Top 10 Things to Do in Ahmedabad | Pols, Stepwells and Kites
Ahmedabad was the first city in India named a World Heritage City in its entirety, and almost no Australian has heard of it. The best thing here happens at six in the morning and costs nothing.
The city nobody told you about
Here is a fact that ought to be better known: the walled city of Ahmedabad was inscribed as India's first World Heritage City, the whole historic urban fabric of it, not a single monument.
And almost no Australian goes.
Which means that unlike Jaipur or Agra, you will experience this as a working city with six hundred years of layers rather than a place arranged for visitors. Our Ahmedabad travel guide makes the fuller case. Ask us about Ahmedabad fares.
The ten
1. A pol at six in the morning
The best thing here, and it is free.
A pol is a neighbourhood entered through a gateway, houses packed shoulder to shoulder around shared courtyards, organised historically by community and trade. Several hundred remain and people live in all of them.
The details are what get you. Carved timber facades that survived because nobody had the money to replace them. Chabutro, communal bird feeders standing in the courtyards like elegant wooden towers, still filled each morning. Secret passages connecting one pol to the next, built for a time when getting out quickly mattered. Underground water tanks. Shared wells.
Go at six, while the milk arrives and the birds are fed and the city has not yet started shouting. It is the quietest an Indian city ever gets.
2. The dawn heritage walk
The organised way in, and it is genuinely good: it leaves from a temple in the old city at first light and takes you through the pols with someone who can explain what you are looking at.
Do it on your first morning, then wander the same lanes alone on your second. Compare Ahmedabad walks on Viator.
3. Adalaj Stepwell
The one that will surprise you most.
Indian stepwells are buildings that go down instead of up, and this one descends five storeys into the ground in carved sandstone: cool, dim, octagonal, built so villagers could reach water in the dry season and sit somewhere bearable while they did it.
There is no equivalent in Australian architecture and photographs do not prepare you. A short drive north.
4. Sabarmati Ashram
Not because of the buildings, which are deliberately plain.
Gandhi lived here for years, and the Dandi salt march, which helped end an empire, started from this spot. It is small, simple and spare, beside the river, and it does something to people.
Free, an hour, and the most affecting site in the city.
5. The Sidi Saiyyed jali
One wall, essentially. But the stone lattice window carved into it, a tree of life so fine it looks woven rather than cut, is one of the most famous pieces of stonework in India and the emblem of the city.
Ten minutes, and worth stopping the car for.
6. Manek Chowk after ten at night
Jewellery by day and a street food market by night, and the transformation happens around ten.
Go late, eat standing up, and do not plan anything for the following morning. In a state with no bars, this is the evening.
7. The Gujarati thali, which will defeat you
Unlimited is not a marketing term here. Servers circulate and refill anything that empties, indefinitely, and the only way to stop is to physically cover the bowl.
First-timers surrender somewhere in the middle and are then brought dessert anyway. It is also sweeter than the rest of India, deliberately, with jaggery finding its way into dishes an Australian would not expect it in.
8. Fafda and jalebi for breakfast
A fried-savoury-and-syrup-sweet combination eaten first thing in the morning, which makes no sense until it does.
Dhokla, steamed and savoury, and khandvi, rolled and delicate, are the other two to find. And undhiyu in winter, a vegetable dish traditionally cooked in a pot buried in the ground, which appears around the kite festival.
9. The Calico Museum of Textiles
Remarkable and difficult: entry is by advance arrangement with limited numbers, and it is worth the administrative trouble if textiles interest you at all.
10. Rani ki Vav at Patan
A few hours away and it is the stepwell that made stepwells famous: a World Heritage site so celebrated it appears on Indian currency.
If Adalaj impressed you, this is the full version. Pair it with the Modhera Sun Temple on the same long day. Find Gujarat trips on Klook.
Uttarayan is worth planning a trip around
Mid-January brings Uttarayan, marking the sun's turn north, and it is the single best day to be in this city.
The whole of Ahmedabad goes onto its roofs. Not some of it: all of it, families, neighbours, entire streets, from early morning. The sky fills with kites, kite-fighting is a competitive sport conducted with cut lines, and the noise from the rooftops is a city-wide party. After dark the kites give way to paper lanterns and it keeps going.
If you are booking a Gujarat trip and your dates have any flexibility at all, aim at this. Hotels fill and fares rise, so it needs planning rather than luck, and a hotel with a usable roof terrace becomes the most valuable thing in the city.
Gujarat is dry, and nobody warns you
The thing most likely to surprise you, so it goes on every page we write about this state.
Prohibition has been in force here for a very long time and it is not a formality. Alcohol is not sold openly, restaurants do not serve it, and you cannot bring it in from another state and assume nobody minds.
Visitors from outside Gujarat can generally obtain a permit, most often arranged through a hotel that holds a licensed facility. The rules change, so check the current position rather than trusting any webpage including this one.
What surprises most visitors is how little it matters once you are there. The city's evening social life runs on food and chai rather than bars, Manek Chowk at eleven at night is busier than any pub you have been to, and a fortnight in Gujarat with no alcohol in it is a genuinely different and rather good experience.
But it will ruin your first night if nobody told you.
The day trip nobody agrees on
The Statue of Unity is roughly four hours away and it is the tallest statue in the world by a considerable margin.
Whether that is a reason to spend eight hours in a car is a matter of taste, and we would say honestly: for most visitors, no. For anyone travelling with teenagers, or anyone who enjoys the sheer scale of things, absolutely yes.
That is the most honest sentence we can offer about it.
When to come
November to February is the season and it is not close.
April to June produces some of the most severe heat in inhabited India, and sightseeing simply stops being possible in the middle of the day.
July to September is the monsoon.
Late February to March is the value window: the kite festival crowds have gone and the heat has not arrived.
Booking notes
Prices shown by our partners are live and in your choice of currency, most activities confirm instantly, and free cancellation windows are stated on each listing. Very little here needs booking ahead, because there is very little tourist infrastructure, because there are very few tourists, which is the whole argument for coming.
The exceptions: the Calico Museum, which requires advance arrangement, and anything at all around Uttarayan, which fills the city.
There is no non-stop from Australia, and our flights to India page covers the routings. Get a free Gujarat quote.