Mount Abu

Mount Abu is a granite plateau about 1,200 metres up, standing alone at the southern end of the Aravallis, close to the Gujarat border. Rajasthan's only hill station, it is cooler, wetter and greener than anywhere around it, with forest on its slopes that still shelters sloth bears and leopards. Its highest point, Guru Shikhar at 1,722 metres, is the highest in the Aravallis.

Long before the British used it as a summer retreat, Abu was sacred. Hindu tradition names it after Arbuda, the serpent who rescued Shiva's bull Nandi from a chasm here; the sage Vashistha is said to have kept his ashram on the mountain. Its lake, Nakki, was dug, the story goes, with the gods' own fingernails.

The reason to come is the Dilwara temples. From the outside they are plain; inside, the marble has been worked so finely it looks translucent. Vimal Vasahi was built in 1031 by Vimal Shah, minister to a Solanki king of Gujarat, and Luna Vasahi in 1230 by the brothers Vastupal and Tejpal. The ceilings — domes of concentric lace, lotuses, dancers and elephants — took years of hand-scraping, and the masons were reputedly paid by the weight of marble dust they removed.

The town's food leans as much Gujarati as Rajasthani, since most visitors come up from Ahmedabad: thalis with dal baati and gatte ki sabzi, ker sangri, kadhi, and street corn and hot rabri along Nakki Lake in the evening. The Brahma Kumaris, a spiritual movement with its headquarters here, give the town a quieter side most weekend visitors never see.

Dilwara opens to non-Jain visitors only from around noon, and phones and cameras must be deposited outside — plan the morning elsewhere and give the temples at least ninety unhurried minutes. Sunset Point fills to bursting; Honeymoon Point or a walk past Toad Rock is quieter. Guru Shikhar is best early, before haze and crowds. And avoid Gujarat's long weekends and Diwali week, when the town can run out of rooms.

Dilwara is a working Jain shrine with strict rules: no leather, no food, no phones and modest dress. Follow them without argument; the guards have heard every reason. On the forest roads, never feed the langurs or leave food for bears — fed animals become problem animals. Nakki is small and fragile; keep plastic out of it.

Dilwara was paid for by Gujarati ministers and merchants, and that world continues in Ahmedabad, four hours south: the old pols, carved Jain derasars, and the stepwells and mosques of a city that has been trading since the fifteenth century.