An Oasis at the End of Gujarat

“Diu has all the paint,” K remarked as we crossed from Gujarat into Diu. Indeed it does. Every building is cheerfully tarted up to the high heavens in all the shades of the rainbow. It was like the moment in The Wizard of Oz when everything goes from black and white to colour. Honestly, I don’t think I saw a lick of paint on a private residence in Gujarat. They saved it all up for their motorcycle tractor hybrids. 

Diu also differs from Gujarat in that they are not a dry territory. A cold beer was in our near future. 

And, it is almost completely devoid of plastic trash. Are we even still in India? 

Diu is attached to Gujarat but isn’t technically part of the state. They make that clear when you cross the border back into Gujarat and they toss the car looking for alcohol. It had been a Portuguese Colony until 1961, along with Daman and Goa, until they were acquired by India through military conquest (it took Portugal longer to acknowledge this). When Goa went off to do its own thing, Daman and Diu joined up with Dadra and Nagar Haveli to make their own union territory. 

Due to a timing snafu, we were spending one day only in the colourful boozy resort of Diu before heading back to Gujarat for our lion safari, which I will cover separately. The next thing we learned is that Diu is a morning and night town. Everything closes from 12-5pm. We were lucky to find the one bar/restaurant open throughout the day and put lunch and a cold brew in our dusty faces. We tried to wander around but the narrow streets were all being ripped up for new sewers and everything was closed. Instead we chilled out the late afternoon in our definite upgrade of a hotel. Ahhh, blessed cleanliness.

My goal was met that night: find Ram Vijay, the man whose family has been making sodas and ice cream since 1933. The man himself is a delight, like a sweet chatty grandpa. I tried his famous lemon-ginger soda while K tried the Vimto (mixed fruit). Both were delicious so we made ice cream plans for our post-safari. That endeavour was pure India. I asked what was in the fruit sundae and got my answer. Then I asked what was in the banana split and selected that. The assistant took our orders and came back with K’s ice cream. He then took some money and left the shop. He came back awhile later, conferred with Ram Vijay and informed me there are no ingredients for a banana split and none to be bought. I asked for a fruit sundae. They didn’t have the usual fruit for that. What do they have? Apples, chikoo and pomegranate. Why didn’t they start with telling me what they have? In the end I ordered a scoop of fig and almond while they cut up a bowl of chikoo for K to sample. Didn’t take her long to see why I passed it up. It’s so sweet it almost tastes candied. His home made ice cream was even more delicious than the soda. I thought of D, my India travelling ice cream sister of yore, and that she would love this place.

The fort is the big draw of Diu (along with the beer and beaches). It wasn’t easy to reach with the streets all torn up, but we persevered and it was spectacular. It was built in 1535 by the Portuguese in temporary alliance with the Sultan of Gujarat (spoiler alert: they then killed him) against the Mughal Emperor Humayun. It was in remarkably good shape, aside from a collapsed chapel and kitchen. And how much do I love a place with a double moat! The place was massive and lent itself to imagining living there. We spent a couple of hours going up and down bizarrely uneven steps to bastions and down weird steep slopes to find hidden gardens. It was beautifully landscaped and surrounded by the sea on 3 sides so there were some dramatic vistas. I highly recommend a visit and then a beer!