Champaner Archaeological Site

Last world heritage site of the trip, almost seems hard to believe! And we've managed to see them all without any major disruptions (aside from the Red Fort, which people have said isn't that great inside anyway).

Hired a driver again for the day trip; hoped that we'd get a different one but unfortunately the same guy turned up. And off we went heading southwards out of Ahmedabad along a fairly modern expressway. The drive out was about 2.5 hours.

Champaner is a large archaeological site that was once a fortress and citadel housing the kings of Gujarat, and it largely dates back to the 15th and 16th centuries. Surprisingly, most of it is actually still unexcavated! But we drove around to a few different points and saw quite a few things, including a couple of mosques, city walls, gates and bastions, a customs house, tombs, and a royal pavilion. Interesting style of architecture, and you can see how they're about halfway between the Hindu style of India and the Mughal style that developed over the following century. Quite interesting, though honestly not a huge amount to see.

The site also includes a Hindu temple atop a nearby hill, but it's an active worship site and super popular, so we decided to skip after seeing the crowds heading that direction. You also have to get a cable car up to the top, and we'd looked into the safety record of that too. Nah.

So a quick stop for lunch in the early afternoon, and then it was another 3 hour drive back to Ahmedabad, arriving in the early evening. At least the driver didn't get lost on the way back! Though he did let out a ridiculously stinky fart at one point; Shandos and I were both gagging. And of course we all acted like nothing happened.Read more