Camels take a stroll in Jaisalmer, in India's desert state of Rajasthan. Photo / Getty
Camels take a stroll in Jaisalmer, in India's desert state of Rajasthan. Photo / Getty
Now our borders are open again and international travel is possible, it's time to start making those wish list holidays a reality. Amar Grover has all you need to know about a trip to Rajasthan, India.
The "land of kings", and India's so-called desert state, Rajasthan, has long been amongthe country's most popular destinations. The extravagant palaces and medieval forts of its pre-Independence maharajahs are fine legacies of a romantic age. From ancient temples and heaving bazaars, to exotic tribal groups with their camel-drawn carts, Rajasthan's vitality and colour remains undimmed.
Here, most foreign tourists are steered to the same well-worn routes comprising a handful of cities and sights. Ten to 15 years ago, perhaps only the hardy or eccentric ventured beyond into "off-beat" Rajasthan and its low-key largely untouched destinations where local life beats to a more traditional pulse.
The Blue City of Jodhpur in Rajasthan. Photo / Getty Images
But these days, the restoration of half-forgotten palaces, forts and mansions continues apace and stylish atmospheric hotels have emerged in unlikely corners of mainly rural Rajasthan. Collectively opening a window into a timeless India, they're an invaluable pivot for slower, more nuanced itineraries and a great alternative to big-city stays.
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With New Delhi as the obvious gateway to Rajasthan, you'll hardly find a softer introduction to the state than the well-known Neemrana Fort-Palace Hotel, about 120km southwest of the national capital. Built in the 15th century, it's undergone extensive restoration and now features multiple garden terraces and two swimming pools. Combining Rajput architecture – no two rooms are the same – with hints of a Tuscan hill-village, it spreads below a rocky ridge with picturesque walls and bastions.
Less prone to wedding parties and weekenders from Delhi, sister-property Tijara Fort-Palace stands atop a landscaped hill and, like the Neemrana, is a good place to attune your Rajasthan bearings. Abandoned since around 1845, three mahals, or royal quarters, were virtually rebuilt using mostly traditional techniques and designs with architectural salvage sourced from across the state. Landscaping includes seven terraced gardens, a colonnaded terrace and a swimming pool with views across seemingly infinite farmland.
Heading south beyond Alwar city and indirectly towards Jaipur, the state capital, you'll wriggle through part of the Aravalli range skirting the edge of Sariska Tiger Reserve. Cradled by forested hills and edged by village fields, Amanbagh is among Rajasthan's most remote (and most expensive) high-end properties. Extensive palm-studded gardens and a magnificent swimming pool with an arcaded pavilion are wrapped in neo-Rajput style architecture with salmon-pink sandstone.
Amanbagh's hinterland is a joy to explore, ideally with the property's guided walks. Behind a low bund, or embankment, built by Maharajah Jai Singh in around 1931, stretches a shallow yet expansive lake. Dry by January, it hosts crops of okra and wheat farmed by villagers who still own parcels of the lake-bed. Spindly machans, or lookouts, used by locals to guard fields from foraging boars dot the countryside and you'll probably see village elders lounging outside on traditional rope beds sipping chai and puffing on hookahs, their coarse tobacco softened with jaggery, a kind of palm sugar.
Two essential excursions from Amanbagh – and you can pause at both en route to Jaipur – are the long-abandoned "ghost town" of Bhangarh and Abhaneri's huge step-well. 16th-century Bhangarh is reputedly the most haunted place in India, hype that probably stems from local folklore involving sages, unrequited love and dastardly curses prophesying the walled town's sudden demise.
Originally lined with medieval shops and homes, the main cobbled street cuts through arched gateways past plinth-mounted stone temples. At its head and partly enclosed by steep hills rises a partly ruined three-storey palace complex. Irrepressible monkeys cavort amid the masonry and there's a fair chance you'll have most of this atmospheric place to yourself.
Women carrying water from a stepwell near Jaipur, Rajasthan. Photo / Getty
Around 40km away, the extraordinary 9th-century Chand Baori (also known as Abhaneri) step well is testament to the artistry and skill once used to safeguard drinking water in the country's driest state. This is one of India's largest and deepest such wells. With thirteen stepped storeys sunk more than 30m into the ground almost like an inverted ziggurat, arcaded pavilions beautifully offset its angular symmetry.
South of Jaipur stands Bundi, former capital of a small princely state and one of the nicest little towns in Rajasthan. Visiting here on his own off-beat journey in early 1888, Rudyard Kipling called it "a beautifully lazy city" and its remarkable hillside palace "the work of goblins rather than of men". Medieval havelis, or merchants' townhouses, with decorative carved facades, bolster the town's cheery workaday appeal while, still looming over its old quarter's tangle of lanes, the enormous palace is now open to visitors.
Although the royal contents are long gone, it remains a fantastic place to explore and the interiors' fading wall murals depicting Hindu fables and courtly life are among the finest in Rajasthan. High above on a plateau spreads brooding Taragarh Fort, its rambling decaying courtyards and pavilions affording splendid vistas across Bundi and beyond. Kipling buffs might head a kilometre beyond town to the pretty lakeside Sukh Mahal, the maharajah's former modest summer retreat and now a half-hearted museum, where the writer briefly stayed.
Southern splendours
Most visitors to these southeastern reaches of Rajasthan head on to Ranthambore, one of India's best-known tiger reserves with reliable sightings. Pressing on further south, you might pause briefly at sprawling Kota for its worthy City Palace Museum, a fetching 16th-century pile with seemingly countless pavilions, cupolas, arched balconies and imposing gateways. Highlights include traditional miniature paintings, an armoury, silver-gilt palanquins and howdahs along with a fine yet indulgent collection of photographs depicting royal visits, tiger hunts and polo matches.
Some of the locals at Ranthambore Tiger Reserve, Rajasthan. Photo / Getty Images
Sixty kilometres beyond, at Bhainsrorgarh, you'll cross the pristine Chambal River near Bhainsrorgarh Fort perched on a riverside cliff. It's a gorgeous location with, despite the lurking crocodiles, an almost European softness to the landscape.
The place to stay is a 90-minute drive away at Fort Begu. It was built in 1430 and the small town's noble family opened five suites in the ancestral property in 2010. Begu's charming characterful accommodation tilts rather more toward homestay than boutique luxury. Its 12ha grounds complete with free-roaming peacocks are still enclosed by an unusually wide (though largely dry) moat, which helps screen the local bustle.
Twenty-four generations of the Begu line have lived here and you'll likely hear animated stories of old-worlde Rajasthan. One illustrious ancestor enjoyed a month-long wedding in the adjoining wing where dancing-girls twirled on the tusks of patient elephants.
Wonders of the West
Heading west towards Udaipur, Rajasthan's celebrated Lake City, Chittorgarh's striking 180m-high plateau rears on the skyline well before town. This is among the region's most fabled fortresses (and one of six comprising a Unesco World Heritage Site): 5km end-to-end, circumference walls of 13km and seven huge reinforced gates with parapets. The site's been fortified for more than a millennium with enough pivotal battles to colour an encyclopaedia of legends and folklore.
With Lake Pichola's shimmering waters lending an idyllic backdrop, Udaipur's the place where so many visitors rest up for longer than its sights demand. To the city's west rise the most muscular section of the Aravalli Hills, rugged yet surprisingly green countryside dotted with time-forgotten hamlets. At 1200m, Kumbalgarh is one of the range's loftiest peaks and home to Rajasthan's highest fort (like Chittorgarh a World Heritage Site). Its principal building, the Badal Mahal, or Cloud Palace, stands sentinel-like over an undulating path-threaded landscape of half-forgotten temples, shrines and stepped water tanks.
View across Lake Pichola towards the Lake Palace at Udaipur, Rajasthan. Photo / Getty Images
Looking towards Jodhpur, the Aravalli's northern slopes cradle one of Rajasthan's finest temples at Ranakpur. Constructed under royal patronage in the 1400s, the Chaumukha Temple is a stunning confection of intricately carved white marble bristling with tower-like domes, turrets and cupolas.
Down on the farm-sprinkled plains mid-way to Jodhpur, Chanoud village lies well off the main roads, its gentle ambience typical of much of rural Rajasthan. But in its midst stands an imposing mansion and gardens with airy wings enclosing a cool shady courtyard.
Chanoudgarh, now a 10-room boutique hotel, is full of peaceful yet simply stylish nooks and crannies, and excels in delicious home-style cuisine. Personalised and informal excursions lend a fascinating window on rural life and its folklore. Guests can often visit a couple of temples to share tea with their priests, and enjoy sundowners alongside shallow lakes alive with migratory cranes.
Perhaps only in off-beat Rajasthan will you find something of its beating heart.
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