How the Hadas made a kingdom in a gorge
The kingdom ended, but the town did not change very much. That is exactly why we love it, and why travellers who have done Jaipur and Udaipur so often tell us Bundi was the place that surprised them most.
Who the Hadas are: a branch of the Chauhan Rajputs, the clan of Prithviraj Chauhan. South-eastern Rajasthan still carries their name: Hadoti, the land of the Hadas.
The founding: in 1342 Rao Deva Hada took this pass in the Aravalli hills from the Meena tribes who held it, and made it his capital.
- Founded
- 1342, by Rao Deva Hada
- Clan
- Hada Chauhan Rajputs
- Taragarh
- Traditionally 1354, Rao Bar Singh
- Kota separates
- By 1631
- Joined Rajasthan
- 1948
- Why here: the town sits in a fold of hills with one narrow way in, and water gathers in the valley floor every monsoon. A sensible choice for a small, proud clan.
- The star fort: within a few years the Hadas began Taragarh on the ridge above. Tradition credits Rao Bar Singh with building it in 1354.
- Two centuries of bargaining: Bundi fought and dealt with the Sisodias of Mewar to the west, the Sultans of Malwa to the south, and later the Mughals.
- Ranthambore, 1569: Rao Surjan Hada, who held Ranthambore for Mewar, surrendered it to Akbar after a long siege and entered Mughal service.
- Mughal money: Bundi's rulers became Mughal generals, and that service paid for the palace you see today.
- Kota splits off: Rao Ratan Singh fought for Jahangir, and in his time the land around Kota went to his second son, Madho Singh. By 1631 Kota was a separate state.
- A family rivalry: Bundi the elder and Kota the richer kept it going for three hundred years.
- Samugarh, 1658: Rao Chhatrasal of Bundi died fighting for Dara Shikoh against his brother Aurangzeb. Bundi chose the losing side and never quite forgot it.
- The British and after: in 1818 Bundi signed a treaty with the East India Company and kept its rulers, palace and slow pace of life. In 1948 it joined the new state of Rajasthan.
The blue lanes and the life of the old town
Blue and white lanes: below the palace, the old town is a tight web of lanes between whitewashed and indigo-washed houses.
Why blue: as in Jodhpur, the colour was once associated with Brahmin families, and many say the indigo in the limewash keeps houses cool and insects away. Today it belongs to everyone.
Every lane a shade: powder blue, cornflower, and a deep blue that is almost violet after rain.
- Best time to walk
- Early, before the sun climbs
- The route
- Palace gate down to Sadar Bazaar
- Town lake
- Nawal Sagar, with a Varuna temple
- Dusk
- The whole town gathers at the lake
- Walk early: from the palace gate down towards Sadar Bazaar, before the sun climbs, while the walls are still cool to the touch.
- Nawal Sagar: a square lake in the middle of town with a small temple to Varuna, the water god, standing half-submerged near its centre.
- After the monsoon: when the lake is full, the palace and Taragarh reflect in it upside down.
- A day at the lake: women wash clothes at the ghats in the morning, boys jump in on hot afternoons, and the town strolls its edge at dusk.
- A working bazaar: Bundi is a market town for the farms of Hadoti, selling steel pots, bridal bangles, seeds and spices, turban cloth, and jalebi fried in the evening. Very little is aimed at visitors.
- Painters: a handful in town still work in the Bundi miniature style, and our guides know which are serious artists rather than souvenir sellers.
- The pace: shops close for a long lunch, old men play cards on the steps of the stepwells, and cows have right of way in every lane.
The palace, the murals and the star fort
- Garh Palace
- Built over two centuries from the early 1600s
- Badal Mahal
- Early 17th century murals
- Chitrashala
- Mid-18th century, Rao Umed Singh
- Taragarh climb
- Steep, from the palace
- Rules
- No touching murals, no flash
The Garh Palace and the Hathi Pol
How it grew: built over about two centuries from the early 1600s, each ruler adding a wing higher or lower on the slope.
- The result: not one grand facade but a cascade of terraces, pavilions, brackets and balconies clinging to the hillside.
- The way in: a steep ramp to the Hathi Pol, the Elephant Gate, where two stone elephants raise their trunks above the arch.
- Inside: the Diwan-e-Aam, the hall of public audience, and the Chhatra Mahal, named for Rao Chhatrasal, with fine stone carving and views over the town.
The Badal Mahal, the cloud palace
Why it matters: usually dated to the early seventeenth century, it holds some of the oldest and finest murals in the palace.
- Look up: a painted ceiling of petal-shaped panels, peacocks and figures of Krishna.
- Access: parts of the palace open and close for conservation, and the Badal Mahal has not always been accessible. Our guides know who to ask.
- Please: don't touch the painted surfaces or use a flash.
The Chitrashala, the picture gallery
The one thing to see: if you see only one thing in Bundi, make it this.
Who built it: also called the Ummed Mahal, it was built for Rao Umed Singh in the mid-eighteenth century around a small garden courtyard.
- The murals: walls and ceilings in the Bundi style, turquoise and green with touches of gold.
- The scenes: Krishna with the gopis, the Ras Leela, royal processions, hunting parties, elephants fighting and the city of Bundi itself.
- Look for the monsoon: dark clouds, lightning and women running for shelter. Bundi painters loved the rains more than any other school in Rajasthan.
Taragarh, the star fort
The climb: a steep path from the palace to the ridge, through gates big enough for elephants.
Inside: half ruin, half forest, with water tanks cut into the rock to survive a siege.
- Bhim Burj: the great bastion where a huge cannon known as Garbh Gunjan, the thunder from the womb, once stood.
- The view: the whole valley, the palace, the lakes and the blue town.
- Go prepared: go early, wear real shoes and carry a stick. A large troop of macaques lives here, and they know exactly what a backpack is.
A town of stepwells, lakes and cenotaphs
Baori: a stepwell, a deep shaft of water reached by flights of steps, landings and pillared galleries several storeys down to the water table.
- Stepwells
- More than fifty, few maintained
- Raniji ki Baori
- Built 1699, about 46 m deep
- Cenotaph of 84 pillars
- Built 1683
- Kipling at Sukh Mahal
- 1887
- Kund: a stepped tank, usually square and open to the sky.
- Few survive in use: Bundi has both in abundance, and only a handful are maintained today.
- How they work: see our guide to the stepwells of Rajasthan.
Raniji ki Baori
Who built it: Rani Nathavati, the younger queen of Rao Raja Anirudh Singh, in 1699.
- The descent: about 46 metres through a long, narrow flight of steps, with carved toranas, ornamental arches, framing each stage and stone elephants watching from the walls.
- For the town: it was a public well, not just for the palace.
- When: late afternoon, when the light slants down the steps, or first thing before anyone else.
Dabhai Kund and Nagar Sagar Kund
Dabhai Kund: one of the largest stepped tanks in town, an inverted pyramid of steps so geometric it looks like a drawing.
- Nagar Sagar Kund: a pair of twin tanks in the bazaar, where women still fill pots in the morning.
- Why go: neither is spectacular like Raniji ki Baori, but both show how ordinary Bundi life has always been arranged around water.
Sukh Mahal and Jait Sagar
Where: a short drive north of town, a small summer palace on the bank of Jait Sagar.
- The lake: it fills with lotus after the monsoon.
- Kipling's room: he stayed here in 1887.
- Sunset: a modest pavilion, but egrets in the shallows and hills behind make it one of the most peaceful scenes in Rajasthan.
Kshar Bagh, the royal cenotaphs
What: a walled garden near Jait Sagar holding the chhatris, the domed cenotaphs, of Bundi's rulers and queens.
- Look closely: many plinths carry carved panels of elephants, horses and riders.
- Why go: quiet and shaded, and few visitors find it.
The cenotaph of eighty-four pillars
Who and why: the Chaurasi Khambon ki Chhatri was built in 1683 by Rao Raja Anirudh Singh for Deva, the son of his wet nurse and so his foster brother.
- The building: a double-storeyed pavilion on a high platform on the road south of town, held up by eighty-four carved pillars, with a Shiva lingam at its heart.
- The number: in Hindu belief the soul passes through eighty-four lakh births, and the number is no accident.
Kipling's Bundi
The keeper at Sukh Mahal told Kipling with a straight face that every officer who came there for the hunting was so pleased he never went away again.
The young Kipling: in his early twenties, working for the Pioneer newspaper and touring the Rajput states for a series of travel letters.
- Visit
- Winter of 1887, aged 22
- Writing for
- The Pioneer
- Letters published
- 1888, later Letters of Marque
- Stayed at
- Sukh Mahal, on Jait Sagar
- The letters: published in 1888 and later collected as Letters of Marque.
- On the palace: he wrote with amazed unease, calling it the sort of building men see in uneasy dreams, more the work of goblins than of people.
- You'll understand him: once you have climbed its dark stairways and come out suddenly onto a sunlit painted terrace.
- The Kim story: you'll hear in Bundi that he began writing Kim here. We have never found good evidence for it, so we tell it as a local story, not history.
- Read them before you come: funny, impatient and sometimes unfair, the letters are a rare picture of a princely state at the end of the nineteenth century.
- The same view: Bundi is one of the few places where you can still stand where he stood and see almost what he saw.
- His route: our journal piece on Kipling in Bundi follows it through town.
Where to stay in Bundi
Heritage havelis: the best rooms in Bundi are in old merchants' and priests' houses converted into small hotels by the families who own them.
Haveli Braj Bhushanjee: the most established, a painted family haveli just below the Garh Palace, with murals and miniatures in its rooms and a vegetarian kitchen.
- What to ask for: a room with a view up to the palace, and breakfast on the roof.
- What you trade: less marble and fewer butlers, more intimacy.
- What your hosts know: the man who keeps the key to the stepwell, the painter who still grinds his own pigments, and the best kachori in the bazaar.
- Want a pool and more space: we sometimes base guests in Kota, forty minutes away, and drive in for long days.
- Compare the options: our guides to Bundi's heritage havelis and luxury hotels in Bundi.
What to eat, and what to take home
Kachori: breakfast in Bundi, the region's deep-fried pastry filled with spiced lentils, eaten hot with tangy chutney and a glass of sweet tea.
Kota versus Bundi: Kota's kachori is more famous, but Bundi's sweet shops hold their own.
A Hadoti thali: ask your haveli for dal baati, gatte ki sabzi of gram-flour dumplings in yoghurt gravy, seasonal greens and buttermilk.
- Breakfast
- Kachori and sweet tea
- Lunch
- A Hadoti thali at your haveli
- Coriander in flower
- February
- Take home
- Bundi miniatures, Kota Doria cotton
- Winter treat: maize rotis with jaggery and white butter, straight from the farmhouse.
- Vegetarian kitchens: most haveli kitchens in Bundi are vegetarian, and very good at it.
- Coriander country: in February the fields around Bundi and Kota are white with coriander flowers. You'll taste it everywhere, fresh in chutney and roasted in spice blends.
- Ramganj Mandi: in Kota district, one of the biggest coriander markets in India.
- The Bundi school: Rajput miniature painting famous for lush landscapes, rain clouds, lotus ponds and women with round faces and almond eyes.
- Meet a painter: a few artists still paint in the tradition on paper and silk, and some will show you how they make brushes and grind mineral colours.
- Buy honestly: our miniature painting page explains what to look for.
- Kota Doria: the fine checked cotton is woven just down the road at Kaithoon, near Kota.
When to come, and the festivals worth timing a trip for
October to March: warm days and cool nights, perfect for climbing Taragarh and wandering the lanes.
December and January: mornings can be cold, so bring a shawl.
- Best weather
- October to March
- Cold mornings
- December and January
- Very hot
- April to June, often above 40°C
- Green season
- July to September
- Kajli Teej
- Bhadrapad, usually August
- Bundi Utsav
- Kartik, October or November
- April to June: very hot, often above 40°C, and the stepwells and lakes run low.
- July to September: the hills turn green, the lakes fill and waterfalls appear in the gorges. Humid and sometimes wet, but the town is at its most beautiful and almost yours alone.
- Month by month: our guide to the best time to visit Bundi.
Kajli Teej, in the monsoon
When: the Hindu month of Bhadrapad, usually August. Bundi is known across Rajasthan for it.
- What happens: the goddess Teej is carried in procession through town, women dress in green and leheriya, swings hang from the trees, and the fair fills the evenings.
- Why we love it: it's a local festival, not a show for visitors.
Bundi Utsav, in Kartik
When: the month of Kartik, around October or November, for a few days. The dates move with the lunar calendar, so check before you plan.
- What happens: Rajasthan Tourism holds a procession through town, folk music and dance, crafts, turban-tying contests, traditional games and fireworks.
- Pair it with: Kartik Purnima, the full moon, when lamps are floated on the Chambal at Keshoraipatan nearby.
Diwali and the winter weddings
Diwali: lights up the bazaar and the havelis.
- Wedding season: in winter you'll often hear a brass band before you see the groom on his horse.
- If a family invites you in: accept. Bundi is still small enough for that to happen.
Beyond the town, within an easy drive
- Ramgarh Vishdhari
- Tiger reserve since May 2022
- Keshoraipatan
- About an hour south-east
- Kota
- About forty minutes
- Chittorgarh
- About three hours west
- Ranthambore
- About three hours north-east
Ramgarh Vishdhari Tiger Reserve
What it is: the forests north of Bundi, notified in May 2022 as Rajasthan's fourth tiger reserve.
- Set expectations: tiger numbers are still small, so don't come expecting Ranthambore.
- Its real value: a corridor between Ranthambore and Mukundra, and a wild, quiet landscape of hills and dry forest.
- How we go: drives with local naturalists, when the forest department allows them.
Keshoraipatan on the Chambal
- The temple: Keshav Rai, above the Chambal river, built by Rao Chhatrasal of Bundi in the seventeenth century.
- Kartik Purnima: pilgrims bathe in the river and float lamps on the water at dusk.
Kota, the other Hada capital
What to see: the region's other great palace, a museum of hunting paintings, and the broad Chambal river.
- Character: a busy modern city, but its old quarter rewards a day.
- Read more: our Kota guide.
Chittorgarh and Ranthambore
- Between two great names: Chittorgarh, the most storied fort in Mewar, lies west, and Ranthambore's tigers north-east.
- All three together: many of our guests combine them on our offbeat Rajasthan journey.
Getting to Bundi and getting around
From Jaipur: about four hours on a good highway through farmland and small towns, a natural stop between Jaipur and Udaipur or Chittorgarh.
By train: Kota Junction, about forty minutes away, is on the main Delhi to Mumbai line, with fast overnight and day trains from Delhi. Bundi has its own small station too.
- From Jaipur
- About four hours by road
- Nearest main station
- Kota Junction, about 40 minutes
- Nearest airport in use
- Jaipur
- Taragarh climb
- Twenty to thirty minutes
- By air: Kota has had no regular commercial flights for many years. A new Kota-Bundi airport is under construction, so for now we fly guests into Jaipur and drive.
- In the old town: the lanes below the palace are too narrow for cars. Your driver drops you at the palace gate or the bazaar, and you explore on foot.
- Up to Taragarh: a steep climb of twenty to thirty minutes from the palace. Some guests take a vehicle round to the upper gate, and we arrange that when the road is open.
- Long drives: our guide to getting around Rajasthan explains how we plan them so you arrive in good light, not in the dark.
Two days in Bundi, at Bundi's pace
With a third night: add Ramgarh Vishdhari, or a day in Kota and the Chambal gorge.
- Longer versions: our Bundi itinerary.
- Everything else worth your time: things to do in Bundi.
Day one, the palace and the stepwells
Opening time: climb to the Garh Palace before the heat.
Morning: unhurried time in the Chitrashala and the Chhatra Mahal with a guide who can read the murals for you.
- Late morning: down through the blue lanes to Raniji ki Baori and Nagar Sagar Kund, then lunch and a long rest.
- Late afternoon: walk around Nawal Sagar and watch the palace turn gold in the water.
- Evening: dinner on your haveli roof.
Day two, Taragarh and the lakes
First light: walk up to Taragarh while the valley is still in mist and the monkeys are sleepy.
- After breakfast: drive out to the cenotaph of eighty-four pillars and Dabhai Kund.
- Afternoon: Kshar Bagh, then Sukh Mahal for sunset over Jait Sagar, Kipling's view.
- Evening: a painter's studio and a last thali.
What we tell friends before they go to Bundi
Wear proper shoes: the palace ramps, the fort path and the stepwell steps are steep, uneven and polished smooth by centuries of feet.
Mind the macaques: carry nothing that looks like food on the way up to Taragarh, and keep sunglasses in a zipped bag. They are fast and bold.
- Stepwell safety: they are deep and many have no railings. Keep children close and don't sit on the edges.
- Ask before photographing people: especially women at the kunds and ghats. Most will say yes if asked, and almost nobody likes being photographed without warning.
- Small notes: Bundi has ATMs and many shops take phone payments, but the old town still runs on cash.
- No nightlife: Bundi goes to bed early. The best evening is a rooftop, a lamp and the sound of the town settling down.
- Steered to a shop: if a painter or guide seems to be steering you somewhere, say no politely. Our guides are paid never to take commissions.
