Mandu, Maheshwar and Indore

Only three days after returning from our Gujarat trip, we were off again to make the most of a long weekend for the Holi festival.  The Holi festival celebrates the start of spring and typically involves lots of water and brightly coloured powder being thrown everywhere, as shown in the pictures below.

This time, we travelled to Madhya Pradesh on a loop including the historic town of Dhar, the ancient ruined city of Mandu, the peaceful riverside town of Maheshwar and finally Indore city, from where we flew back to Mumbai.

We hired a car and driver for the three day trip which worked well although we were rather curious about his complete absence of luggage...he was looking rather disheveled by day 3.  Further, he spoke no English although we've got used to this by now, and know enough Hindi and appropriate miming to communicate.

On the first day of our trip, Holi itself, our first stop was Mandu (at the insistence of our driver, we wanted to go to Dhar!) before driving back north to the outskirts of Dhar where we stayed in a lovely converted 19th century (small) palace.

The Shop of Gada Shah, who obviously did quite well for himself 

Small boys find some shade on Holi 

One of many stepwells from the weekend.  Phil was in stepwell heaven. 

Beautiful Islamic arches 

Holi children having fun 

 The Jama Masjid

Hoshang's tomb 

 The Jahaz Mahal, designed to look like a ship.  The king who built this palace, Ghiyas-ud-din is said to have had a harem of 15,000 maidens.

 View from the roof of the ship palace

The Hindola Mahal (Swing Palace!) 

Yet more impressive architecture in the Royal Enclave 

On the short drive to one of the main sites in Mandu, some enterprising / cheeky locals had blocked the road with logs and would only let us past for a 10 rupee fee! 

Rupmati's Palace

One of the very smart rooms in our palace suite, all for an amazing £40 a night. 

The palace hotel outside Dhar comes highly recommended by me

On Day 2 of our trip, we had a brief tour of Dhar (complete with impressive fort and yet another stepwell) before driving south to Maheshwar.

 Dhar fort - an impressive structure which hasn't made it into our India guidebook yet.

Another stepwell 

A sleepy dog caught in the Holi cross-fire. 

View from outside the inner fort wall. 

A very large and impressive three with a shop built into it for good measure. 

Maheshwar Fort which includes a luxurious palace (now fancy hotel) built by Queen Ahilyabai in the late 18th century. 

 Beautifully preserved stonework inside the fort.

Refreshment at Laddoo's Cafe in the fort.  I was far too hot by this point! 

Maheshwar is famous for its weaving and fabric.  People are hard at work everywhere. 

The ghat at sunset.  It had the beauty and spirituality of Varanasi but without the craziness. 

We commissioned a friendly old man to take us onto the river in his boat at sunset. 

 The gorgeous sunset viewed from our boat on the river...

...and with the sun almost gone.

On our final day, we drove back north to Indore to explore the sites there.  These were a little limited and somewhat crumbling but did give us a feel for the former glory of the city.

Queen Victoria standing proud in the grounds of the Lal Bagh Palace. 

The Lal Bagh Palace, built between 1886 and 1921 and regarded as one of the finest buildings left by the Holkar dynasty.  Sadly, it's in desperate need of care and attention but is government-owned and hence very unlikely to get this. 

Rajwada, a seven story palace currently undergoing restoration. 

 Rajwada seen from the park in front of the building.

 Gandhi Hall, the old Gothic town hall built in 1904.

The excessively crumbling Central Museum.  The sculptures are ok but I wouldn't recommend making a special trip to see the rest.

Going off the tourist trail in Gujarat

We recently travelled to the Saurashtra region of Gujarat; from the towns of Diu to Porbandar via the city of Junagadh.  These places are by no means unknown - all three places are historic and Diu and Junagadh meet my usual minimum tourist threshold of appearing in the Lonely Planet - but they are some way off the main tourist trail.

Diu is an island off the southern tip of Gujarat and was a Portuguese colony until, like Goa, it was taken over by India in 1961.  Diu is not part of Gujarat, it is a Union Territory, and shares Goa's liberal approach to alcohol rather than the laws of the dry state of Gujarat. The island is small, only a few kilometres across, and is connected to the mainland by a short bridge.  In fact, from the air it hardly looks separated from the mainland at all.

The main attractions of Diu are its old town at the east, including a sea front fort and several impressive old churches, soft sandy beaches in the middle (where we stayed) and a quaint fishing village at the west end of the island.  We explored the fascinating fort, which is very well preserved with a lighthouse that you can climb for great views of the surrounding area, and trundled round the old town to take in the streets and see some of the Portuguese churches and other architecture.  Whilst the fort is well preserved, everything else seems to be rather crumbling, although the town had a pleasant, relaxed vibe.  1pm until 4pm is siesta time in Diu (it has a reputation for being a lazy place!) which is perhaps why we saw very few people on the streets.

The Portuguese fort at Diu 

An old church now converted to the town museum.  5 minutes suffices to cover the museum's exhibits. 

The inner wall of the fort 

There are many cannons and even more cannon balls strewn around the fort 

This ornate white church was clearly glorious in the past, although has now become a happy home for a colony of pigeons.

I'm afraid to say that I didn't make it to the fishing village myself although Phil went on an early morning run through a thunderstorm to watch the night's catch being brought to shore.  Apparently it is well worth a visit.

Diu fishing village, with much bigger boats than I had anticipated. 

 An unseasonal Sunday morning shower in Gujarat.

There's no shortage of fish off the coast of Gujarat

The beach itself has a very different vibe from those we have visited in Goa.  There were lots of people relaxing and enjoying themselves although Diu is currently very much an Indian holiday destination - we saw no other foreigners on the beach.  This is fine in itself, but it would be difficult and would attract a lot of unwanted attention for white tourists to go wandering about in bikinis.  Even when fully dressed and enjoying a quiet walk, we had lots of people approaching us and asking to have their photos taken with us.  I had my picture taken with a small group of teenage girls but this seemed to attract the attention of every other teenage girl on the beach who came running over at top speed.  This was actually quite scary as there were a lot of them!  We had a couple of quick pics and retreated hastily, whilst individual photos are fine, being accosted by large groups of people can be a bit much for me (Phil loves it though!).

Diu beach, with a misleadingly empty look...

We stayed in a pleasant beachfront hotel in Diu which had a lovely pool and served alcoholic drinks, a rarity for lots of the places to which we travel.  Phil made the most of this at dinner by starting with a large beer and two "Blue Lady" cocktail chasers, which contained a stomach churning combination of blue spirit, egg white, soda and something else not particularly pleasant.  Thankfully he felt fine in the morning but we both agreed that he was asking for trouble!

The next day, we travelled from Diu to Junagadh by car with a driver we had booked from a well known firm on the internet.  He was generally fine and drove well, though we were a bit concerned 20 minutes into the journey when he stopped by the side of the road and spent 10 minutes with the bonnet up poking at the engine before coming back to sit in the car.  He spoke no English so we waited patiently until it transpired that we were in fact waiting for a friend of his to arrive who wanted a lift to Junagadh too!  This wasn't a problem for us and we were amused rather than annoyed, although the complex charade of engine problems hadn't quite managed to pull the wool over our eyes.  They spent the journey chatting away happily in the front and we arrived in Junagadh without incident.

We passed through the Sasan Gir National Park, home to India's Asiatic lions, on our journey although we didn't have time to stop for a safari on this occasion.  Another time perhaps.

Junagadh itself is an impressive ancient fortified city set at the base of the holy Girnar Hill.  At the time of Partition, Junagadh was a largely Hindu city ruled by a Muslim Nawab who opted to take his city (then a tiny princely state) into Pakistan.  The inhabitants were, understandably, unhappy with this decision and the Nawab ultimately left the city.  Junagadh became part of India a few months after most of the rest of the country.

We saw no other foreign tourists in Junagadh and spent a few hours wondering around the old streets which have an impressive yet dilapidated collection of grand old buildings.  The highlight of our afternoon was our visit to the Uparkot Fort, believed to have been built in 319 BC although it's been besieged 16 times in its long history.  We were fortunate to find the only English speaking local guide who turned out to be excellent and very proud of his city.  The highlight of the fort for Phil was a large stepwell the Adi Kadi Vav, named after two slave girls who were sacrificed at the stepwell in an attempt to make it yield water (apparently this worked...).

An impressive curved gate close to our hotel.  Behind each of the doors, the room in the wall is somebody's home. 

A decorative mosque 

Our walk through the old city 

 Girnar Hill, viewed from the fort

A collection of Buddhist caves within the fort 

The great stepwell from the top... 

...and going down. 

 The sign outside the mosque is reflective of the level of upkeep of historic sites within the city.

We stopped at a small city between Junagadh and Porbandar which was rumoured to have a palace (according to Phil's internet search) although all we could find on arrival was this gate.

We didn't have time to climb up Girnar Hill which has 10,000 steps, wild lions and a recommendation to start walking before 5am, but we were told that it is well worth the effort if we return to Junagadh.

We flew back to Mumbai from Porbandar, a coastal town famous for being the birthplace of Gandhi.  We had some time to spare before our flight and visited Gandhi's family home, including his birthplace, which is a beautiful large haveli in the centre of the town and is nicely restored and presented for visitors.  Phil finished our trip with a Gujarati thali, a must when visiting Gujarat, before we made our way home to Mumbai.

A light lunch 

Inside the Gandhi family haveli