This gorgeous, isolated park (Indian/foreigner Rs 30/250, Narara car permit Rs 35/200, camera Rs 50/250, video Rs 2500/US$200; Oct-Jun) stretches 170km along the coast and encompasses 42 islands, 33 of which are ringed by coral reefs. It’s rich in marine and bird life. The best time to visit is from December to March. The Forest Office administers the park, or you can arrange a visit (or a sailing trip to Mandvi) through Hotel President. It takes two hours to reach Pirotan island (timings are restricted because of tides – you must spend 12 hours on the island to wait for the tide to turn), which is the only offshore route set up for visitors. Nearby Okamadhi Beach as one of many sheltered havens.
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Mandvi is a minor miracle. Forty-five minutes down the road from dustbowl Bhuj lies this dash of cheerful tropical cheek. It’s a busy little place too, with an amazing shipbuilding yard where hundreds of men construct, by hand, wooden beauties for faraway Arab merchants. There are also some respectably fine and sweeping beaches (though water quality can vary). The best are the empty, long, clean private beach (Rs 30) near Vijay Vilas Palace and another, just east of town, by the Toran Beach Resort.
Kutch, India’s wild west, is a geographic phenomenon, full of rugged, fiery beauty. What appears an endless desert plain running dead straight for the horizon, is in fact a seasonal island. The tortoise-shaped land (kachbo means tortoise in Gujarati) is flat and dry, but the villages dotted throughout the dramatic, inhospitable landscape feel like pre-partition Pakistan, and the tribal villagers produce some of India’s finest folk textiles, glittering with exquisite embroidery and mirrorwork.
Junagadh is a seductive little city, practically void of tourists, and ideal for aimless meanderings. It’s an ancient, fortified city at the base of spectacular Girnar Hill, which towers over town like a cloudy, holy spectre. The area around the Durbar Hall Museum is dotted with exotic old buildings, and crumbling Uperkot fort is properly spooky.
Jamnagar is another Gujarat delight, a fabulous, little-visited city, overflowing with ornate, decaying buildings and colourful bazaars displaying the town’s famous, brilliant-coloured bandhani – produced through a laborious 5000-year-old process involving thousands of tiny knots in a piece of folded fabric. It’s an ideal base for exploring the surrounding coastline that stretches to Dwarka, where rare birds flock to ankle-deep islands, and fine beaches are empty all year-round.
Gujarat is a dazzlingly diverse state that shakes up the know-it-all Indophile, and reveals treasures hidden from the tourist hordes. Gujaratis are renowned for their entrepreneurial nous, both home and abroad. Encounter an Indian anywhere, from Wall Street to Wellington, and there’s a good chance they hail from this wealthy, resourceful state.
Gondal is a small, leafy town, 38km south of Rajkot, that sports a string of palaces on a gentle river. Once capital of a 1000-sq-km princely state, it was run by the Jadeja Rajputs, later overtaken by the Mughals, then recovered in the 1650s. Maharaja Bhagwat Singhji ruled in the 19th century and was a progressive social reformer who, among other things, introduced compulsory education for both sexes.
Gandhinagar forms a striking contrast to Ahmedabad, with big broad avenues and lots of greenery. This is where state politicians live, in large, well-fortified houses. Although Ahmedabad became the capital of Gujarat when the old state of Mumbai was split, this new capital was planned 32km northeast on the west bank of the Sabarmati River. Named Gandhinagar after Mahatma Gandhi, it’s India’s second planned city after Chandigarh. The secretariat was moved here in 1970.
Dwarka literally feels like the end of the earth. This remote pilgrimage town at the extreme western tip of the Kathiawar peninsula is one of the four most holy Hindu sites in India – Krishna is said to have set up his capital here after fleeing from Mathura. It’s a well-organised town, busy with pilgrims and farmers. Men wear white clothes and red turbans, and both men and women are weighed down with gold nugget-like jewellery. It gets packed with pilgrims at festival times. Archaeological excavations have revealed five earlier cities lying just off the coast – submerged as the sea encroached.