Saputara

Saputara is the most built-up of Gujarat's few hill stations — Don, at the same thousand metres, has almost nothing on it — which makes Saputara modest by Himalayan standards and genuinely useful if you are anywhere near Surat or Ahmedabad. It sits at about a thousand metres in the Dang forests near the Maharashtra border. The lake at the centre is the focus — boating, a promenade, and a ropeway up to the sunset point. None of it is dramatic. What is good is the drive in through the Sahyadri forest, the Gira waterfall after the monsoon, and the tribal museum, which is small and better than it needs to be. The monsoon and the weeks just after it are when this place justifies itself. The Saputara Monsoon Festival runs through those months, the forest is fully green and the waterfalls are actually falling. By March the hills have gone brown and the lake is low. Set your expectations to a cool weekend in the woods rather than a mountain trip, and it holds up. Two nights is right; a week would be too long. July to November.