The elder branch of Mewar, by the lake
After Independence the family stayed. Lakshman Singh went on to a long political career, and his descendants still live in the palace today. Opening part of it to guests was a way to keep a great house alive, and it is why a stay here feels less like a hotel than a visit.
An older line: in the twelfth century Samant Singh, the eldest son of a ruler of Mewar, carved out a kingdom in the hills to the south. That kingdom was Vagad, and its rulers kept the title of Rawal, later Maharawal.
- Ruling house
- Ahara Guhilots of Vagad
- Town founded
- Traditionally 1282, by Rawal Vir Singh
- Palace built
- Mid-nineteenth century
- Builder
- Maharawal Udai Singh II, ruled 1846 to 1898
- Enlarged
- 1940s, with three new wings
- The town of hills: Dungarpur was founded, by tradition, in 1282 by Rawal Vir Singh, on land taken from a Bhil chieftain named Dungaria. Our Dungarpur guide tells that uncomfortable founding story plainly.
- The old palace: for centuries the rulers lived in Juna Mahal, the seven-storey palace on the hill, adding rooms and murals generation after generation.
- A palace by the water: in the mid-nineteenth century Maharawal Udai Singh II built a new palace on the shore of Gaib Sagar, the old lake of the town. It carries his name.
- The last ruler: Maharawal Lakshman Singh, who came to the throne as a boy in 1918, enlarged Udai Bilas in the 1940s with three new wings, and the family moved here from Juna Mahal.
Three palaces in one
The Raniwas: the queens' quarters, once the private world of the royal women and their households.
Udai Bilas itself: the main palace, with its halls, verandas and long views across Gaib Sagar.
- The Ek Thambiya Mahal: the palace of a single pillar, also called Krishna Prakash, a small many-storeyed pavilion rising from a courtyard, and the heart of the whole place.
- Blue-grey stone: one wing, built of pareva, the local blue-grey stone of Vagad, rises straight from the water. In some light the stone turns almost green.
- Carving everywhere: the Ek Thambiya Mahal is covered in sculpted pillars, panels, ornate balconies and friezes, with musicians, dancers and gods worked into the stone.
- Return at different hours: the carving changes as the light moves. Morning is soft, late afternoon throws every figure into relief.
Gaib Sagar, the lake at the door
Temples on the shore: a complex of temples to Shrinathji, the child Krishna, stands on the banks, and across the water the Vijay Rajrajeshwar temple is dedicated to Shiva and Parvati.
Morning life: bathers, worshippers, washermen and fishermen arrive at first light. Watch with respect, and keep long lenses down at the bathing places.
- Best hour
- Dawn, from the palace terraces or the bund
- On the banks
- Temples to Shrinathji
- Across the water
- The Vijay Rajrajeshwar temple
- Winter birds
- Cormorants, egrets, herons, ducks
- Birds in winter: cormorants, egrets, herons, ducks and kingfishers, sometimes with painted storks and spoonbills on the shallows. Our birding page covers the best sites across Rajasthan.
- Walk the bund: the embankment makes a lovely dawn walk with binoculars, or a slow stroll as the lamps come on at the temples in the evening.
- After the monsoon: the lake is fullest from late August to October, when the palace reflection is at its most perfect.
Juna Mahal, arranged from the palace
What it is: the old palace of the Maharawals, seven storeys on a high platform of pareva, begun in the late thirteenth century and added to until the nineteenth.
Why it survived: the family moved to Udai Bilas and never turned the old palace into a hotel, so its painted interiors were left almost untouched.
- The murals: court life, festivals, hunts, gods and the love stories of Krishna, much of the finest work by an artist named Devji between 1864 and 1875.
- The glass rooms: a Shish ka Kamra, a room of mirror and coloured glass, and the Chini Gokhada, a balcony set with 144 English blue-and-white Willow Pattern plates.
- Recognition: the World Monuments Fund placed Juna Mahal on its 2014 Watch list.
- How to visit: Juna Mahal is privately owned by the family, and visits are arranged through Udai Bilas. Let us book yours for the morning, with a guide who knows the rooms.
Staying as a guest of the house
The feel: long verandas, family portraits and photographs, old furniture and a hundred years of history on the walls. The family's presence is felt rather than performed.
The rooms: no two are alike, and all have their own bathrooms and air conditioning. Some are grand, some simple, and a few show their age. We tell you honestly what to expect.
- The room to ask for: a lake-facing room in the old wing, where you wake to the water. We request it for our guests.
- The pool: a pool by the lake is where guests spend the hot middle of the day.
- The pace: quiet and unhurried. There is no nightlife, no shopping arcade and no rush, which is precisely why people come.
- Meeting the family: members of the family are well known in the town and sometimes meet guests. Our page on meeting Rajasthan's royal families explains the etiquette.
Cars, collections and an honest word on trophies
The Dungarpur Mews: the family's classic and vintage cars, kept in their own museum. Car lovers should allow an hour. Our vintage and classic cars page lists the other royal collections we can open.
- A museum for a Maharani: a museum named for Maharani Manhar Kumari opened in 2015, showing objects gathered by the family.
- Hunting trophies: a room of old trophies from the days of shikar, the royal hunt, survives from another era. We mention it honestly, and some guests choose to skip it.
- Everyday treasures: look at the photographs in the corridors and dining room. They are the best history lesson in the palace.
Eating at the palace
Where you eat: in the dining room or the banquet hall, among family portraits, crystal chandeliers and the trophies of old hunts, or on a terrace over the lake.
Family recipes: ask for the palace's own dishes: game-style meat now made with farm-raised meat, laal maas with its red chilli, slow-cooked dals and sweets rich with ghee and dry fruit.
- Vagad food: makki ki roti, thick maize flatbread, with dal, green chilli and garlic chutney or buttermilk kadhi. In winter, sarson ka saag and fresh jaggery.
- Vegetarian and Jain: southern Rajasthan's Jain and Brahmin traditions run deep, and the cooks are used to cooking without onion and garlic.
- A terrace dinner: a private palace dinner on the terrace over Gaib Sagar is one of our favourite evenings in the south. Our Rajasthani food guide describes the regional dishes.
Beyond the palace walls
- Deo Somnath
- Under an hour, on the Som river
- Baneshwar
- About an hour and a half
- Banswara
- About two hours east
- Galiakot
- On the bank of the Mahi river
Deo Somnath
- What it is: an old Shiva temple of pale stone on the bank of the Som river, usually dated to around the twelfth century.
- When to go: the late afternoon, when the stone turns gold and village families come down to the water.
Galiakot
- What it is: the shrine of Syedi Fakhruddin, one of the most important pilgrim places of the Dawoodi Bohra community.
- How to visit: with respect and modest dress. The quiet, clean precincts are a striking contrast to the busy fairs of the region.
Baneshwar
- What it is: the confluence of the Som and Mahi rivers, with a Shiva temple and temples linked to the eighteenth-century saint Mavji.
- The fair: in January or February, in the month of Magh, the great Bhil gathering often called their Kumbh. We confirm the dates each year.
Banswara
- What it is: Dungarpur's sister town across the Mahi, founded by a younger son after the battle of Khanwa in 1527, greener still and dotted with the islands of the Mahi dam.
- How we do it: a long day trip from Udai Bilas, with the Tripura Sundari temple on the way.
A village market
- What it is: a weekly haat, where Bhil families buy and sell grain, livestock, silver jewellery, cloth and tools.
- How to behave: go with a local guide, buy something, eat at a stall and treat it as a market, not a spectacle. We never ask families to perform.
Vagad, the green south around the palace
What Vagad is: the old name for the country of Dungarpur and Banswara, the southernmost corner of Rajasthan where it meets Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.
The landscape: low, rounded hills and broad valleys drained by the Mahi and its tributaries the Som and the Jakham, far wetter than the desert to the north.
- The language: people speak Vagdi, a language of the Bhili family that blends Rajasthani, Gujarati and the speech of Malwa. Our guides will teach you a few words.
- The Bhils: one of India's largest Adivasi communities, and a very large part of the population here. Families live in scattered hamlets called phalas, each house beside its own fields.
- Mewar's emblem: the royal arms of Mewar show a Bhil archer beside a Rajput, honouring the forest people who fought with the Rajput kings.
- Stone carvers: pareva, the blue-grey stone of the palaces, is quarried in the district. We can arrange a visit to a carving workshop, where the stone rings under the chisel.
What most guests miss
The palace from the water's edge: walk around Gaib Sagar to the far bank at sunset and look back. The reflection of the palace is the view on every postcard.
- The lamps at the Shrinathji temples: evening prayers on the lake shore, with bells, lamps and families arriving after work.
- The corridors: old photographs of hunts, durbars and weddings line the walls. Ask about the people in them.
- The pareva in rain: after a shower, the blue-grey stone darkens and turns almost green. Monsoon guests see the palace at its most dramatic.
When to stay at Udai Bilas
October to March: warm days, cool nights, the lake full after the rains and the winter birds in. The best time for Juna Mahal and the river temples.
The monsoon: heavy rain and an astonishing green across the Vagad hills. Beautiful, though some rural roads become difficult.
- Best months
- October to March
- Greenest
- July to September
- Avoid
- April to June, hot and humid
- Great fair
- Baneshwar, January or February
- Summer: April to June is hot and humid. We would only bring you for a brief stay.
- Festivals: Holi in February or March is celebrated with days of drums and dancing in the Bhil villages, and Diwali lights Gaib Sagar in October or November.
- Navratri: in September or October, nine nights of devotion and garba dancing, a sign of how close Vagad is to Gujarat.
Who will love Udai Bilas, and who may not
Art lovers: if painted walls make your heart beat faster, the Ek Thambiya Mahal and Juna Mahal are reason enough to come.
Repeat visitors: travellers who have seen Jaipur and Jodhpur find Dungarpur a revelation, and our journal on the palaces of Dungarpur explains why.
- Birders and photographers: a lake at dawn with almost nobody on it, and winter waterbirds on the shallows.
- Road travellers: anyone driving between Rajasthan and Gujarat will find no better place to break the journey.
- Who may not love it: travellers who want polish, a full spa, famous sights and nightlife. Dungarpur is a small provincial town, and the palace is a family home, not a resort.
- Families: children enjoy the lake, the pool and the cars. The quiet pace suits families who are happy to slow down.
How Udai Bilas fits our journeys
Offbeat Rajasthan: with Bundi and Chittorgarh, Dungarpur is one of the three heart stops on our offbeat Rajasthan journey. We often pair it with Castle Bijaipur near Chittorgarh.
- Into Gujarat: on our Mount Abu and Gujarat and Rajasthan and Kutch journeys, a night or two here turns a long road day into a highlight.
- From Udaipur: guests with a spare two nights after Udaipur drive south for a completely different Rajasthan.
- For royal history: combine it with a stay inside the City Palace at Shiv Niwas Palace to see both branches of the Guhilot house.
Getting to Udai Bilas Palace
By road: almost all our guests come by private car with a chauffeur, who stays with you for day trips to the river temples and Banswara.
- Nearest airport
- Maharana Pratap Airport, Udaipur
- From Udaipur
- About 110 km, two to two and a half hours
- From Ahmedabad
- About three and a half to four hours
- By rail
- A station on the Udaipur to Ahmedabad line
- From Ahmedabad: Ahmedabad has a large airport with wide connections, which makes Dungarpur a good first or last stop on a journey between Gujarat and Rajasthan.
- In town: the old city around Juna Mahal is best walked. Your driver waits at each sight.
- Planning the drive: our getting around guide explains how we time road days so you arrive for the evening light.
What we tell friends before Udai Bilas
Book Juna Mahal with your room: visits are arranged through the palace, and mornings are best.
Dress modestly: for the temples and for Galiakot, cover shoulders and knees and carry a scarf.
- Ask before photographing: many people are happy to be photographed, some are not, and a no is final, especially at village markets.
- Don't hand out gifts to children: no sweets, money or pens. If you want to give, ask us how to do it properly.
- Pack for the climate: southern Rajasthan is humid. Light cotton, a hat and mosquito repellent after the monsoon.
- Expect a home, not a resort: service is warm and personal rather than polished, and that is the charm.