Gujarat is not a pilgrimage trip. It just happens to have two dhams, wild lions, and a salt desert.

You are met at the airport and the afternoon moves straight into the city. First stop is the Sidi Saiyyed mosque, whose stone jali of an intertwined tree has been photographed for five hundred years and still stops you cold. Then the carved wooden havelis of the old pols — these are gated neighbourhoods from the Sultanate period, still lived in, still locked at night. Sabarmati Ashram is the last stop before dark, kept exactly as Gandhi left it in 1930: the spinning wheel, the sandals, the desk.

Dinner is not at a restaurant. It is at Manek Chowk, where the jewellery wholesale market shuts at nine and a street-food market sets up in the same square: khaman, dabeli, pav bhaji, and the sev tameta that Ahmedabad does better than anywhere. Walk the perimeter once before you order.

Early start for the 400-kilometre run west. The Adalaj stepwell is worth thirty minutes on the way out — five storeys of carved stone descending to water, cool when nothing else is. Lunch near Samakhiali, then the permit check at Bhirandiyara. Stop at the roadside stalls there for the local mawa, which is dense and slightly grainy and nothing like the urban version. The tent city at Dhordo appears as the sun drops.

Walk out onto the salt before the light goes. The crust is firm and white and it goes to the horizon in every direction. At sunset it turns rose, then grey, then the moon comes up and it turns silver. This is the moment the trip is built around. The Utsav evening has camel carts and folk music; the tent camp dinner is Kutchi thali — eat it.

Kala Dungar is the highest point in Kutch at 462 metres, and the view from the top takes in the whole white expanse to the Pakistan border. The temple on the summit feeds wild foxes at noon — they arrive on a schedule that shames most restaurants. Back down by ten and into the craft belt: Nirona village for rogan painting, where the Khatri family has made the same castor-oil pigment art for three hundred years and a single dhow takes weeks; Zura for the copper bell makers; Bhujodi for the weavers.

You are back at Dhordo by four. If your visit falls on or near a full moon, go out on the salt again after dinner. No torch needed. The Rann Utsav folk show runs at the main stage at eight — the Kutchi garba and the puppet theatre are both worth staying awake for.

This is the day nobody photographs. About 450 kilometres and eight hours, and we will not dress it up. The road runs south through Rajkot, which is the point to stop for a Kathiyawadi thali — sev tameta, lasaniya bataka, bajra rotla with white butter, and a steel tumbler of chaas so cold it fogs up. This is their home ground; eat accordingly.

Reach Sasan by early evening. Check in and eat light. The 6 am permit slot tomorrow cannot be moved, and a late night will cost you lions.

Into Gir at first light in an open Gypsy with a forest-department naturalist. The dawn slot matters: the lions move in the hour after sunrise before the heat drives them into the teak shade. These are not savanna cats — they are forest cats, used to vehicles, and the sighting rate on a permit safari is genuinely high. Watch the Kamleshwar reservoir on the way back for marsh crocodiles on the bank and chital at the waterline. Brunch at the lodge after, and on the road to Somnath by eleven.

Somnath is the first of the four dhams, and its position is the point: the temple stands at the edge of the Arabian Sea with an inscription on the south wall saying there is nothing between this shore and the South Pole. The evening aarti runs with the waves in the background. Stay for the light-and-sound show at the temple complex after dark — it runs in Gujarati and Hindi and takes forty minutes.

Morning darshan at Somnath before eight, then the coast road north. Porbandar is a stop, not a detour — Kirti Mandir preserves the two-storey house where Gandhi was born in 1869. The museum is small and honest. Back on the road by noon for Dwarka, arriving late afternoon.

Dwarkadhish temple aarti is what the trip ends on. The flag at the top of the 43-metre shikhara is changed five times a day; the evening changing draws the largest crowd and the most noise. You will be in that crowd, which is exactly right. Tonight is the one night to eat on the street — the temple-road stalls do a very good Rajbhog and a peda that travels well if you pack it properly.

Early boat from Okha jetty to Bet Dwarka, the island where Krishna is said to have lived. The crossing takes fifteen minutes; the island temple is smaller and quieter than Dwarkadhish and the queues move. On the road back, Nageshwar Jyotirlinga is fifteen minutes off the highway — one of the twelve jyotirlingas in India, with a large Shiva statue in the courtyard that the children will have opinions about.

The drive to Jamnagar airport takes about two and a half hours from Dwarka. IndiGo and Air India connect through Mumbai and Ahmedabad. If you prefer to finish in Ahmedabad, the drive is four and a half hours and we can arrange that when you book.