A frustratingly occasional trawl through the travel photo archives: visit www.timbirdphotography.com for more

To the west of the Indian state of Gujarat and bordered to the south by the Arabian Sea in the region of Kutch lies the extraordinary Great Rann, a seemingly endless, dazzling expanse of salt marsh, flooded in the rainy season but a covered with a crystalline crust of sodium chloride for the rest of the year. The 7,500 square kilometre white desert stretches as far as Pakistan in the north-west and you need to pay for a special permit to approach the area. It’s one of the hottest parts of India, with summer temperatures reaching well above 45 degrees, although it can sink to zero in winter. Indian tourists congregate on the edge of the Rann to watch the sun slide down beyond the shimmering horizon in the evenings.

It’s without question the most spectacular expanse of featureless landscape I have ever seen! Here are Six Picks to give an idea of the local ambiance. The fellow with the henna hair is a local resident. The tented accommodation shown here and the musical entertainment were provided at the highly recommended Hodka Shaam-E-Sarhad (Sunset at the Border) Village Resort:

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