Exploring the gems of Gujarat – Ahmedabad

Two and a half years back, I did my very first solo trip: an unforgettable roundtrip through Gujarat. Exploring Ahmedabad with its stepwells, mosques, temples, and Old City, the Jain temples on the mountains in Palitana and Junagadh, the beaches in Diu and Mandhvi, the temples in Somnath and Dwarka and the Great Rann of Kutch in the Thar Desert. As amazing as it was, two places were still missing: the Sun Temple in Modhera and Rani ki Vav, a stepwell in Patan. Little did I know that they turned out to be the absolute highlights in the whole of Gujarat which nobody should miss!

The trip was originally meant to be a surprise for my boyfriend, who works with the Delhi Kabaddi team this season and had a match there. I hadn’t had much hope that we could do that much sightseeing, especially since it was raining cats and dogs. But thanks to good fortune we ended up having 1 1/2 days just to roam around. Hence we made the plan to finally visit Modhera.

But let’s start at the beginning.

Being greeted by a beautiful sunrise and the biggest rainbow I’ve seen in my entire life above the clouds, the situation down below couldn’t be more different. We decended into never ending heavy rain with the result of half of Ahmedabad being flooded. I had already given up all hope for any sightseeing. No OLA or Uber cabs were available and I had to pay a fortune for an auto-rickshaw to take me to the hotel.

When the rain finally got a bit more bearable and the hunger too big, we ventured out to our first destination, a place that had set a new benchmark for me when it comes to grilled cheese sandwiches: Purohit Sandwich at Municipal Market. A friend of mine had introduced me to it on my first trip and it had been love at first bite.

We tried the plain grilled cheese, the Cadbury cheese as well as the aloo sandwich. All were great but nothing topped the plain grilled cheese for me. It was still like I remembered it, with a mountain of grated cheese inside and lots of cheese on top after it’s grilled. Cheese heaven!

Grilled Cheese Sandwich Purohit Ahmedabad

The rain finally changed to a light drizzle and we decided to go to Dada Harir Stepwell. Last time I came, it was still under renovation but I remembered it to be quite nice.

“Quite nice” turned out to be an understatement. They had completed the renovation and it was simply amazing! It’s 500 years old, five storeys deep in the ground. The advantages to the more popular stepwell in Adalaj are that it’s much closer to the city and that one can access everything, go to every storey and take pictures from everywhere. The only difference is that there aren’t those detailed and ornate carvings. And by the way: turns out visiting a stepwell during rains is insanely beautiful!

Behind the stepwell is a mosque which is also worth a visit. One can even go up to the roof.

On the way back, we made a stop at the 150-year-old Hutheesing Jain temple. It’s not comparable to the big Jain temples I’ve visited like the one in Mount Abu, which is simply mindblowing inside, but still very beautiful. Some of the most impressive temples with the most intricated carvings I visited were Jain temples, especially the big ones in Gujarat. Jains really know their shit!

We even managed to go up on the roof thanks to a nice old man. ?

There wasn’t time for more and we had to rush back to the hotel to get ready for the match. To cut that part short: we won!?

In the night, we made a trip to the famous street food market in the Old City, Manek Chowk. Unfortunately, it was still drizzling but it was absolutely worth it. It was only veg (we were unfortunately too late for the non-veg version close by). Nevertheless, it was super yum, especially the Gobi Manchurian (balls made of cauliflower). Another thing were Jamun shots, one out of many vegetable juice shots. I personally didn’t like it but Indians loved them.

The absolute highlight was the roasted almond Kulfi. The saffron one was nice too.

On the way back at around 1 am in the night, we witnessed some Hindu procession in which people carried idols of a goddess to the river. Apparently it had to do with the goddess Durga. It was surprising to see so many people in the streets at this time and that too in the rain!