The Road to Heaven begins as a promise rather than a direction. Stretching out from Khavda toward Dholavira in Gujarat, it unfurls for nearly 30 km, bordered by backwaters so vast and still they coax travellers into silence. When the waters recede, the scene shifts into something almost hallucinatory. An unbroken white of salt marsh stretches to the horizon, luminous and blinding, with the road slicing through it like a line drawn in air. Then come the flamingoes, thousands of them, migrating from Central Asia and Europe, stippling the sky and wetlands like drifting constellations. At a glance, the road seems to lead not merely to a village or an archaeological site, but somewhere beyond the ordinary.
“Even as the road leads to a world heritage site, many tourists come here for the road itself,” says Iqbal Kumbhar, Senior Tourist Guide, Evoke Experiences. During the Rann Utsav, a four-month festival from November to February, the road sees the heaviest footfall. Sprawling across 5 lakh sq metres, the Rann Utsav Tent City captures the spirit of Kutch into a single landscape—its arts and crafts, folk music and dance, the ingenuity of its communities, and even the region’s vast geography, experienced through activities like stargazing. Set in the quiet village of Dhordo, the over 400 tents echo the whiteness of the surrounding salt desert: softly lit structures of white fabric, designed with sustainable features such as eco-friendly bhunga homes in each cluster and benches made from recycled plastic.
The almost spiritual spectacle of the road ends at Dholavira, where history awaits. It has one of the five largest Harappan excavations in the subcontinent. Locally known as Kotada Tumba, the excavation seems ordinary at a glance. But linger longer, and the sheer brilliance of our ancestors unfolds itself. The site has one of the earliest water conservation systems and what might be the world’s first signboards, written in ancient Indus script.
Unearthed by the ASI, Dholavira reveals the scale and sophistication of Harappan urban planning. The site comprises a fortified walled city and a cemetery to its west. The city itself is clearly organised into distinct sections—the Castle with its ceremonial ground, the Middle Town, and the Lower Town—supported by an elaborate network of reservoirs to the east and south. What appears at first as stone and silence is, in fact, the structural blueprint of a highly advanced civilisation.
“There are signs everywhere, signs of how we lived and worked five thousand years ago,” says Kumbhar, pointing at depressions in a stone, created by years of bead work; the Harappan city was a centre of bead manufacture, its carnelian and agate beads traded across the Harappan world and beyond.
“Post Covid-19, we have seen more people interested in Dholavira, because people want a getaway from city life,” says Bhavik Sheth, Chief Operating Officer, Evoke Experiences. The declaration of Dholavira as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2021 added to this momentum. Since then, tourist numbers have risen almost 300%. “Many resorts and hotels have come up in the last five years, and almost all of them are fully booked,” Sheth says. Most visitors come from Gujarat and Maharashtra, followed by cities such as Delhi. The Dholavira Resort by Evoke Experiences is one of the oldest in the region, drawing large number of tourists not just during Rann Utsav, but year-round.
Much of the tourist spillover to Dholavira is tied to Rann Utsav, with Dholavira increasingly becoming an extension of the itinerary.
What sets Dholavira apart from other Harappan sites is not just its archaeology, but its setting. Surrounded by vast white deserts, villages and forests, the region has distinctive local crafts and biodiversity. Here, history is shaped by salt, stone, and survival.