Ranthambore Fort

Bundi

Bundi is what Rajasthan looked like before the tour buses found it, and it is an hour off the Jaipur to Udaipur road that most people never take. The palace above the town is only partly open and partly falling down, and the Chitrashala inside it holds some of the finest surviving Rajput miniature wall painting anywhere — blue-green, crowded with detail, and you will very likely see it alone. Above the palace, Taragarh fort is overgrown and full of monkeys; go up for the view over the lake and the blue houses, and take a stick for the langurs. Raniji ki Baori is the stepwell to see. Bundi has dozens of them, most neglected, and this one is deep, precise and almost always empty. There is very little here in the way of nightlife, shopping or restaurants, and that is the point. Two nights, on foot. October to March. The town is at its best right after the monsoon when the lake is full — by April it draws down and the setting loses a good deal.