Rawla Bisalpur Jawai | The Innkeeping Co.

Room

The Hotel

Rawla Bisalpur, nestled in the charming village of Jawai - Bisalpur, is a small historic palace with four exquisite rooms. These hotel rooms are converted from the royal family’s 1930s Indo-European villa guest house, adjacent to their main 18th-century ancestral palace, now an atmospheric relic. Re-furbished by the family in 2019, the hotel offers memorable experiences like an evening safari to spot leopards, farm picnics, bicycle tours and sundowners by the Jawai Lake. The landscape is striking, with smooth granite rocks, sculptural cacti, and vibrant yellow wildflowers.

he Rawla itself is a colonial remnant — neither palace nor haveli — but something humbler and unique. Its architecture is spare, its palette muted. It doesn’t overwhelm the senses, but steadies them — offering a refuge from the colour and chaos of Rajasthan.

This is not a hotel that overwhelms or entertains.

It grounds you.

It invites you.

And if you listen closely, it reminds you.

Stay

At the edge of an ancient rock face in Rajasthan lies Rawla Bisalpur—a heritage Indo-European villa built beside the ruins of an 18th-century palace. First created in 1930 as guest quarters for the palace estate, the villa was designed with timeless sensibility: cool in summer, warm in winter, and open to soft breezes all year round.

Here, among breezy corridors and shaded terraces, are four Jodhpur Lancer Rooms—each with an en suite bathroom and quiet views across the estate. Mornings begin with birdsong, evenings end in firelight, and in between, the rhythm of Rawla invites rest, reflection, and reverie.

This is not just a place to stay—it is a place to belong, if only for a little while.

Food and Drink

In our kitchens, we don’t serve hotel food. We cook as we always have — with seasonal produce, daily-fresh ingredients, and recipes passed down with quiet insistence. Nutrition, simplicity, and soul on every plate.

The ingredients come largely from the estate’s own fields in Bisalpur—handpicked herbs, sun-warmed vegetables, fragrant spices grown just beyond the walls.

The old stables, once home to the noble Marwari horses, have been reborn as a space for slow afternoons and golden evenings—where a cold gin & tonic meets a warm, home-cooked thali, and conversations wander like the desert wind.

Come evening, the firepit is lit by the pool, and the smell of slow-cooked meats and spiced vegetables fills the night air. Here, under a canopy of stars, the warrior traditions of Rajputana live on—through food, through fire, and through the pleasure of storytelling.

Tea comes from Darjeeling, coffee from the lush estates of South India—but everything else comes from here, and from the heart.

Suites

In and Around

"We drank tea on the banks of the Jawai Dam while crocodiles basked on rocks, and when the call of a leopard sighting came through, our SUV raced across giant boulders just in time to watch a beautiful mother leave her cubs in search of supper."
—The Times, London

At Rawla Bisalpur, life unfolds differently.

Our Earth Pool, carved into the very landscape of Jawai, feels less like a swimming pool and more like a secret held by the earth — raw, elemental, and in quiet dialogue with the surrounding hills.

Each day begins and ends with temple prayers, held in our estate’s historic shrine — an unbroken rhythm that ties us to the land, our ancestors, and the sky above. There are no loudspeakers or show — just incense, chants, and stillness.

You might find yourself walking through the village with one of our family members — not as a tour, but as a shared routine. A gentle hello to a goat herder. A visit to our neighbours. A moment with the community that has been around.

That time can move slowly.

That silence is a luxury.

And that eccentricity, when rooted in quiet purpose, is the most soulful kind of hospitality.

You will also find yourself setting out on a leopard drive with the Singh brothers and their local trackers — into the serene, largely private wilderness around the Rawla and the Jawai Dam. Far from the crowded trails, these drives offer quiet, respectful encounters with the leopards in their natural habitat — intimate, unhurried, and deeply mindful of the land they call home.