Private villas in Jawai

Jawai does not look like anywhere else in Rajasthan. The country around the dam is granite — smooth grey hills that rise straight out of farmland — and leopards live on them, in the open, alongside the villages and the herders. Almost nowhere else in India has that arrangement worked out quite so calmly.

Jawai Riva Resort is a small camp of canvas tents near Jawai Bandh, in Pali district. It is let to one group at a time, which in this landscape matters more than it would anywhere else: the quiet is the thing you came for.

What there is to do

Look at the hills. Go out early and again before dark, which is when the leopards move and when the granite changes colour. Watch birds on the water — the dam draws a great many. Walk in farmland. Talk to people who have lived alongside large predators for generations and find it unremarkable.

There is no list of attractions here and that is the appeal. It is a place for people who are content to be somewhere rather than to get through something.

Staying under canvas

The tents are proper ones — beds, bathrooms, somewhere to sit — not a camping trip. What canvas gives you is the sound: you hear the night, the wind on the rock, birds before dawn. Guests who expected to find it rough tend to describe it afterwards as the best night's sleep of the trip.

Who it suits

Anyone who likes being outside. Photographers. Birdwatchers. Families with children old enough to be quiet at dusk. Couples who want somewhere genuinely remote without it being uncomfortable.

It suits people who want nightlife or shopping not at all.

When to come

The cool, dry months are the good ones: comfortable days, cold mornings, and the best chance of seeing the hills at their clearest. Summer here is severe. The monsoon turns the whole landscape green and fills the dam, and there is an argument for coming just after it.

Booking

Direct, through this site — no booking fee and no commission, and the camp is small, so it is worth asking early for particular dates.