In 1997/98 my husband and I visited Gujarat - 3 years before the terrible earthquake hit this region (Jan. 2001).
After having been to all the famous touristic places we finally came to the Rann of Kutch, where we wanted to visit tribal villages near the Pakistani border.
It took several hours till we finally got our permits. But actually there was no checkpoint at all, not even any police officer who controlled our permits the next day.
We went to several tribal villages and admired their traditional culture. It was a pleasure to see the nicely painted clay houses, to meet friendly people and to take photos esp. of the women with their plentiful ornaments and colourful clothes decorated with little mirrors.
A small collection of this "tribal trip" can be seen in this gallery.

If you want to see more photos of Indian tribes from Orissa, Arunachal and Nagaland go to https://pbase.com/neuenhofer