Discover Rathore Traditions and Wilderness at The Mountbatten Lodge

nature storytelling

village tour

Curated & Hosted By

The Mountbatten Lodge

Location

Rajasthan

India

Duration

4 Days/3 Nights

Price Starts At

$1,439 Per Room

About The Journey

The Mountbatten Lodge offers you a different way into Rajasthan, shaped by the Singh family’s long relationship with the state’s wilderness and rural landscapes. Conceived by Reggie Singh as a hunting lodge, it sits quietly in the Aravalli Hills near Ranakpur, on the edge of the Kumbhalgarh Wildlife Sanctuary.

On this wonderful journey, you’ll get to share lunch beneath a 300-year-old banyan tree, track leopards through the granite hills, and spend an evening listening to Manganiyar and Langa musicians whose traditions have travelled through Marwar for generations.

Enjoy nature storytelling that brings the wildlife and local traditions into focus, followed by a leisurely countryside drive through Rajasthan’s rural surroundings. Enjoy your stay with fine dining, where carefully prepared dishes and thoughtful service make each meal part of the experience.

The surroundings also place you close to Kumbhalgarh Fort and the Ranakpur Jain Temples, while the nearby hills invite a closer look at Rajasthan beyond its better-known landmarks.

Come stay with us and discover the wilderness, heritage and living traditions of this beautiful corner of Rajasthan.

CURATED & HOSTED BY

The Mountbatten Lodge

Rajasthan, India

View All

STANDARD PRICE

$1,439

Per Room

3 Nights / 4 Days, Double occupancy

STARLIFE MEMBER PRICE

$1,251

Per Room

Save $188 | Members Only

Pricing is based on double occupancy and does not include taxes. Rates may vary for higher room categories, seasonal travel periods, and special requests. Group booking benefits and solo traveller discounts are available.

9 EXPERIENCES | ALL INCLUSIVE

The moments that make

this journey

STAR PARTNER

Rajasthan, India

Begin Here, Lunch in the Shadow of an Ancient Banyan

Nature Storytelling

The Mountbatten Lodge

A banyan doesn’t grow up so much as outward. It drops roots from its branches, and where they reach the ground they thicken into new trunks, until a single tree becomes something closer to a small wood — one organism wearing many stems. The one you lunch beneath has been doing this for about three hundred years, which makes it older than the Lodge, the road in, and most of what stands around it. Shade like this has always been where the day slows in rural Rajasthan: where people eat, wait out the heat, and settle things. You arrive, and they set lunch where the whole area has gathered for generations — under the tree that keeps making more of itself.

STAR PARTNER

Rajasthan, India

Cool Off, Then Meet the Neighbours of Ranakpur

Village Tour

The Mountbatten Lodge

The afternoon is yours before it's anyone else's, stretched out by your private pool as the Rajasthan sun softens toward evening. When you're ready, step beyond the Lodge's boundary and into a tribal village close by, where daily life carries on exactly as it has for generations, unconcerned with your visiting. Walk without an agenda, taking in courtyards, colours, and the rhythm of a place that isn't performing for guests. It's a short journey in distance but a proper crossing in feeling, from the calm of your pool to the pulse of a village that owes you nothing.

STAR PARTNER

Rajasthan, India

Cross the Oldest Hills on Earth at Dusk

Countryside Drive

The Mountbatten Lodge

The hills you climb in the jeep this evening are the oldest still standing on Earth. The Aravallis rose more than two billion years ago, when the only life on the planet was single-celled, and they once stood as high as the Himalayas — which came up a billion years after them. What you drive over now are the worn-down roots of that range, ground to low ridges by an unimaginable stretch of time. The four-wheel-drive takes you up as the light drops and the ridges go from grey to gold to blue. You stop where the view opens. Nothing in the Himalayas is near this old; you are watching sunset on the end of something ancient.

STAR PARTNER

Rajasthan, India

Dinner at The Lodge

Fine Dining

The Mountbatten Lodge

The evening closes with dinner back at The Mountbatten Lodge, a relaxed, unhurried meal that rounds out a full first day. After lunch beneath the banyan, an afternoon by the pool, and sundowners over the Aravalli Hills, this dinner offers a natural moment to settle in fully, no more driving, no more schedule, just good food and quiet conversation before turning in. It's designed as a gentle wind-down rather than an event in itself, a chance to rest properly ahead of the horse safari beginning the following morning. There's a deliberate calm to this final hour of the day, the Lodge at its most restful, lights low, the evening air cooling after the heat of the afternoon. Guests leave the table ready for an early start, the first day's adventures behind them and several more, on horseback, waiting just ahead.

STAR PARTNER

Rajasthan, India

Stand Beneath Ranakpur's Carved White Marble Temple

Temple Visit

The Mountbatten Lodge

Breakfast done, head just nine kilometres from the Lodge to the Ranakpur Jain Temple, one of India's most remarkable architectural treasures. It rises out of the Aravalli range in white marble, every surface carved with a patience that's hard to comprehend, pillars, ceilings and doorways, each one different from the last. Morning light moves through the stone and softens it, and walking slowly feels right here, rushing does not. This is one of Rajasthan's most significant cultural and spiritual landmarks, and standing inside it, surrounded by centuries of careful hands, the reason becomes clear at once. Peaceful, precise, and entirely its own.

STAR PARTNER

Rajasthan, India

Track Leopards in the Granite Hills

Wildlife Spotting

The Mountbatten Lodge

This corner of the Aravallis holds one of the densest leopard populations anywhere — cats that live in the granite hills, dozing in caves and crevices by day and moving at dusk. What makes it unusual is who they share it with. The Rabari, the herders in white and red, treat the leopard as sacred, tied to Shiva, and when one takes a goat they don’t hunt it down; there are no fences here, and barely a poaching case in decades. You transfer to a four-wheel-drive at last light and go out with a tracker who knows the ground and the individual cats. You are here to find one and watch it, nothing more — then on to camp.

STAR PARTNER

Rajasthan, India

Dine Under Stars to the Songs of Marwar

Dine Under The Stars

The Mountbatten Lodge

The musicians who play at the camp tonight come from a tradition Marwar has kept for centuries: hereditary performer communities — the Manganiyar and Langa among them — born into music, taught by their fathers, who for generations sang at the courts and camps of this desert for whoever kept them. The songs are memory as much as melody, carried down without ever being written. You sit out under a sky with almost no light to compete with, the fire going, a barbecue coming off the coals, and the voices lifting into it. Depending on the season, the night might move indoors to a family castle nearby. Either way, you’re hearing songs older than the arrangement that brought them to you.

STAR PARTNER

Rajasthan, India

Ride Past the Turning Persian Wheels

Horse Riding

The Mountbatten Lodge

You’ll pass a Persian wheel still turning in a field — an ox walking a slow circle, a chain of clay pots rising full and tipping their water into a channel. The name misleads: its Sanskrit one is araghatta, pot-wheel, and it was likely an Indian invention long before it reached Persia. Farmers here have watered ground this way for centuries. The three-hour ride also takes you past Garasia hamlets, a hill people who, by their own telling, are part Bhil and part Rajput — descended from warriors who fled into these same Aravallis after defeat and stayed. Your guide rides alongside and reads the country as you go. The horses carry you on, toward leopard ground.

STAR PARTNER

Rajasthan, India

Ride to a Wall Built for Eight Horses

Fort Visit

The Mountbatten Lodge

Rana Kumbha’s masons built this wall between 1443 and 1458, and it runs thirty-six kilometres over thirteen Aravalli peaks — the second-longest unbroken wall on Earth after the Great Wall of China, wide enough along the top for eight horses to ride abreast. You reach it the fitting way, on horseback, after a four-hour ride through the Kumbhalgarh sanctuary that guards its lower slopes. Inside the walls, more than three hundred temples; below, the country the fort was built to hold. This is where Maharana Pratap, who spent his life resisting the Mughals, was born. You ride up to a fort raised to keep a kingdom in — arriving, as its garrison once did, by horse.

DAY-BY-DAY

Your

Itinerary

DAY

Morning

‣

Arrive at The Mountbatten Lodge in time for lunch beneath a majestic 300-year-old banyan tree.

‣

Settle into the tranquil surroundings and enjoy the timeless charm of the lodge.

Afternoon

‣

Spend a relaxing afternoon by your private pool before heading out to explore the neighbouring tribal village.

‣

Take a closer look at local life and the traditions of the community.

Evening

‣

Set out in a four-wheel-drive jeep for sundowners in the Aravalli Hills.

‣

Enjoy beautiful views of the surrounding landscape as the sun sets over the hills.

DAY

Morning

‣

After breakfast, drive to the magnificent Ranakpur Jain Temple, just nine kilometres from The Lodge, set amidst the scenic Aravalli hills.

‣

Discover its striking white marble architecture and intricate carvings, as you explore one of Rajasthan’s most remarkable cultural and spiritual landmarks.

Afternoon

‣

Enjoy a leisurely lunch beneath the shade of the majestic 300-year-old banyan tree, surrounded by the timeless charm of The Lodge.

‣

Around 3pm, set out in a four-wheel-drive jeep through the scenic countryside in search of elusive leopards.

Evening

‣

Return to The Lodge for a candlelit dinner, served in the private dining room or beneath the stars.

DAY

Morning

‣

Set out on a short trek or horse ride with an experienced member of staff, passing through tribal villages and unspoilt jungle.

‣

Return to The Lodge in time for breakfast.

Afternoon

‣

Enjoy a leisurely lunch beneath the shade of the majestic 300-year-old banyan tree, surrounded by the timeless charm of The Lodge.

‣

Around 3pm, drive to the magnificent Kumbhalgarh Fort, a UNESCO World Heritage Site famed for its vast defensive wall, one of the longest in the world.

‣

Explore the historic fortress before returning to The Lodge.

Evening

‣

Return to The Lodge in the evening for a drink and some time to unwind.

‣

Follow with dinner at the property.

DAY

Morning

‣

After breakfast, bid farewell to The Lodge with warm wishes for a safe onward journey.

Afternoon

Evening

Starting Package Price

STANDARD PRICE

$1,439

Per Room

3 Nights / 4 Days, Double occupancy

EXCLUSIVE STARLIFE MEMBER PRICE

$1,251

Per Room

Save $188 | Members Only

Inclusions

✓

3 nights' accommodation at The Mountbatten Lodge

✓

All meals as detailed in the itinerary (lunches, dinners, candlelit dinner, breakfasts)

✓

Tribal village visit

✓

4WD jeep sundowner drive over the Aravalli Hills

✓

Ranakpur Jain Temple visit

✓

Leopard-spotting jeep drive

✓

Trek or horse ride through tribal villages and jungle, with accompanying staff

✓

Kumbalgarh Fort excursion

✓

Evening drink at The Lodge (Day 3)

Exclusions

Transportation to and from The Mountbatten Lodge

Drinks

Laundry

Massages

18% Government Tax (additional on top of the quoted per-person rate)

Other personal expenses not specifically mentioned in the itinerary

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The Mountbatten Lodge?

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$1,439

Per Room

Starlife Rate $1,251