Rajasthan Off the Beaten Path Tour

Your representative from Payless Tours India meets you at the arrivals exit of Indira Gandhi International Airport with a name board and walks you to your private air-conditioned car. Depending on the time of your flight and the traffic, the drive to your hotel takes between forty minutes and an hour. Because this is a repeat visit for most guests on this route, the first day is kept free of formal sightseeing. You can sleep off the long flight, sort out a local SIM card or currency, and meet your driver properly. He will be with you for the next two weeks, so it helps to agree on morning start times and any dietary needs from the outset.

If you arrive early and feel like a short outing, your driver can take you to places in Delhi that first-time visitors often miss. Agrasen ki Baoli, a fourteenth-century stepwell of 108 steps tucked between office blocks near Connaught Place, gives a small preview of the stepwells waiting in Bundi. The Sunder Nursery, a restored Mughal garden beside Humayun's Tomb, has pavilions and tombs set among lawns and is pleasant in the late afternoon. Lodhi Garden, with its fifteenth-century tombs of the Sayyid and Lodi dynasties, is where Delhi residents go for their evening walk, and it costs nothing to enter.

For dinner, the neighbourhood of Nizamuddin Basti, around the shrine of the Sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya, is known for kebabs and slow-cooked nihari, and on Thursday evenings qawwali singers perform at the dargah after sunset. Another choice is a quiet meal at your hotel, as the drive into Rajasthan begins after breakfast tomorrow. Your driver will confirm the departure time before he leaves for the night. Please keep a printed or digital copy of your passport and visa at hand, as hotels in Rajasthan record these details at check-in. Overnight stay in Delhi.

After breakfast you leave Delhi in the middle of the morning, once the worst of the rush-hour traffic has eased, and head south through Gurugram towards the Rajasthan border. The road soon passes into the low, rocky hills of the northern Aravallis, and the land changes from the high-rise suburbs of the capital to fields of mustard and millet and small market towns. Alwar lies about 160 km from Delhi, a drive of three and a half to four hours with a tea stop. It was once the capital of a princely state founded in 1770 by Rao Pratap Singh, and it remains one of the least visited royal towns in the region despite being so close to the capital.

Rooms are ready by lunchtime. Your accommodation here is chosen for its setting, often a heritage property or a lakeside hotel near Siliserh, so the first afternoon can be relaxed. In the late afternoon your local guide takes you to the City Palace complex, known as Vinay Vilas, built in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in a mix of Rajput and Mughal styles. Most of the building is now used as government offices and district courts, but the upper floor holds the Government Museum, with Mughal and Rajput miniature paintings, rare manuscripts, and an armoury of swords and shields.

Behind the palace lies Sagar, a square water tank lined with stepped ghats and small domed pavilions, with the forested hill of Bala Quila rising directly above. Beside it stands the cenotaph of Maharaja Bakhtawar Singh, known locally as Moosi Maharani ki Chhatri, after his queen Moosi, who died on his funeral pyre in 1815. The lower storey is red sandstone, the upper storey white marble, and the ceiling of the upper hall still holds faded paintings of court scenes and the stories of the epics. Your guide explains how Alwar's rulers balanced British, Maratha and Jat power. Overnight stay in Alwar.

The morning starts with a drive up to Bala Quila, the fort that stands about 300 metres above Alwar on a ridge of the Aravallis. It predates the princely state by several centuries and passed through the hands of the Khanzadas, the Mughals, the Marathas and the Jats before Rao Pratap Singh took it in 1775. The road climbs through forest that forms part of the buffer zone of Sariska Tiger Reserve, so entry is by permit from the forest department and visiting hours are limited. Your driver arranges this in advance. On the way up you may see langur monkeys, peacocks and, with luck, a nilgai or two in the scrub.

The fort's walls run for about five kilometres along the hilltop, with 15 large and 51 smaller towers and more than 400 openings for muskets. Babur is said to have spent a night here, and Jahangir lived in the fort for a time during his years in exile, in a building still called the Salim Mahal. Today the palace rooms are largely empty and partly ruined, which makes it easy to wander without crowds. The real reward is the view from the ramparts: the old city of Alwar laid out below, the Sagar tank, the City Palace and, on clear winter days, the hills of Sariska to the south-west.

After lunch you drive about 13 km south-west to Siliserh Lake. In 1845 Maharaja Vinay Singh built a dam here to bring water to Alwar and added a small palace and hunting lodge on the shore for his queen, Shila. The palace is now a state-run hotel, and its terrace café is a good place to sit with tea and watch cormorants and kingfishers working the water. Pedal boats and small motor boats can be hired on the lake. The setting is calm on weekdays and busier at weekends with local families. Return to Alwar for the evening. Overnight stay in Alwar.

After breakfast you leave Alwar on a country road that runs south past Sariska and through the villages of the Aravalli foothills to Bhangarh, about 85 km and two hours away. The town was founded in the late sixteenth century by Madho Singh, younger brother of Raja Man Singh I of Amber, and for about a hundred years it was a prosperous trading place. By the late eighteenth century it had been almost completely abandoned. Today the Archaeological Survey of India looks after the site, and a sign at the gate forbids entry before sunrise and after sunset, a rule that has done more for Bhangarh's fame than any guidebook.

Your guide walks you in through the main gate and along the old bazaar street, where rows of roofless shops still stand on both sides. Beyond them are the temples, which survived far better than the houses because they were built of solid stone. The Gopinath temple, raised on a high plinth, has fine carving on its outer walls, and the Someshwar temple, beside a small pool fed by a spring, is still in use. Nachan ki Haveli, the dancers' house, and the remains of the royal palace stand at the top of the slope, against the side of the hill, with the outer wall following the ridge above.

Local legend tells of a holy man, Guru Balu Nath, who allowed the town to be built on the condition that no shadow fell on his retreat, and of a sorcerer who cursed the town after falling for a princess. Your guide will tell you these stories but also the likely history: drought, famine and the decline of trade routes. In the afternoon you can drive to Ajabgarh, a smaller fort and ruined town nearby, before checking in to your hotel in the countryside near Bhangarh, where the evenings are very quiet and the stars are bright. Overnight stay near Bhangarh.

Today has the longest drive of the tour, so you leave around eight o'clock after an early breakfast. About an hour from Bhangarh you stop at the village of Abhaneri to see Chand Baori, one of the deepest stepwells in India. Built in the ninth century by Raja Chanda of the Nikumbha dynasty, it has around 3,500 narrow steps arranged in a geometric pattern on three sides, falling about 20 metres to the water. The fourth side holds a later pavilion built under Mughal rule. Next to it stands the Harshat Mata temple, damaged in the tenth century, whose broken carvings of dancers and musicians are still laid out in the courtyard.

From Abhaneri the road heads south through Dausa and Lalsot towards Bundi, crossing open farmland where you see camel carts, tractors piled with fodder, and village wells shaded by neem and pipal trees. Your driver will choose a dhaba or a small restaurant for a lunch of local food, such as dal baati churma. As you approach Bundi in the afternoon, the land rises again into a narrow valley in the Aravallis, and you get your first view of the Garh Palace climbing the hill above the town, its pale walls and balconies stacked one above another, and the walls of Taragarh along the ridge.

You check in at your hotel, usually a small haveli guesthouse in the old town, many of which have rooftop terraces facing the palace. Bundi was the capital of the Hada Chauhan Rajputs, and the region of Hadoti, which includes Kota, takes its name from them. It never had the wealth of Jaipur or Udaipur, but its rulers spent generously on water works and paintings. In the evening you walk down to Nawal Sagar, a square artificial lake in the town with a small temple to Varuna, the god of water, half-submerged in the middle, and watch the lights come on across the palace. Overnight stay in Bundi.

The Garh Palace was begun around 1607 by Rao Ratan Singh and extended by later rulers over the following two centuries. You enter through the Hathi Pol, the Elephant Gate, topped by two carved stone elephants with raised trunks. Inside, the Ratan Daulatkhana has a white marble coronation throne, and the Chhatra Mahal and Badal Mahal hold some of the earliest wall paintings in the palace, with blue and green ceilings. Access to some rooms changes with restoration work, and your guide will tell you what is open on the day. Rudyard Kipling stayed in Bundi in the 1880s and wrote that the palace looked as if it had been built by goblins rather than men.

The highlight is the Chitrashala, a courtyard and gallery built by Rao Umed Singh in the eighteenth century, whose walls are covered with murals in the Bundi style. They show Krishna with the gopis, court processions, hunting parties, elephant fights and scenes of daily life, painted in deep blue, turquoise and rust red, and most of them remain bright. Above the palace, a steep path climbs to Taragarh, the Star Fort, built in 1354 by Rao Bar Singh. Its Bhim Burj bastion once carried a huge cannon called Garbh Gunjan. The fort is overgrown and home to bold monkeys, so a stick and a guide are useful.

In the afternoon you visit Raniji ki Baori, the stepwell built in 1699 by Rani Nathavati, a widowed queen of Rao Raja Anirudh Singh. Its narrow, many-levelled shaft is lined with carved pillars, elephant brackets and figures of the ten avatars of Vishnu. The guide then takes you to Nagar Sagar Kund, a pair of matching stepwells in the market square, and the Chaurasi Khambon ki Chhatri, a cenotaph with 84 pillars built in 1683. You finish at Sukh Mahal, a small summer palace on Jait Sagar lake where Kipling stayed. Dinner is on your guesthouse rooftop facing the floodlit palace. Overnight stay in Bundi.

After a slow breakfast you drive about 40 km south to Kota, a journey of under an hour. Kota and Bundi were once one kingdom, but in 1631 the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan granted Kota as a separate state to Madho Singh, a younger son of the Bundi ruler, and the two branches of the Hada family were often at odds after that. Today Kota is a busy industrial city and a national centre for exam coaching, so few foreign travellers stop. That is a pity, because its old palace on the river bank holds one of the best collections of court painting and arms in Rajasthan.

Your guide meets you at the Garh, the City Palace complex built over several centuries beside the Chambal. Part of it houses the Maharao Madho Singh Museum, with silver furniture, royal weapons, howdahs, and rooms painted with murals in the Kota style. Kota painters were known above all for hunting scenes, in which rulers chase tigers and boar through dense jungle, and the murals in the Bada Mahal are among the finest examples. Nearby, the Jag Mandir pavilion sits on an island in the Kishore Sagar lake, built in 1740 by a queen of Kota. You can see it from the lakeside promenade in the old town.

In the late afternoon you take a boat ride on the Chambal river, which flows through a rocky gorge upstream of the city. The Chambal is one of the cleanest rivers in northern India, and the National Chambal Sanctuary downstream protects the gharial, a long-snouted fish-eating crocodile, as well as mugger crocodiles and river birds such as the Indian skimmer and the river tern. On the ride you are likely to see muggers basking on the rocks and cormorants and kingfishers fishing near the banks. Your boat returns at sunset, and you check in at a heritage hotel in Kota, often a former royal residence. Overnight stay in Kota.

This morning you can drive about 10 km to the weaving village of Kaithoon before leaving Kota. It is the home of Kota Doria, a light check-patterned fabric of cotton and silk woven on pit looms, and you can watch the weavers at work in their homes. Then you take the road west, back through Bundi and on to Menal, about 100 km from Kota. Here a group of Shiva temples from the eleventh and twelfth centuries stands on the edge of a deep gorge. The main Mahanaleshwar temple has a tall curved spire and carved walls showing gods, dancers and couples, very much in the style of central Indian temple building.

From July to September, after good rains, a waterfall drops over the edge of the gorge right next to the temples, and the site fills with local families on weekends. The rest of the year it is usually silent, apart from a few langurs and the temple caretaker. Your driver will stop for lunch at Bijolia or along the highway, and Bijolia also has a group of old temples and Jain rock carvings if you would like a second short visit. The road then continues west across the plateau of Mewar, past fields of wheat and poppy, to Chittorgarh, which you reach in the middle of the afternoon.

On a first trip most visitors see Chittorgarh's main monuments in a rush, so this visit takes the longer, quieter road around the eastern side of the plateau. Your guide drives you past the Suraj Pol to the Gaumukh Kund, a spring-fed tank where water flows from a carved cow's mouth, and to the Samidheshwar temple above it. You also see the Kalika Mata temple, the Jain temples around Sat Bis Deori, and the long run of walls at the south end, with views over the plain. You finish at the Vijay Stambh as the sun sets. Overnight stay in Chittorgarh.

After breakfast you drive north-west out of Chittorgarh across the open plain of Mewar towards Deogarh, a journey of about 200 km and four hours. The road heads north-west across farmland towards the Aravalli hills, and on the way your driver can stop at Rajsamand, where the marble embankment of a seventeenth-century lake holds pavilions and carved panels showing the history of Mewar in verse. In the last hour the landscape becomes more broken and rocky, with small lakes, scattered temples and villages where cattle graze on the edges of the fields beside the road.

Deogarh is a small town of around 15,000 people. It was the seat of the Rawats of Deogarh, one of the sixteen senior noble families of the Mewar court, who owed their loyalty to the Maharana of Udaipur. Their palace, Deogarh Mahal, built in the seventeenth century on a hill in the centre of the town, has been run as a heritage hotel by the family for many years. Its rooms have mirror work, painted walls and old family furniture, and the terraces look out over the town and the lake. Members of the family often join guests in the evening, which adds a personal side to the stay.

In the late afternoon your guide or a local host walks you through the town's markets, where silversmiths, cloth sellers and sweet shops line the main street. Deogarh was also a centre of miniature painting in the eighteenth century, and the Deogarh school developed its own style of hunting and court scenes. You visit the Anjaneshwar Mahadev temple, a cave shrine on the edge of town, and return to the hotel in time to watch the sunset from the rooftop as evening bells ring out from the old temples around the lake. Overnight stay in Deogarh.

The day begins with a walk through the farming villages around Deogarh, where your host introduces you to families who grow wheat and maize, keep goats, and draw water from wells with the help of bullocks. You may see potters shaping clay pots on wheels and women grinding spices outside their homes. Many families belong to herding communities such as the Rabaris, recognised by the white clothes and red turbans of the men. Your host explains local customs, such as the painted designs on the walls of village houses for weddings and festivals, and the system of water storage that keeps the village going in the dry season.

Late in the morning you drive about 30 km to Khamli Ghat station for a ride on the metre-gauge railway between Marwar Junction and Mavli. The most scenic stretch, between Khamli Ghat and Goram Ghat, runs for about two and a half hours through deep cuttings, tunnels and bridges in the Aravalli hills, with waterfalls in the monsoon. The line has been marked for conversion to broad gauge, and a heritage service has run on it in recent years, so your driver confirms the timetable in advance and meets you at the end. If the train is not running, a jeep drive through the same hills takes its place.

You return to Deogarh in the middle of the afternoon. The rest of the day is free to rest by the hotel pool, read in one of the palace's courtyards, or walk down to the lake to watch the birds. If the family runs a talk or a cooking demonstration that evening, you are welcome to join. Dinner at Deogarh Mahal is often served on the terrace, with traditional Rajasthani dishes such as laal maas, a spicy red mutton curry, and ker sangri, made with desert beans and berries, along with simpler options. Overnight stay in Deogarh.

After breakfast you leave Deogarh and drive west through the heart of the Aravallis to Narlai, about 110 km away. The road is slow but beautiful, climbing over ridges and dropping into small valleys with villages, Rabari camel herders and fields watered by wells. On the way you pass through the forested slopes on the edge of the Kumbhalgarh Wildlife Sanctuary, and after Desuri the hills give way to the flatter land of Godwar, an old border region that passed between Mewar and Marwar several times. You reach Narlai around midday and check in at your hotel in time for lunch.

Narlai is a village of about 5,000 people, set among large granite rocks. Your stay is usually at Rawla Narlai, a seventeenth-century hunting lodge and fort built by the rulers of Jodhpur, now run as a heritage hotel by members of the same family. Its courtyards and terraces are painted white and blue, and the rooms have old wooden doors, carved balconies and canopy beds. From the roof you can see the great rock that rises behind the village, crowned by a small Shiva shrine and a white elephant statue, which gives the village its best-known landmark and is easy to spot from almost anywhere in Narlai.

In the late afternoon a local guide walks you through the village. Narlai has more than a dozen Jain and Hindu temples, some of them built as early as the tenth century, and several are still in daily use. You pass the house of a village barber, a blacksmith and a family of shoemakers, and stop at the Ashapura Mata temple at the foot of the rock. The walk ends at the old stepwell outside the village, where Rawla Narlai can arrange dinner by lantern light on the steps for an extra charge, a quiet evening with the sounds of the village around you. Overnight stay in Narlai.

An early start is worth it today. Before sunrise a local guide leads you up the granite rock behind the village by a path of roughly 700 stone steps. The climb takes about forty-five minutes at an easy pace, with rests on the way. At the top, beside the small Shiva temple and the white elephant statue, you watch the sun come up over the Aravalli ridges, the fields and the pink and white houses of the village. Langurs often sit on the rocks around the shrine. On the way down, your guide points out caves once used by holy men, and you return to the hotel for a late breakfast.

The rest of the morning is free to relax in the courtyard or at the pool, or to take a bullock-cart or jeep ride into the countryside around Narlai. The ride passes farms, ponds and grazing land where Rabari herders keep camels, goats and sheep, and you may stop at a herder's home for a cup of tea made with goat's milk. The land around Narlai is also part of the range of the leopards that live in the granite hills of the Godwar region, and on evening drives guides sometimes find their tracks or catch a glimpse of one on the rocks.

In the afternoon there is an optional short drive of about 25 km to Ranakpur, if you did not see its marble Jain temple on an earlier trip. Otherwise you can spend the time at the village temples or visit a local school, if your visit falls on a school day and the teachers agree. In the evening the hotel can arrange a performance of folk music by local Langa or Manganiyar musicians in the courtyard, with the castle walls lit by oil lamps. Dinner is at the hotel, and your driver will confirm tomorrow's departure time before you go to bed. Overnight stay in Narlai.

After breakfast you leave Narlai and drive north to Jodhpur, about 160 km and three to three and a half hours. The road crosses Pali district, and the rocky hills of Godwar slowly give way to the flatter, sandier country of Marwar. Your driver can stop at a roadside stall for a glass of sweet milky tea or a plate of mirchi vada, a large fried green chilli stuffed with spiced potato, which is a Jodhpur speciality. You reach Jodhpur around lunchtime and check in at your hotel, ideally a haveli in the old city with a rooftop view of Mehrangarh Fort on its rock above the town.

In the afternoon your local guide takes you to Rao Jodha Desert Rock Park, a 70-hectare park on the rocky ground just below the walls of Mehrangarh. Since 2006 the park has been planted with native plants of the Thar desert and dry rocky land, replacing an invasive mesquite tree that had spread across the area. Walking trails lead through volcanic rock, sandstone outcrops and small gorges, with views of the fort walls above. Your guide explains how desert plants survive with so little water, and you may see birds such as the Indian robin, the rock pigeon and the white-eared bulbul.

From the park you walk down into the old city to Toorji ka Jhalra, a stepwell built in the 1740s by a queen of Maharaja Abhay Singh. For many years it was filled with rubbish, but it was cleared and restored in the 2010s and is now a popular local meeting place, with cafés in the old buildings around its rim. The red sandstone walls are carved with figures of dancing elephants, lions and cows. In the evening you can walk to the Clock Tower and Sardar Market, then eat at one of the rooftop restaurants with a view of the floodlit fort. Overnight stay in Jodhpur.

Even on a second visit to Rajasthan, Mehrangarh is worth a return, and this morning your guide shows you the parts that are often skipped on a short tour. You start early with the fort's own gardens and the Chokelao Bagh, a restored eighteenth-century Rajput garden at the foot of the palace walls, then climb to the museum galleries that hold painting and textile collections. The galleries change their displays from time to time, so there is often something new even for repeat visitors. The Phool Mahal and Takhat Vilas, with their painted walls and ceiling decorations, are among the finest rooms in the fort.

After lunch you drive about 9 km north to Mandore, the old capital of the Marwar rulers before Rao Jodha moved to Mehrangarh in 1459. The gardens here hold the cenotaphs of the Jodhpur Maharajas, built in red sandstone in the style of Hindu temples, with tall carved spires, rather than the domed chhatris seen in other towns. A long hall, the Hall of Heroes, holds a row of large painted figures of folk heroes and gods carved from the rock. The gardens are busy with local families and langurs on most afternoons, and the temples are still in use.

Back in the city, you finish with a guided walk through the blue lanes of the old town in the Brahmpuri area below the fort, where many houses are painted in shades of indigo. Your guide explains the different stories behind the colour, from Brahmin custom to keeping houses cool and insects away. You stop at a spice shop, a family that makes bandhani tie-dyed cloth, and a sweet shop for mawa kachori, a fried pastry filled with sweetened milk. The evening is free for a farewell dinner of your choice. This is the last night of your offbeat Rajasthan tour. Overnight stay in Jodhpur.

After breakfast, your driver takes you to Jodhpur airport, about twenty minutes from the old city, for your included domestic flight to Delhi, which takes around one hour and fifteen minutes. On arrival in Delhi, a Payless Tours India representative meets you and transfers you to your hotel or to the international terminal for your onward flight home. Please share your international flight time when booking so we can choose a suitable Jodhpur departure.