Gujarat adventure holidays provide an 'insight into modern India'

Travellers planning adventure holidays in the Indian state of Gujarat will discover it provides an insight into new India, it has been claimed.

Travel writer Martin Dixon expressed his belief that the state is still a nation of contrasts in which technology and machinery can often be seen in the same area as archaic tools.

He wrote on the Telegraph website: "Gujarat provides the visitor with perhaps the best insight into the new India, where rapacious economic development and modern consumerism rub shoulders with extreme poverty, spiritual and religious diversity, and tribal and nomadic ways."

Mr Dixon advised holidaymakers to make a trip to the town of Palitana and, in particular, the nearby holy hill of Shatrunjaya.

The hill is home to around 900 temples, and it is only 2,000 steps to its peak, compared to the more daunting 10,000-step climb up to the more famous holy site - Mount Girnar.