India Guide
Gujarat
Heated in the north by the blistering deserts of Pakistan and Rajasthan, and cooled in the south by the gentle ocean breeze of the Arabian Sea, GUJARAT forms India's westernmost bulkhead. The diversity of its topography – forested hilly tracts and fertile plains in the east, vast tidal marshland and desert plains in the west, with a rocky shoreline jutting into its heartland – is challenged only by the multiplicity of its politics and culture.
Gujarat has plenty to offer those who take time to detour from its northerly neighbour Rajasthan, and it's free of hard-sell and hassle. The lure of important temple cities, forts and palaces is balanced by the chance to search out unique crafts. Gujarat's architectural diversity reflects the influences of its many different rulers – the Buddhist Mauryans, Hindu rajas and Muslim emperors who combined their skills and tastes with Hindu craftsmanship to produce remarkable mosques, tombs and palaces. Ahmedabad, the obvious place to begin a tour, harbours the first mosques built in the curious Indo-Islamic style. In the northwest, the largely barren region of Kutch preserves a village culture where crafts long forgotten elsewhere are practised with age-old skill.
The Kathiawar Peninsula, or Saurashtra, is the true heartland of Gujarat, scattered with temples, mosques, forts and palaces that bear testimony to centuries of rule by Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims. Architectural highlights include superb Jain temples on the hills of Shatrunjaya, near Bhavnagar, and Mount Girnar, close to Junagadh. The coastal temple at Somnath is said to have witnessed the dawn of time, and that at Dwarka built on the site of Krishna's ancient capital. At Junagadh, rocks bearing 2000-year-old inscriptions stand a stone's throw from flamboyant nineteenth-century mausoleums and Gothic palaces. There's plenty of scope for spotting wildlife, too, in particular the lions in the forested Gir National Park, the blackbuck at Velavadar National Park, and the wild ass in the Little Rann Sanctuary. Separated from the south coast near Delwada by a thin sliver of the Arabian Sea, the island of Diu is fringed with beaches, leafy palm groves and the whitewashed spires of Portuguese churches.
Highlights
1 Ahmedabad Superb Indo-Islamic architecture, bustling bazaars and Mahatma Gandhi's Sabarmati Ashram.
2 Kutch Distinct from the rest of Gujarat; traditional embroidery, costume and culture still thrive in this harsh and remote landscape.
3 Diu West India's most con-genial beach venue, this relaxed island has a Portuguese flavour in its colonial architecture.