The Renaissance Of Rajasthan

India's ancient (and largest) state is awash in stunning new high-end hotels and so much more.

- Lee Cobaj

CONSIDER THE DOMED and turreted palaces that took 22 generations to complete, their walls inlaid with rubies, jade, jasper, onyx and cornelian. Or the thrones hewn from single blocks of serpentine, the porcelain tiles studded with diamonds and the lifesized white-marble elephants standing sentry in jasmine-scented gardens. Few monarchies have ever matched the opulence of Rajasthan’s royal courts at their peak.

For more than a millennium, these unimaginable riches drew marauders from all corners—Arabs, Seljuks, Chalukyas, Mamluks, Mughals and eventually, the Brits. Finally, in the early 1970s, an independent India stripped the royal dynasties of the last of their titles and much of their wealth. To endure, a few former maharajahs took the hotelier route. Jaipur’s Rambagh Palace went on to host Queen Elizabeth II and Jacqueline Kennedy, while illustrious guests of the floating Taj Lake Palace in Udaipur have included Diana, Princess of Wales, and (fictionally) James Bond, played by Sir Roger Moore, who arrived at the hotel disguised as a crocodile in the 1983 film Octopussy. Both destinations are still considered among the world’s best, with US$1,000-per-night rooms luxurious enough to stupefy even the wealthiest, but little of note had happened in the world of Rajasthan hospitality since the British secret agent slithered through the Lake Palace’s back door some four decades ago.