Valsad district is a coastal strip at the southern end of Gujarat, with the Arabian Sea on the west and the Sahyadri foothills on the east. Navsari lies to the north, Nashik district of Maharashtra to the east and Palghar to the south. Daman and the Dadra and Nagar Haveli territory sit inside and beside the district, which makes the borders unusually tangled. The talukas are Valsad, Vapi, Pardi, Umargam, Kaprada and Dharampur. National Highway 48 and the Mumbai-Delhi railway main line run through the district, with stations at Valsad, Vapi, Pardi, Udvada, Sanjan and Bhilad. Almost every goods vehicle here is on a leg of a longer trip.
Vapi is the industrial centre and is well known as a chemical hub, with dye, textile, paper and pharmaceutical units spread across Vapi, Sarigam, Bhilad, Pardi and Umargam. Raw material and finished goods go in and out on trailers, tankers and tempos day and night. Many of these vehicles stand about at gates and weighbridges, and trailers wait in parking yards for the next load. A battery tracker on a trailer or a loading frame shows whether an item is still in the yard, which suits owners who hire out trailers, pallets or loading equipment to other firms.
The plain beyond the factories is a fruit belt. Valsad is famous for mango, with the Alphonso as the star, and chikoo, banana, papaya and sugarcane are also grown. Crates are packed in the fruit weeks and sent to Mumbai and Surat markets by hired truck. Dharampur and Kaprada, in the east, are hilly and green, with narrow roads, bamboo and farm produce. Udvada, Sanjan, Tithal and Dharampur bring visitors and hired vehicles through the year. So one BT900 can ride on a mango trailer in May, a factory pallet in July and a hire generator at a festival in the cooler months.