Golden Triangle with Mandawa Shekhawati – 7 Days

A representative of Payless Tours India meets you at Indira Gandhi International Airport and your driver takes you to your hotel. After freshening up, you meet your Delhi guide and head into Old Delhi, the walled city of Shahjahanabad, founded by Shah Jahan in 1639. Your first stop is Jama Masjid, the largest mosque in India, built of red sandstone and white marble between 1644 and 1656. Its courtyard holds up to 25,000 worshippers. Visitors remove their shoes at the steps, and loose robes are provided at the gate. From the southern minaret, if open, you can look across a sea of old rooftops.

From the mosque you board a cycle rickshaw for a ride through the narrow lanes of Chandni Chowk, the seventeenth-century market street once lined with a canal that reflected moonlight. Today it is packed with wedding card printers, silver shops, sweet makers and wholesale cloth dealers. The rickshaw squeezes past handcarts and porters to reach Khari Baoli, Asia's largest spice market, where sacks of red chilli, turmeric, cardamom and dried fruit are stacked to the ceiling. Your guide will lead you up a staircase to the rooftop of an old trading building, with a view across the spice warehouses and the distant domes of the Fatehpuri Masjid.

You then drive past the walls of the Red Fort, built by Shah Jahan as his palace, and can go inside if the day allows; note that the Red Fort is closed on Mondays. For lunch, your guide can recommend a well-known eatery near Chandni Chowk serving paranthas fried in ghee or Mughlai curries. In the afternoon you return to New Delhi with a short stop at Raj Ghat, the simple memorial to Mahatma Gandhi beside the Yamuna. The old quarter you have just walked is a useful introduction to the merchant culture you will meet in Shekhawati, where the same trading families once sent their sons to the cities. Overnight stay in Delhi.

After breakfast you leave Delhi heading west into Haryana and then Rajasthan, a drive of five to six hours through Rewari and Jhunjhunu. The traffic of the capital soon gives way to farmland, and then to sand, khejri trees and low dunes. Village houses grow more colourful, and you begin to see painted gateways along the roadside, a first sign of the region ahead. Your driver will stop at a dhaba for tea and parathas. Arriving in Mandawa around lunchtime, you check in at your heritage hotel, often a converted fort or haveli where the rooms are decorated with frescoes, carved wooden doors and old family furniture.

In the afternoon a local guide takes you on foot around Mandawa, a small market town founded in the mid-eighteenth century by the Shekhawat Rajputs. You visit the Murmuria Haveli, whose walls show Nehru on horseback holding the Indian flag and scenes of Venice and gondolas, painted by artists who had never left Rajasthan and worked from postcards. Next comes the Chokhani Double Haveli, built by two brothers as a pair of mirror-image mansions joined around a shared courtyard. Your guide will explain how the paintings were done in fresco technique on wet lime plaster, using natural pigments such as indigo, ochre and lamp black.

As the heat fades, a camel cart picks you up at the edge of town for a slow ride along sand tracks to the small dunes outside Mandawa. The carts are flat wooden platforms with cushions, pulled by a single camel and led by a local driver, and they move at walking pace past fields of millet and herds of goats. You stop on a low dune to watch the sun go down over the scrubland, often with village children coming over to say hello. Back at the hotel, dinner is served on the rooftop or in the courtyard, sometimes with a performance of Rajasthani folk music. Overnight stay in Mandawa.

After breakfast you set out with your guide for a full day in the towns around Mandawa. The first stop is Nawalgarh, about forty kilometres south, which has the largest number of painted havelis in Shekhawati. You visit the Poddar Haveli Museum, built in 1920 and carefully restored, where more than 750 frescoes cover the courtyards and walls. Inside are small galleries of Rajasthani costumes, wedding traditions and musical instruments. Your guide will also walk you to the Morarka Haveli, whose painted ceilings and carved doorways have been preserved in near-original condition, and through the old Aath Haveli complex, eight mansions built side by side.

From Nawalgarh it is a short drive of about eight kilometres to Dundlod, a village gathered around a modest eighteenth-century fort that still belongs to the family of its founders. A section of the fort is open to visitors and partly used as a hotel. The Diwan Khana, or reception hall, is filled with family portraits, antique furniture and old weapons, while the upper terraces look out over the village and the plain. After lunch at a local restaurant, you drive on to Fatehpur, about fifty kilometres north, founded in 1451 by a Kayamkhani Muslim nawab and later a centre of Marwari banking families.

In Fatehpur you visit Haveli Nadine Le Prince, a mansion of 1802 bought by the French artist Nadine Le Prince in 1998 and slowly restored with the help of local craftsmen. It now serves as a cultural centre and gallery, and the restoration shows how bright the colours of these paintings once were. Your guide can also show you the Jalan and Devra havelis nearby, both in fading but authentic condition, and a large stepwell on the edge of town. You return to Mandawa in the late afternoon with time for a rest and a walk through the town's market, where you can buy tie-dye scarves and lac bangles. Overnight stay in Mandawa.

After a leisurely breakfast you check out of your haveli hotel and drive south-east to Jaipur, a journey of about four hours through Sikar and the scrubland of the Aravalli foothills. On the way, if you would like to see one more Shekhawati town, your driver can stop briefly at Lachhmangarh, whose hilltop fort overlooks a grid of streets planned like a smaller Jaipur, or at Sikar, which also has several painted havelis. As you approach the capital of Rajasthan, the dry hills grow higher, and you will catch your first sight of the long walls running along the ridges around the city.

You reach Jaipur around lunchtime and check in at your hotel. After a rest, your guide meets you in the late afternoon for a walking tour of the old city bazaars, laid out in a grid in 1727 by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II according to ancient Indian town-planning principles. Each bazaar has its own trade. In Johari Bazaar you see jewellers setting gemstones and silversmiths at work; in Bapu Bazaar the stalls are full of camel-leather slippers called mojaris and colourful printed fabrics; in Tripolia Bazaar there are brass and lac bangle makers working in tiny shopfronts. Your guide will explain how the walls of the old city came to be painted pink in 1876 to welcome the Prince of Wales.

As the light fades you stop in front of Hawa Mahal, the Palace of Winds, whose pink sandstone front has 953 small latticed windows. It looks its best in the warm evening light, and there are rooftop cafés across the road with a good view of the façade over a cup of chai. For dinner, your guide can suggest a traditional Rajasthani thali restaurant, where you can try dal baati churma, gatte ki sabzi and ker sangri, a dish made from desert beans and berries you may also have seen on your trip through Shekhawati. Return to your hotel afterwards for a restful night. Overnight stay in Jaipur.

Your guide collects you after breakfast for the drive to Amber Fort, eleven kilometres north of the city on a hill above Maota Lake. The fort was the capital of the Kachhwaha rulers for six centuries, and its ramparts snake across the hills in every direction. You climb the stone ramp through the Suraj Pol, the Sun Gate, into the main courtyard, and continue through the Diwan-i-Am, the painted Ganesh Pol and the Sheesh Mahal, where walls inlaid with convex mirrors catch the smallest flicker of light. Comparing these royal frescoes with the merchant murals of Shekhawati makes an interesting contrast, and your guide will point out the differences in style.

From Amber, a steep road leads up to Jaigarh Fort, the military fortress on the ridge above, built in 1726 to guard Amber and the royal treasury. It holds Jaivana, said to be the largest cannon on wheels in the world, cast here in 1720 but fired only once in a test. The walls give a sweeping view of Amber below and the plains beyond. On the way back to the city, your driver stops beside Man Sagar Lake for photographs of the Jal Mahal, a palace that sits low in the water. Lunch can be taken at a local restaurant before the afternoon sightseeing.

In the afternoon you visit the City Palace, still home to the former royal family of Jaipur. The museums show royal textiles, weapons and the two huge silver urns made to carry Ganges water to England for Maharaja Madho Singh II in 1902. In the Pritam Niwas Chowk courtyard, four painted gateways represent the four seasons. Next door is Jantar Mantar, Jai Singh's astronomical observatory, with nineteen stone instruments used to measure time and track stars, including the giant Samrat Yantra sundial. You finish with free time for shopping or a rest before dinner at your own choice. Overnight stay in Jaipur.

After breakfast you check out and leave Jaipur for Agra, a drive of four and a half to five hours along the highway through Dausa and Bharatpur. The landscape changes as you go, from the dry hills of Rajasthan to the flat, green farmland of Uttar Pradesh, with mustard fields turning yellow in winter. If you would like a break, your driver can stop for a light lunch at a roadside restaurant or for a short visit to Fatehpur Sikri, the abandoned Mughal capital of the 1570s, which lies directly on the route and adds around an hour and a half to the day. You reach Agra in the early afternoon and check in at your hotel.

Your Agra guide then takes you to Itimad-ud-Daulah, a small tomb on the east bank of the Yamuna, built by Empress Nur Jahan for her father between 1622 and 1628. It was the first Mughal building to be faced entirely in white marble and decorated with pietra dura, stone inlay of flowers, cypress trees and wine vessels. After your days among the painted walls of Shekhawati, it is interesting to see a very different kind of surface decoration, cut from stone rather than painted on plaster. The tomb is usually quiet and makes a gentle introduction to Agra before the Taj Mahal tomorrow.

As the sun goes down, you drive a short distance to Mehtab Bagh, a Mughal garden directly opposite the Taj Mahal on the far bank of the river. The gardens were laid out by Emperor Babur and later used by Shah Jahan as a viewing point for the Taj. From the riverside wall, you can watch the white dome turn amber and then grey as the light fades, without any crowd or queue. Your guide will explain the old legend of a black Taj that Shah Jahan was said to have planned on this side of the river. Return to your hotel for dinner and an early night. Overnight stay in Agra.

Your guide meets you before dawn and walks you to the gate of the Taj Mahal about half an hour before sunrise, when the queues are shortest. As you pass through the great sandstone gateway, the tomb appears framed in the arch, pale grey at first and then pink and white as the sun rises over the river. Your guide will tell the story of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal and point out the inlay of carnelian, lapis lazuli and jade set into the marble. The Taj Mahal is closed on Fridays, so the tour dates will be arranged to avoid this. Spend time in the gardens before the morning crowds arrive.

After breakfast and check-out at your hotel, you visit Agra Fort, the great red sandstone citadel that Emperor Akbar began in 1565. Inside, your guide shows you the Jahangiri Mahal, the Diwan-i-Am, where the emperor met the public, and the Diwan-i-Khas, where he received nobles and envoys. The Musamman Burj, the octagonal tower where Shah Jahan was held prisoner by his son Aurangzeb, looks across the river to the Taj Mahal. Having walked the trading towns of Shekhawati only a few days before, you will notice how much of this wealth, too, came from trade along the old caravan routes of North India.

Around midday you begin the drive back to Delhi on the Yamuna Expressway, which takes three and a half to four hours. Your driver will drop you at Delhi airport for an evening or night flight, or at your Delhi hotel if you are staying longer. Please share your flight details when booking, so that the morning in Agra can be timed with a comfortable margin for the drive and airport check-in. This brings your golden triangle with Mandawa tour with Payless Tours India to a close, with the painted walls of Shekhawati and the marble of the Taj Mahal side by side in your memories.