New Delhi: Hours after touching down in Ahmedabad for their maiden two-day visit to India, US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump paid tributes to Mahatma Gandhi at the Sabarmati Ashram on Monday.

The Trumps were accompanied by Prime Minister Narendra Modi who received the American leader at the Ahmedabad airport and joined his cavalcade on a 22-km roadshow which was dotted by thousands of spectators.

After trying his hands on the spinning wheel (charkha), Trump wrote a message in the visitors' diary of the ashram, thanking Modi for the “wonderful visit" and calling the Indian PM his “great friend”.

“To my great friend, Prime Minister Modi – thank you for this wonderful visit,” the US president wrote about the 15-minute visit.

Many were surprised that Trump did not make any mention of Mahatma Gandhi in visitors’ book.

Unlike Trump, former US President Barack Obama, on his visit to India in 2010, had hailed Gandhi as “a hero not just to India but to the world”.

After visiting Mani Bhavan, Gandhi located in South Mumbai, Obama wrote in the visitors' book, "I am filled with hope and inspiration as I have the privilege to view this testament to Gandhi's life. He is a hero not just to India but to the world.”

Then in 2015, after visiting the Raj Ghat, Obama had written in the visitors' book, "What Dr Martin Luther King Jr said then remains true today. 'The spirit of Gandhi is very much alive in India today’. And it remains a great gift to the world. May we always live in the spirit of love and peace- among all people and nations."

Obama, who considers Gandhi as one of the biggest influences on his life, has mentioned the freedom fighter on many occasions, including during his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in 2009. Replying to a question on who would be his most favourite personality, dead or alive, to have dinner with, he had then said it would be Gandhi.