“There's a peacock standing on the boundary wall like he owns the deed to the place.”

The road from Bhuj to Mundra is the kind of flat, sun-bleached stretch where your driver stops narrating and just drives. Past the Suryavarsani school, past a cluster of concrete shops selling SIM cards and chai, past a hand-painted sign for Sedata village that looks like it hasn't been retouched since the 2001 earthquake. The landscape is Kutch at its most unadorned — scrub brush, the odd neem tree, a buffalo standing in a ditch like it's been assigned there. You check your phone. Google Maps says you've arrived. You look up and see carved archways, mosaic tilework, and a courtyard that belongs somewhere between Marrakech and a particularly ambitious wedding venue. Your driver turns around and grins. "Gujarat," he says, as if that explains it.

Time Square Club Resort & Spa sits on the Bhuj-Mundra road about fifteen minutes outside Bhuj proper, in a stretch of Gujarat that most travelers blow through on their way to the Rann of Kutch. The name is misleading — there's no neon, no ticker tape, no particular connection to Manhattan. What there is: an improbable Moroccan-themed property surrounded by the dry, golden emptiness of Kutch, built with the kind of maximalist conviction that only works when someone genuinely doesn't care whether you think it's too much.

Arches, Mosaics, and the Sound of Nothing

The first thing that defines this place isn't the room — it's the silence after the gate closes. Bhuj is a noisy, wonderful town full of auto-rickshaw horns and embroidery merchants calling from doorways. Out here, the ambient soundtrack is wind, the occasional motorbike on the main road, and birdsong you didn't expect. The resort is built around courtyards and walkways lined with zellige-style tilework and carved plaster arches. It's theatrical, sure, but there's a sincerity to it. Someone studied reference photos. Someone cared about the grout lines.

The villas are spread across the grounds, each one a separate structure with its own entrance. Inside, the Moroccan theme continues — carved wooden headboards, lantern-style light fixtures, jewel-toned textiles. The bed is firm in the way Indian resort beds tend to be, which is to say you'll sleep well but you won't sink. The bathroom is spacious and tiled floor to ceiling, with a rain shower that takes roughly ninety seconds to warm up. Not a complaint — just a heads-up if you're the type to jump straight in. The AC works hard and wins, which matters when it's forty degrees outside by ten in the morning.

What the resort gets right is understanding that you're here for Kutch, not for the resort. The staff can arrange visits to Bhujodi village — about twenty minutes back toward Bhuj — where weavers and block printers work in open-air workshops along the main road. Ask for the shop run by the Rabari community; the shawls are extraordinary and priced before the tourist markup kicks in. Closer to Bhuj itself, the Aina Mahal and Prag Mahal palaces are worth the morning, especially the earthquake-cracked hall of mirrors, which is more haunting than any restoration could be.

“Someone built a piece of Fez in the middle of Kutch, and the peacocks moved in like it had always been theirs.”

Meals at the resort lean Gujarati — thalis with kadhi, rotli, and a sabzi rotation that changes daily. The dal is the quiet star, slow-cooked and rich with ghee. If you're expecting a Moroccan menu to match the décor, recalibrate. This is Gujarat, and the kitchen knows it. Breakfast includes hot jalebis on good days, which is reason enough to set an alarm. The spa exists and offers standard oil massages; I didn't try it, but two women at the pool table — yes, there's a pool table — said the Ayurvedic option was worth the extra money.

The honest thing: the resort is isolated. If you don't have your own car or a very patient auto-rickshaw driver, you're eating every meal on-site and relying on the front desk for transport. There's no corner shop, no chai stall within walking distance, no evening stroll to be had unless you enjoy walking along a state highway after dark, which I do not recommend. The WiFi holds up for messaging but buckles under video calls. A family of four at dinner seemed unbothered; their kids were chasing a cat across the courtyard, which is honestly the best use of the space.

Back Through the Gate

Leaving in the morning, the light is different. Kutch at seven AM is pale gold, and the scrubland that looked featureless the day before now has texture — thorn bushes casting long shadows, a herd of goats materializing from behind a low wall. The peacock is still on the boundary wall. Your driver is already waiting, engine running, the same grin. The road back to Bhuj passes a tea stall that wasn't open when you arrived; stop there. The cutting chai costs 0 USD and the man making it has been doing it since before the resort existed. He doesn't know about the Moroccan arches down the road. He doesn't need to.

Villas at Time Square Club start around 53 USD a night, which buys you the architecture, the quiet, and a base for exploring Kutch without staying in Bhuj's more hectic center. It's not for everyone — if you need walkability or nightlife, this isn't it. But if you want a strange, sincere place to sleep between days spent in Bhujodi workshops and the white desert, the drive is worth it.