After I extricated myself from my family in Surat (who I will finish blogging about one day), I headed up to Ahmedabad to see the sights. Ahmedabad is a much cooler city than it's credited for, in Bombay at least. There's no Bollywood, but there are clean streets, an ultra-modern area of the city (also in Surat - at night the skyline could be mistaken for New York), no tourists (I didn't see a white person the whole time I was in Gujarat), friendly, cool, educated and industrious people, great food and an interesting and beautiful history of Muslim architecture.
All in all, Gujarat is a great place to travel in - relatively undiscovered, nice cities, beautiful countryside. Ignore the recent bombings, as you would those in New York or London. Here's a series of pictures of mosques in Ahmedabad, from the 15th century onwards I think.
Frieze from the Sidi Said Mosque (take note mum):
The Teen Darwaza gate, from the wall that used to surround the city:
The Jama Masjid. You enter this through a hole in the wall in a busy market, and come into the biggest constructed open space without people I've seen in India:
The mosque and palace complex at Sarkhej Roja (pronounce your h's or your rickshaw driver won't know where to go!):
Incidentally these carved friezes serve a few purposes. They let in light and a breeze, but no direct sunlight, keeping the inside cool. Plus they look pretty. In a few palaces in Rajasthan, and also some in Gujarat, the royal meeting rooms had intricate panels like this behind which the ladies of the court would sit and keep informed.
At the bottom it was pitch black. By the light of my mobile phone I saw a carving and snapped it, bingo!
Random collection of carved pillars. They're like this all the way up, damn the lack of zoom on my camera:
And in case you think it's all mosques, here's where I bought some delicious sweets:
And here's an elephant:
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