An island of salt, grass and craft
On the morning of 26 January 2001, Republic Day, a massive earthquake struck Kutch and killed many thousands of people. Bhuj, Anjar and Bhachau were badly damaged. Kutch rebuilt with astonishing energy, and the twenty-five years since have turned it from a place few travellers knew into one of the great journeys of western India.
The largest district in India: a great block of land in the north-west of Gujarat. Most of it is not desert in the way Jaisalmer is.
The Great Rann: to the north, a salt marsh so flat that it disappears into the sky.
- Where
- North-west Gujarat
- Size
- Largest district in India
- Old rulers
- Jadeja Rajputs, titled Rao
- Capital
- Bhuj
- Languages
- Kutchi and Gujarati
- Earthquake
- 26 January 2001
- The Little Rann: to the east, home of the Indian wild ass.
- Banni: between the Rann and the hills, a sweep of grassland grazed by herders' buffalo.
- The coast: to the south, fishing ports and old shipbuilding towns facing the Gulf of Kutch and the Arabian Sea.
- A kingdom of its own: for centuries Kutch was ruled from Bhuj by the Jadeja Rajputs, whose title was Rao rather than Maharaja.
- Sea traders: Kutch traded by sea with Arabia, East Africa and the Persian Gulf, and its sailors and merchants were known along all those coasts.
- Language: people speak Kutchi, closely related to Sindhi, as well as Gujarati.
- Across the Rann: Sindh, now in Pakistan. Many of Kutch's pastoral communities once moved freely between the two.
- Why it feels close to Rajasthan: the Rabari in black and white, Meghwal leatherworkers and embroiderers, the Muslim pastoral communities of Banni and Jadeja Rajput families all have cousins and customs in Barmer and Jaisalmer.
- One shared world: mirror-work skirts, round mud houses and desert songs. Our article on Rajasthan and Kutch explores those threads, and our Rajasthan and Kutch journey follows them on the ground.
- What was lost: much of the old fabric of Bhuj fell in the 2001 earthquake.
The White Rann, by day, at dusk and under the moon
How it forms: every monsoon, seawater and rain flood the low-lying Great Rann. As the water evaporates in the autumn sun, it leaves a crust of salt cracked into great hexagonal plates.
When it is white: by November it is dry enough to walk on, and it stays white through the winter until the heat of April.
- Main viewpoint
- Dhordo
- From Bhuj
- About two hours north
- White season
- November until the April heat
- Permit
- Needed, arranged with your papers
- Best nights
- Around the full moon
- Where to stand: the most visited stretch is at Dhordo, about two hours north of Bhuj, where a viewing area and walkways lead out onto the salt.
- Midday: blinding. You need dark glasses.
- Sunset: the salt turns pink, lilac and then deep blue, and the horizon disappears completely.
- Full moon: the salt glows silver, bright enough to read by, and the silence is so complete you can hear your own heartbeat.
- Permit: the Rann lies close to the international border, so visitors need a permit for the White Rann area. It is a simple formality, and we arrange it with your other papers.
- Carry ID: keep identification with you at all times in the border districts.
Rann Utsav and the tent city
When: each winter, roughly November to February. Dates change every year, so we confirm them as we plan.
- Who runs it: Gujarat's tourism department and private partners raise a tent city at Dhordo.
- What's on: folk music and dance, craft stalls from the villages of Kutch, camel-cart rides onto the salt and evening cultural programmes.
- The tents: the best are comfortable, heated and well serviced. Read more in our guide to the Rann Utsav.
Kala Dungar, the black hill
The highest point in Kutch: a dark hill rising out of the plain north of Khavda.
- The view: the whole Great Rann, white to the horizon.
- The temple: a small shrine to Dattatreya on the summit, whose priests keep up an old tradition of feeding the local jackals with prasad every evening.
- Timing: go in the late afternoon for the view, then come down to the Rann for sunset.
Bhuj, the old capital of the Raos
The capital: the Jadeja Raos made Bhuj their seat in the sixteenth century, beneath the fortified hill called Bhujiyo.
- Capital since
- The sixteenth century
- Old fort hill
- Bhujiyo
- Lake
- Hamirsar, fed by rain channels
- Airport
- Bhuj, flights from Mumbai
- Around a lake: the old walled town grew around Hamirsar Lake, a reservoir fed by channels that brought rainwater in from the hills.
- Your base: almost every Kutch journey starts here, with the airport, the best markets and the craft villages all within reach.
Aina Mahal, the hall of mirrors
Built for: Rao Lakhpatji, in the eighteenth century. A small palace of astonishing interiors.
- The craftsman: Ramsinh Malam is said to have learned glass-making and clockwork on voyages to Europe.
- Inside: mirror work, Venetian glass, painted tiles and curious mechanical toys.
- After 2001: the building was badly damaged, but its museum rooms, with long painted scrolls of royal processions, are still among the most charming in western India.
Prag Mahal
Built for: Rao Pragmalji II in the late nineteenth century, next door to the Aina Mahal.
- The style: Italian Gothic, designed by the British engineer Colonel Henry Saint Clair Wilkins.
- The durbar hall: chandeliers and hunting trophies, gloriously faded.
- Climb the clock tower: for a fine view over the town.
The Kutch Museum and the royal chhatris
The oldest museum in Gujarat: embroidery, weapons, coins and old inscriptions, with a good introduction to the region's communities.
- The royal chhatris: sandstone chhatris of the Jadeja rulers in a quiet enclosure on the edge of town, some restored after the earthquake, some still broken.
- When we go: late afternoon.
Smritivan, the earthquake memorial
Where: on the slopes of Bhujiyo hill.
- What it is: a memorial park and museum to the people who died in 2001, planted with trees and lined with their names.
- The museum: explains earthquakes and the story of Kutch's recovery. Moving and well done.
- Why go: many of our guests say it changed the way they saw the rest of the region.
The craft villages of Banni and beyond
Every community, its own stitch: the Rabari favour bold chain stitch and mirrors. The Ahir, the Meghwal, the Jat and the Mutwa each have their own styles.
Months of work: some pieces are so fine that a single one takes months.
- Embroidery
- Rabari, Ahir, Meghwal, Jat, Mutwa
- Other crafts
- Print, weaving, leather, bells, lacquer
- Houses
- Bhungas, round mud homes
- Craft museum
- Shrujan LLDC, near Ajrakhpur
- More than embroidery: the villages keep alive block printing, weaving, leatherwork, pottery, bell-making and lacquer.
- Bhungas: round mud houses with conical thatched roofs, cool in summer and warm in winter. They survived the 2001 earthquake far better than concrete buildings.
- Buy from the makers: wherever you can. In Kutch the money goes straight to the family whose name is on the work.
- Ask first: before photographing people, especially women, and accept a no gracefully.
- Take your time: a cup of tea in a courtyard is part of the visit, not an interruption to it.
Hodka, in the heart of Banni
Who lives here: a village of bhungas on the Banni grassland, home to Meghwal leather and embroidery families and to Muslim pastoral communities.
- Shaam-e-Sarhad: a village resort run by the community itself, where you sleep in bhungas and tents and eat village food.
- The best way in: a walk through the lanes with a local host, meeting embroiderers in their courtyards. One of the warmest experiences in Kutch.
Bhirandiyara, for mawa and mirrors
On the Rann road: between Bhuj and the White Rann, where everyone stops.
- Mawa: a rich sweet made by slowly reducing buffalo milk with sugar, made fresh each day in the small roadside shops.
- Embroidery: the village and those around it keep fine traditions. We often stop on the way back from Dhordo to visit a family.
Nirona, rogan painting and copper bells
Rogan painting: an old craft that almost disappeared. Only a few Khatri families still practise it.
- How it's made: castor oil is boiled for hours into a thick paste, mixed with pigments and drawn onto cloth with a metal stylus in fine threads. The cloth is folded to print a mirror image.
- A famous gift: in 2014 the Prime Minister gave a rogan painting from Nirona to President Obama.
- Bells and lacquer: copper-coated bells, each tuned by hand, and lacquered woodwork turned on hand lathes.
Bhujodi and Ajrakhpur, weaving and block print
Bhujodi: just east of Bhuj, a village of Vankar weavers working pit looms in their homes to make wool and cotton shawls and blankets.
- Ajrakhpur: founded by Khatri block-printing families who moved here from Dhamadka after the earthquake.
- Ajrakh: a complex resist-dyed cloth in indigo and madder red, made through many stages of printing and washing.
- The museum: the Living and Learning Design Centre, founded by the craft organisation Shrujan near Ajrakhpur, is a superb museum of Kutch's embroidery and crafts.
Khavda and the northern villages
- Khavda pottery: painted in earthy reds and blacks by Kumbhar families, on the way to Kala Dungar.
- Ludiya: among the villages known for bhungas decorated with mud relief and mirrors, inside and out.
Dholavira, a Harappan city on an island in the salt
Near the north gate of the citadel, archaeologists found ten large Indus script signs, made of inlaid pieces of white stone, that once seem to have hung above the gateway. It is often called the world's oldest signboard, and no one has yet read it.
One of the largest Harappan cities: the Bronze Age culture of the Indus valley, occupied over many centuries.
- Location
- Khadir Bet, an island in the Great Rann
- Civilisation
- Harappan, Bronze Age
- Occupied from
- Around the third millennium BCE
- Excavated
- From 1990
- UNESCO
- World Heritage Site, 2021
- From Bhuj
- Several hours by road
- A city of water: in a land with little rain, its people built stone-cut reservoirs, channels and dams to catch and store every drop of the monsoon.
- Walk the reservoirs: some are cut deep into the rock, and you feel the ingenuity of people who lived with the same dry land Kutch's farmers know today.
- An unusual plan: a fortified citadel, a middle town and a lower town, quite different from other Harappan sites.
- The site museum: small but good.
- Go early: there is no shade on the site.
- Stay the night nearby: if you can, because the drive back to Bhuj is long.
The Banni grasslands and the wild side of Kutch
Where: a low plain between the Rann and the hills north of Bhuj, one of the largest grasslands in South Asia.
The herders: the maldharis, pastoral families who keep the hardy Banni buffalo and Kankrej cattle. Their milk and ghee are famous across Gujarat.
- Banni
- One of South Asia's largest grasslands
- Herders
- Maldharis, Banni buffalo, Kankrej cattle
- Winter wetland
- Chhari Dhand
- Rare bird
- Grey hypocolius
- Wild ass
- Little Rann only
- A threat: the invasive Prosopis juliflora tree has spread across the grassland in recent decades, and local communities and scientists are working to restore it.
- Chhari Dhand: a seasonal lake on the edge of the grassland that draws cranes, pelicans, flamingos and ducks in winter.
- Birders' prizes: the grey hypocolius, a rare winter visitor, and the vast flamingo colonies that breed in the Great Rann in good years.
- The khur: the Indian wild ass lives in the Little Rann to the east and survives nowhere else in the world.
- Plan the birds: Kutch is one of India's great birding regions, and our guide to birding covers the best seasons.
- Dark skies: with almost no light pollution, the sky over the Rann and Banni is as dark as any in the Thar. Our page on stargazing explains what you can see.
More of Kutch, from the coast to the border
Mandvi, the shipbuilders' town
Where: on the coast south of Bhuj.
- Ships by hand: Mandvi has built wooden ocean-going ships for centuries, and you can still watch great hulls take shape on the riverbank.
- Vijay Vilas Palace: built in the early twentieth century for the royal family, near a quiet beach.
- Dabeli: Kutch's famous spiced potato bun was born here.
Lakhpat, the fort at the end of the road
Where: the far north-west of Kutch.
- A lost port: once busy on a branch of the Indus. When the river changed course after an earthquake in the early nineteenth century, the town emptied.
- What remains: its walls still stand, and a gurdwara inside marks a place where Guru Nanak is believed to have stayed on his travels.
The Little Rann
- What you might see: the wild ass, blackbuck, desert foxes and winter birds.
- When it fits: a natural night's stop between Kutch and Ahmedabad.
Where to stay in Kutch
Sleep beside the salt: in season, the best way to see the White Rann. The Rann Utsav tent city at Dhordo has heated tents with private bathrooms and the Rann a short ride away.
Pick the better tents: the higher categories are well run and comfortable. Book early, especially around the full moon and the Christmas holidays.
- By the Rann
- Rann Utsav tent city, Dhordo
- Village stay
- Community resort, Hodka
- In town
- Modern hotels in Bhuj
- Book early
- Full moon and Christmas
- A personal stay: the community-run village resort at Hodka puts you in a bhunga among embroiderers and herders, with simple comforts and real warmth.
- In Bhuj: comfortable modern hotels for the nights you spend exploring the town and the craft villages.
- Compare the rooms: our guide to luxury stays in Kutch and our list of luxury hotels in Kutch set out the options we prefer.
- Want a palace too: we plan Kutch as part of a longer journey and pair it with Rajasthan's heritage hotels.
- Going east: many guests travel on to Mount Abu and Udaipur.
- Coming from the desert: others arrive from Jaisalmer and Barmer.
What Kutch eats
The rotla: a thick flatbread of bajra millet cooked on a clay griddle, eaten with white butter and jaggery.
Chhaas: the spiced buttermilk that cools you on the hottest day.
Alongside: kadhi, a gentle yoghurt curry, and khichdi of rice and lentils.
- Banni kitchens: meals rich in buffalo milk and ghee.
- Mostly vegetarian: like most of Gujarat, though Muslim and pastoral families cook delicious meat dishes at home and for weddings.
- Dabeli: a soft bun of spiced potato, pomegranate seeds, roasted peanuts and tamarind chutney. It began in Mandvi and is now eaten across India.
- Pakwan: a crisp fried bread.
- Sweets: the mawa of Bhirandiyara.
- A dry state: alcohol in Gujarat is controlled by permit. Our guide to alcohol and dry days explains what that means for visitors.
When to come and how to get there
November to February: the season. The Rann is dry and white, days are warm and nights cold, and the Rann Utsav is on. Bring warm layers for the desert evenings.
March: still pleasant but warming.
April to June: the heat is severe.
- Best season
- November to February
- Monsoon
- July to September, Rann flooded
- Ahmedabad to Bhuj
- Six to seven hours
- Bhuj to Dhordo
- About two hours
- Nearest airport
- Bhuj, flights from Mumbai
- The monsoon: from July to September the Rann floods and the White Rann cannot be visited.
- By air: Bhuj Airport has flights from Mumbai.
- Via Ahmedabad: many guests fly in and drive about six to seven hours to Bhuj, or break the journey in the Little Rann.
- The Rann and Dholavira: Dhordo is about two hours north of Bhuj. Dholavira is several hours further east, and a night near the site makes it easier.
- From Rajasthan: Kutch connects with Mount Abu and Udaipur to the east, and with Barmer and Jaisalmer to the north across the desert by road.
- Hire a driver: distances are long and roads often empty, so a private car with a driver who knows the region is essential. Our Kutch itinerary guide shows how we pace the drives.
- Month by month: our best time to visit Kutch guide has notes on planning around the full moon.
Five days in Kutch, the way we'd spend them
- Length
- Five days
- Base
- Bhuj, then Dhordo
- Plan around
- The full moon
- More ideas: our Kutch things to do guide lists more.
- Follow the textiles: the textile and craft trail links Kutch's villages with the printers of Bagru and the weavers of Rajasthan.
Day one, Bhuj
Arrive: settle in Bhuj.
- Afternoon: the Aina Mahal and Prag Mahal, then a walk around Hamirsar Lake.
- Dusk: the royal chhatris.
Day two, weavers, printers and the museum
Morning: weavers in Bhujodi and block printers in Ajrakhpur.
- Then: the Living and Learning Design Centre.
- Afternoon: Smritivan, before dinner in Bhuj.
Day three, Nirona, Hodka and the White Rann
Morning: north through Nirona to meet the rogan painters and bell makers.
- Lunch: Hodka, with a walk with an embroidery family.
- Sunset: reach Dhordo for the White Rann, and stay the night beside it.
Day four, Kala Dungar and the full moon
Slow morning: then Khavda's potters.
- Late afternoon: Kala Dungar.
- After dark: back to the Rann. If the moon is full, walk out onto the salt for an hour of silence.
Day five, Dholavira
- Leave early: walk the Harappan city before the heat.
- Then: stay nearby, or continue towards the Little Rann and Ahmedabad.
What we tell our own cousins about Kutch
Check the moon before you book: a full moon on the White Rann is the single most memorable night in western India, and the tents fill fast.
Carry your passport or ID card: Kutch is a border district, and permits and checks are routine.
- Sun protection: sunglasses, a hat and lip balm. The salt reflects the sun fiercely, even in winter.
- Dress modestly in the villages: long sleeves and loose clothes are comfortable and respectful.
- Don't haggle hard: with village artisans, the price often reflects weeks of work.
- Leave room in your suitcase: almost no one leaves Kutch without an embroidered piece they hadn't planned to buy.
