Rann of Kutch and the Gir Lions

Arrive in Ahmedabad and spend the afternoon at Sabarmati Ashram, where Gandhi lived from 1917 to 1930 and where his desk, spinning wheel and letters are kept in Hriday Kunj. See the tree-of-life jali at the Sidi Saiyyed mosque, cut in 1573, then eat late at Manek Chowk, a jewellery market by day that turns into a food street after nine, for ghee-loaded sandwiches and kulfi.

Start with the morning heritage walk from the Kalupur Swaminarayan temple to Jama Masjid, through carved wooden houses, chabutra bird feeders and pol gateways. Then drive north: the Sun Temple at Modhera, 100 kilometres out, where the Surya Kund's 108 shrines step down to the water, and Rani ki Vav at Patan, 35 kilometres on, with more than 500 principal sculptures over seven descending storeys.

Drive 330 kilometres northwest, about six hours, skirting the Little Rann where wild ass still range in herds. Bhuj was flattened in the 2001 earthquake and rebuilt around its old core: the Aina Mahal of the 1750s with Venetian glass and Delft tiles, the Italianate clock tower of Prag Mahal, and the Kutch Museum, the oldest in Gujarat. Late afternoon at Bhujodi to watch weavers at pit looms.

North through the Banni grasslands, stopping at Ajrakhpur, where a family of Khatri printers works ajrakh in indigo and madder over sixteen stages, and at Nirona, where one household still practises rogan painting with boiled castor oil drawn out on a stylus. Climb Kalo Dungar, 462 metres and the highest point in Kutch, for the view over the salt, then sunset and moonrise on the white Rann at Dhordo.

Back on the flats before dawn, when the crust turns pink and then a blinding white and the horizon disappears altogether. Return to Bhuj for breakfast, then drive south through Rajkot to Gondal, about 350 kilometres and seven hours. The Gondal royal family's Orchard Palace keeps a garage of pre-war Daimlers and Packards, and Naulakha Palace above the river has some very fine stone jali screens.

A short 130 kilometres, about three hours, past Junagadh under the Girnar hills to Sasan Gir. Check in, then take the afternoon safari inside the 1,412-square-kilometre sanctuary, through teak and dhak forest and along dry riverbeds; besides lions there are leopards, chital, sambar, nilgai and well over 300 bird species. Maldhari herders still graze buffalo inside the park under old agreements.

Out at first light for the second safari, when lions are often still on the tracks; the fenced Devalia interpretation zone is a reliable fallback. After breakfast, drive forty-five kilometres to Somnath on the coast. The temple was destroyed and rebuilt repeatedly and finally reconstructed in 1951; stand at the Baan Stambh, whose inscription claims open sea all the way to Antarctica. Evening arti, then the sound-and-light show.

Drive 230 kilometres up the coast, about five hours, stopping at Porbandar for Kirti Mandir, the house where Gandhi was born in 1869. Reach Dwarka by afternoon. The Dwarkadhish temple stands five storeys on seventy-two pillars, its long flag changed five times a day by the Abhoti Brahmins, above the Gomti creek; be at the ghat steps for the evening arti.

Cross the Sudarshan Setu, the 2.32-kilometre cable-stayed bridge opened in 2024, to Bet Dwarka, where the temple is said to stand on the site of Krishna's own house and boatmen still carry pilgrims who feed the gulls. Back for the Nageshwar jyotirlinga and the carved Rukmini temple, then 135 kilometres to Jamnagar for the flight out.