At 6 o'clock the next morning, Bapu and his band of marchers left Navsari for Vejalpore. Today’s was the shortest distance on the entire Dandi Kooch, they hardly walked one and a half miles to arrive at the halt in Vejalpore. They reached their destination in 45 minutes. The whole day the camp was besieged by visitors coming to meet Bapu and seek his blessings Bapu was staying in the Home of Maganlal Chaturlal Teli, a Councillor from Ahmedabad and the band of marchers rested in the mango orchard in the compound. As per the daily schedule, a public meeting was organized at 3 o'clock in the morning, in a big ground close to where they were camped. Before the meeting a local appraised Bapu of the contribution of the subdivision, 325 volunteers had been volunteered in that subdivision of which 40 were women. The 1st batch of 64 volunteers would soon leave for their work of picketing alcohol shops and vends. Bapu appealed to the people not to come to Dandi to see him break the salt law. He said, ‘Please, I will do what I have decided to do at Dandi. You don't have to come and watch me do it. Be assured that I will honestly break the salt law.There's a scarcity of drinking water at Dandi. Some people have organized water facilities there, but not sufficient for everyone, so I appeal to all of you, not to come to Dandi and put strain on the frugal infrastructure there. it pains me when you come to my meeting wearing foreign clothes, you insult me. It would be much better if you came wearing khadi when you come to listen to me, because then and only then will you be able to understand the pain in my voice.”
At 6 pm, Bapu and his band of marchers left Vejalpore to march towards Karadi-Matwad. At 7.30 they stopped and held the evening prayers in a field next to the road and at 8.45 pm, they reached the village of Matwad. Six to seven thousand people had gathered at the Matwad to welcome Bapu. A public meeting was organized at 9.30 that evening. Over 10,000 people from surrounding villages had gathered there. A Parsi volunteer who had been campaigning in these villages to rid them off addiction to alcohol, made an appeal to people to give up alcohol. In his speech Bapu remembered Panchabhai, who had refused to pay the land revenue tax in protest against the British and had willingly let the British confiscate all his family properties. Bapu also praised the successful campaign against alcohol being carried out in these villages. Bapu said that Sardar had selected Jalalpur subdivision to be the destination of his salt march and it was a nice selection because the work against alcohol consumption was being carried out successfully over here and there was much salt to gather here too. Bapu declared, ‘Now is the time for open defiance of this evil law. Now is the time to commit crime against the state. And it is our duty. Now I will commit the crime openly and I wish to be arrested’. Addressing the women he asked them, ‘I am sure you don't want to be bullied by drunks.’ He appeal to them to join his campaign against liquor and the habit of alcohol consumption. In the end he appealed to the people, ‘If you come to Dandi, accompanying me, please ensure you are wearing khadi, don't come wearing foreign clothes, because that will be like a slap on the face of the movement we are launching’. The meeting ended at 10.30 that night and then they rested.
Dandi is a place of pilgrimage for the Dawoodi Bohra community, a Shia sub sect of Islam. Many Dawoodi Bohras go all year round to seek boons, to fulfill their promises made while seeking boons at the shrine, at the local Dargah of the three saintly women.. Dandi became a place of pilgrimage for Dawoodi Bohras when Three saintly women travelling back from the Haj by ship. They were caught in a cyclonic storm off the coast and their ship sank. For a long time no trace was found of the three women, finally their bodies were found in the swamp surrounding Dandi, their shrines were built at Dandi and thus Dandi became a place of pilgrimage for the Dawoodi Bohras. Dandi was situated on a mound surrounded by low marshes which would get inundated by seawater at high tide marooning Dandi and making it inhospitable. Over time the shrines of the three saintly women became a place of pilgrimage and a Dargah was built.
Potable drinking water was perennially scarce in Dandi, It had to be carried from Matvad. At great expense, a well was dug in the compound of the Dargah the only freshwater well in Dandi, provided a bit of drinking water to the pilgrims and the community that lived around the Dargah in Dandi.
When Bapu and the Marchers arrived, there was a large police presence in Jalalpur and Dandi. The police post in Dandi was in a dilapidated old hut. The reinforcements sent to Dandi were accommodated in 8-10 tents pitched outside the police post. Bapu was staying in home of a well known Dawoodi Bohra businessman of Bombay Seth Vasi, the Saifi Villa. The volunteers were staying in the home of Ambaram Sakarlal. Water for use of the volunteers accompanying Bapu had been transported by great difficulty in bullock carts from as far as Vejalpore and Navsari. The police who were sent to Dandi were seen digging up the salt flats surrounding Dandi and mixing it up with the saline mud. Their objective was that Bapu wouldn't find salt to pick and thus be made a laughingstock of. 30-40 families reside in Dandi. A herd of photographers had descended in Dandi and they were busy taking photographs of the police digging up the salt flats and their camp and the satyagrahi camp of Bapu.
On the evening of 5th of April, Bapu held his prayer meeting on a ground close to the sea shore. And then addressed the people gathered there. Residents of Navsari had despite Bapus warning descended in large numbers on Dandi. People had come from Ahmedabad, Bombay, Poona and from all over. At exactly six, Bapu, Sarojini Naidu, Abbas Tyabji, Sumant Mehta, Mithuben Petit and many other leader gathered at the meeting place.
Addressing the people, Bapu said, ‘When I left Sabarmati Ashram, to come to Dandi, I wasn't sure whether we would make it to Dandi, or we would be arrested on the way somewhere, I was prepared for anything. Tomorrow I will break the salt law, and I want after that everywhere in India, in every village and hamlet for people to gather and to break the salt law. I would like to thank the Government, it may be from tomorrow onward they will not be as cooperative as they have always been thus far, but I would like to thank the Government for being so kind and gracious for allowing us to walk from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi. At every place, I have openly preached revolt against this Government, and for breaching of the law, and yet they have not molested me nor arrested me, I will always be grateful to them for that. What if the govt arrests me and arrest all the leaders of the freedom movement? So what? Once every Indian rises up and takes responsibility of freedom, we will be a free people and then there will be no need for leaders. This movement doesn't end with this march. It begins today, it begins tomorrow. And it will go on till we win complete freedom’.
In preparation for breaking the salt law at Dandi, volunteers had brought two big flat pans and a stack of firewood to boil and evaporate sea water in the pans to make salt.