Typically you’d choose a soulsearching trip in the mountains or just luxuriate at a beach resort. The whole idea is to relax, and not get lost and try to kill yourself, isn’t it?
The Rann of Kutch however, is a completely different story. One you’ve probably heard of a few times. It’s a salt marsh of the Thar Desert in the Kutch district of Gujarat which is made of a very peculiar surface. In summers and winters, the terrain of the Rann is arid and dry and makes up for thousands of square kilometres of cracked mudflats that you can drive a super car flat out on, as we have. The region is also home to exotic wildlife and more often than not, allows you to witness some spectacular sunrises and sunsets. It’s a photographers’ paradise.
But what is the Rann like during the monsoons? That’s the question the guys in our office wanted an answer to after they went bonkers with the red Italian this summer. The monsoons are when cities go under water, cars wash away like dirt and municipal corporations face ridiculous trolls for their melted chocolate roads. It’s that time of the year when you say no to your Italian stallion, and say yes to the reliable, go-anywhere Toyota Fortuner.
In all our years of going to the Rann we’ve never ventured there in the monsoons, and not without reason. The Rann used to be the ocean once upon a time, and in the rains it sort of resembles an ocean. We’re a car magazine, not a boat mag, and what will we do when the entire expanse is flooded? Then again we’ve never taken a Fortuner to the Rann, and the Japanese SUV is our preferred steed as we went to find out what the Little Rann is like during the monsoons. We flew to Ahmedabad, picked up our Fortuner and headed straight to the Rann Riders resort in Dasada, on the edge of the little Rann of Kutch.
The first impressions of the Fortuner are of a properly tall and intimidating SUV. And so is its road presence. When you’re behind the Fortuner’s wheel, you feel like the lord of the road. The driving position is very commanding and the view of the road is excellent thanks to the optimal positioning of the A-Pillar and the large glass area. Other motorists just let you pass by when you’re seen in their rear view mirror, even when you’re not flashing those stylish bi-beam LED
headlamps. Also, the combination of the triple slat chrome grille, aggressive bumpers and strong wheel arches give it the jawline of a predator. No one likes a predator on their tail.
After an hour and a half of snaking past typically indisciplined highway traffic, we reached the Rann Riders resort on the edge of the Little Rann. Spanning 5000 square kilometres, it is not what its name suggests. 5000 square kilometres! Whoever named it ‘little’ clearly had genius levels of spatial consciousness. But distance was not something we were worried about as we had one big mile-munching SUV at our disposal. With reliability rooted deep in the Fortuner’s DNA, we knew we could venture as far as we liked, knowing nothing would go wrong with our steed.
However, in the monsoons, the Rann gets completely flooded. A mix of tidal water from the Gulf of Kutch down south and water discharged from dams and rivers in the area fill it up. But this doesn’t stop the life around the Rann, as fishermen get their seasonal catch of prawns during this time of the year. Prawns in what is usually a desert! The discharge of water into the Rann gets so heavy during the monsoons that fishermen use boats to get around. It is around three feet deep all around, making the use of boats ideal and not making
it too hard to get hold of the prawns underwater. Even the workers from salt pans nearby turn to fishing in the monsoons as it earns them adequate additional wages. What a contrast!
The terrain, too, is a massive contrast. Where in the summer the mud is hard packed and you can drive anything and as fast as you’d like, in the monsoons it turns into tricky trails that only the most capable of SUVs can tackle. And I was behind the ’wheel of the most capable of them all!
Our annoyingly overenthusiastic shutter-bug Sachin turned out to be a connoisseur of prawn farming and was very eager to see how the netting was done in this area. Koparani, a tiny village ahead of Dasada on the southern perimeter of the Little Rann of Kutch is famous for its prawns and the views of the Rann it offers. And so we pointed the Fortuner down one of the hundreds of off-road trails leading up to the Rann from different points around its perimeter. The Fortuner was built to tackle the wild outdoors, so that’s exactly where we took it exploring.
The commune was an hour off the Bhuj-Ahmedabad NH 947 and getting there was quite a task. The trail leading to Koparani was a part of the Rann’s wet marshlands and if you’re not cautious you can end up in the middle of nowhere. But I was rather positive while entering this trail. The Fortuner, normally condemned to city and highway use by most owners, was finally entering its natural habitat. We know that the Fortuner shows no mercy to bad roads, but it doesn’t shy away from challenging off-roading trails either. The trail was a test for the Fortuner’s wheel articulation. As the SUV snaked through the trail, one wheel of the car would end up in the air on occasional instances. But none of this fazed the charging Fortuner – the off-road DNA built in to it makes it unstoppable in terrain like this. Also, all of the 450Nm of torque in this AT variant is available from as low as 1600rpm making sure its
gets out of tricky situations without any hassle. At a point, I had to nosedive the SUV down a steep slope. With downhill assist control on, the SUV made it to the bottom with sublime control, not even needing a touch on the brake pedal. While other SUVs struggled through these trails, we breezed past. What was also helping was the Fortuner’s tough body-on-frame construction, well-tuned suspension and the chunky 265-section tyres aid grip and stability, making you considerably quicker through bad roads compared to other vehicles. Moreover, the eco and power modes do alter the throttle response by quite a bit.
The villagers were intrigued. Visitors weren’t common so deep in the hinterland, especially in the monsoon months. We met a bunch of villagers and explained to them why we were there — they turned out to be rather eager to help us to find a location for that perfect photograph. As a result, from three passengers in the car, the number more than doubled and the Fortuner was now off-roading with seven people along with our camera equipment. Even though the Fortuner boasts openly of its road presence and off-roading talents, Toyota has made sure that the SUV doesn’t miss out practical things like space and comfort. AC vents in all three rows made sure that all of us were safe from the heat and humidity of the desert. Also, the vast safety kit in the Fortuner is nothing but all the more assuring.
After listening to the incessant chatter in Gujarati along our way, we finally reached Koparani. The fishermen had a satisfactory catch of prawns after an entire night of netting and they were filtering out unwanted aquatic insects and dirt before selling them
to local vendors. But the highlight of this drive was the incredible view of the Little Rann of Kutch it offered. Any newbie in the area would have mistaken the Rann for the Arabian Sea! There was water as far as the eye could see. And the fact that we made it to this point felt like an achievement. “Nobody dares to come this far in the Rann during this time. It’s a challenging affair and most of the times you need a tractor to get here,” said one of the fishermen.
I just glanced at the Fortuner. I knew it had championed the off-roading trails leading up here. This was possibly one of its greatest tests and it fared impressively. No one has attempted an adventure of this nature in the past and thanks to our friends from Rann Riders in Dasada and an extremely capable set of wheels, we managed to get through. So, the next time you’re planning to go on an adventure, you know that the mountains and the beaches are not the only options you have. All you need is a go-anywhere and reliable SUV like the Fortuner along with some local friends, and you’re armed to take on the impossible. Also, now you know what’s missing on your bucketlist. ⌧