This property in Jawai shows what a responsible wildlife escape should be like!

The black tar roads started showing grains of sand long before we ar rived, which was the first sign that Rajasthan was shifting into a different register. Forts gave way to rocky hills, the landscape dried out and opened up, and somewhere along that drive, the rural life of the interior made itself impossible to ignore. Rabari shepherds in white angrakhas and lal pagdhis moved their flocks along the roadside; women in colourful bandhani dupattas walked beside their livestock.

Little did we know that this traditional attire would soon be worn by us just moments later when we arrived at Brij Pola Jawai. The welcome ritual here didn’t just include an aarti thaal and refreshing drinks, but also being dressed in a pagadi and a dupatta. The colours happened to match our outfits almost exactly, which delighted us far more than they should have. We kept the look on for the rest of the day.

What did bother us, though, was a small geographical mystery: why was the hotel called Pola when it sat in Pali? The team laughed and explained — the hill right behind the property gave it its name, and that hill sits within a leopard’s territory. Escorting us to our room, they further explained that the property has just four tents. If a leopard decides to stroll by, then we can enjoy the view from the comfort of our bed.

The Luxury Tents made the word ‘tent’ feel inadequate and felt more like a khema (lavish, intricately designed portable pavilion used by the royalty of Rajputana in the bygone eras). Each one covers 2,500 square feet, offering a fully furnished living, sleeping, study, closet, bath and multiple outdoor seating areas. It also boasts a stone-carved bathtub positioned to face the hills and an outdoor open sky shower, besides a regular shower option.

Lunch was savoured at the restaurant where we devoured the thali boasting ker sangri, laal maas, Pali gatte ki sabji, bajre ki roti, dal baati churma and chaas. In between bites was also when we properly understood Jawai. The town sits above granite rock formations that are billions of years old — some of the oldest on the subcontinent — and for most of its existence, it remained almost entirely unknown outside the region. The post-pandemic travel wave changed that, pulling wildlife lovers and curious travellers past the familiar royal circuits of Rajasthan into this quieter corner of the Pali district.

Brij’s approach to the place it sits in is also worth learning about. The property does not use heavy concrete construction, hires staff almost entirely from the surrounding villages, sources its kitchen ingredients locally (including the vegetable garden behind the restaurant) and treats the coexistence of wild leopards and Rabari herdsmen not as a selling point but as something to actively protect. But, the most impressive aspect of it all is how Brij accommodates dedicated spaces for various activities — besides pool, spa and restaurant — on a small piece of land — respecting the sensitivity this region.

We slept through the afternoon without meaning to and woke up close to sunset to find the jeep already waiting to whisk us away into the wild. Our first safari session here commenced in that golden window before dusk, which turned out to be a beautiful experience. Jawai gets its reputation from the leopards, but peacocks, hyenas, sloth bears, wolves, crocodiles and over a hundred species of migratory birds share this terrain.

The off-roading was something we had not anticipated. The granite formations looked smooth from a distance, but the jeep climbed them anyway, tilting at angles that felt close to vertical on both ascent and descent. At the steepest points, the instinct to hold on competed directly with the instinct to look out, and the landscape won. The dam in the distance, the hills rolling into each other, the whole river going amber — you look whether you mean to or not.

Suddenly, we spotted the leopard near the summit. She moved into a cave and then turned back to peer out. Behind her, briefly, two cubs stepped into the open, as if she had instructed them to be polite and greet the guests. It lasted no more than a few seconds but was worth catching their glimpse.

Before the jeep came back down, we had one more thing to do. Sunset high tea was served on top of the hills — the dam catching the last of the light below us, while wild hares hopped between the boulders when we sat still enough.

Later that night, we found ourselves by the pool, necks craned upward, genuinely trying to count stars we hadn’t noticed before. A special candle-lit experience was set up for us by the pool, where we enjoyed the meal course by course. Ready to call it a day, we had planned to hit the pillow as soon as we reached the room, but back at the tent, we found the stone bathtub bubbling with bath salts and warm water — the kind formulated for the particular aches that come from a day spent across rugged terrain — and the bed was made before we’d thought to ask for it. Perks of having 24-hour butler service at the hotel. So, we simply tuned into our lo-fi playlist and jumped into the tub. Between the sore muscles unknotting and a relaxing sleep, the night took care of itself.

The second morning was all about birdwatching at a small lake near the property. More than a hundred resident and migratory species gather there through the year, and our naturalist didn’t just point them out — he explained the behaviour, the logic of where each bird chose to be. Breakfast came after, laid out at the foothills of Pola Hill: kachoris, parathas and a generous fruit platter, were eaten on a lounger under an umbrella with the hill towering before us. Then it was time for a pottery session with a local artisan in the garden, followed by a walk through the kitchen’s vegetable patch to see what’s in season.

The village visit that afternoon was the part of the trip we talked about most on the drive home. From a barber working under a tree to a potter shaping clay at his wheel at the entrance to his own home and elders gathering beneath the big banyan for welfare conversations — we observed what life looks like here. A friendly family opened their home for us to feed their camels and their baby buffalo, which was as chaotic and warm as it sounds.

Later, we crossed over to Jawai Bandh — the Jawai Dam — the largest water reservoir in western Rajasthan, built across the Jawai River. On the granite rocks at the water’s edge, dozens of mugger crocodiles, between 13 and 15 feet each, lay absolutely still in the sun. They had no reason to move, and they knew it.

The same evening, the safari delivered a close-up view of a leopard sibling pair, seated together at the peak of a hill, yawning at the sunset. We watched them for a while before retreating to our sojourn. We learnt a lot about this destination, its people, culture and fauna because a single expert naturalist was assigned to us for every outdoor activity across our entire stay. Not a rotation of guides, the same person from start to finish, which means each activity builds on the previous one rather than starting from scratch.

Dinner was a live BBQ on the grounds, accompanied by live folk musicians performing well-known local hits. We relished starters off the grill — kebabs, rich curries and local breads and then the gajar ka halwa arrived and made everything else secondary. It was the best we had ever had in our lives.

Our last morning here was dedicated to having breakfast amidst a farm. We walked through the fields first, learning about the crop in season, and then had the meal cooked in front of us right there in the middle of it all. It was the simplest meal of the trip and somehow, the most satisfying.

Before we left, we finally made it to the hotel’s newest addition — Arama. A newly built wellness spa is set just above the restaurant. After two days of granite hills and open jeeps and no shortage of walking, our muscles had earned something and a signature full-body deep tissue massage was the perfect way to fix it.

By the end of it, leaving felt difficult because Jawai hasn’t been overrun yet. The leopards still have the hills largely to themselves, the villages still open their doors to tourists without a second thought, and a property like Brij Pola helps you discover the soul of the destination rather than simply scratch it off your bucket list.

₹45,000 onwards. At Jawai, Rajasthan. Nearest airport: Udaipur. Nearest railheads: Mori Bera and Jawai Bandh.

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