The Rajasthan getaway that’s waiting to be discovered

From Mahabharat to the Mughal empire, Sambhar Salt Lake has plenty of stories to tell. And now, thanks to a new boutique resort, it will have an audience
SambharRajasthan
Photo: Tuul and Bruno Morandi/ Alamy Images

Located an hour outside of Jaipur is a secret, salt-crusted land where mythology, history and folklore collide to create an unusual experience. It is here that the British, after discovering the commercial viability of the vast salt lake, Lake Sambhar, set up India's first circuit house. But the history of Sambhar as told by the locals goes further back. Legend has it that Shakhambhari Devi, the tutelary goddess of the Chauhan Rajputs and the consort of Shiva, was so pleased by Prithviraj Chauhan's devotion to her that she appeared before him and converted the dense forest into a land of silver. When the local villagers began to worry about the strife that such possession would beget, she transformed it into a silvery salt lake that would sustain the locals for centuries to come.

More than a thousand years later, Lake Sambhar, India's largest inland saline lake, continues to glisten by the day with all the white crystal steeping inside it. And when the flaming desert sun sets over Sambhar, its waters are ablaze with its molten glow, flaming orange this minute, liquid gold the next and ember pink just before nightfall. In the summer months, the night skies over the lake bed, with no light pollution around, are a perfect place to view the milky way.

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Come winter, when its wetlands invite migratory flamingoes from Northern and Central Asia, the otherwise tranquil Sambhar lake transforms into an avian carnival of sorts. These gregarious wading birds congregate over its waters in search of algae and warmth, and as my experience taught me, to avoid tourists. When the flamingoes march their synchronistic march on its surface under wide open skies, their pink presence magnified by the mirror-surface of its water, it can easily fool an onlooker into believing that there are twice as many of them.

Seeing that this small town built almost entirely around a salt economy, had so much to offer to the curious traveller but not a single hotel in the area, the Chandra family set up the recently opened Sambhar Heritage Resort  (Doubles from Rs15,000). It started with them taking over the circuit house, and converting it from a decaying shell into a vividly coloured eco-friendly property. The colonial property has been restored beautifully: some original features such as the ‘dumb waiter,' a manual lift used to ferry meals to the first floor, have been retained, while interesting pieces of contemporary art and antique furniture have been brought in. An 18th-century Kothi adjacent to the Circuit House was also added to the property to offer more rooms to the guests. For the more adventurous traveller, 18 Swiss tents were pitched alongside the lake at a short distance to give a campsite experience along with riverside picnics, bonfires, machans and even a spa thrown in for the right measure.

The Sambhar Heritage Resort

A room at The Sambhar Heritage Resort

Swiss tents by the lake

Choosing the birds over the British was an easy choice for me. I was too excited at the prospect of waking up to the sight of hundreds of flamencos to stay at the Circuit House. A restored carriage dating back to the 19th century took me on an old narrow-gauge rail track to the salt pans and then to the campsite. Both the old gauge and meter gauge lines, set up by the British, are still working and one could see diesel locomotives transport salt on little wooden carriages all the way from the salt pans.

Even though it was a cold January night and barely 8°C outside, the tents were warm, spacious and comfortable enough to want to stay indoors. But an invitation to a traditional dinner by the freezing lake with a bonfire sounded just too special to turn down, even though it called for layers of clothing to be worn. Then, literally clad in ski clothes, I sat under a sky lit with more stars than I imagined one could see with the naked eye and listened to folk songs about love, longing, and life, sung by the local musicians.

In the morning, after greeting the sun from the machan with a cup of coffee in my hand, I cycled to the spot along the lake to see the flamingos from up close.

Sadly, the closer I went, the more they warned each other about intrusive tourists and the further away they flew. I felt a little dejected by their clannish behaviour, but got over it when I found out that I was going to be taken for a crazy ride on the dry river bed.

Next, I was driven around in a pink SUV for the salt pan equivalent of wadi bashing. For miles and miles, there was nothing else except crusty earth, cerulean skies, and the accompanying shadow of our wading vehicle making snake tracks as it swayed. This poetically barren terrain I was told has been used in movie shoots to create scenes in snow-covered landscapes. Leave it to Bollywood to create a snowscape out of a desert!

We drove towards the ancient Shakhambhari Devi temple at the other end of the expansive salt marsh where the self-manifested goddess is said to preside over Sambhar. The name of the town is believed to have been derived from the goddess's name itself. This site may also be of relevance to cinema lovers because scenes from the film Ram Leela were shot here.

Pilgrims travelled from far and wide to seek blessings of Shakhambhari Devi. It wasn't just the Hindu pilgrims who were drawn to Sambhar. Not far from the expressway is the dargah of Hazrath Khwaja Hussamuddin Chishty where patrons of the Sufi saint stopped by on their way to the Ajmer Sharif Dargah.

There is yet another famous temple in these parts. The Devyani Sarovar temple of Sambhar, which is of much historical as well as mythological importance, for this is where Jodhaa and Akbar are said to have been married in the year 1562. The temple site also finds a few mentions in the Mahabharat.

The historical and mythological anecdotes about Sambhar, I discovered, were endless. The lake finds a mention in the Indian epic Mahabharata in several places and is home to an excavation site where dwellings from the 2nd century BC to 10th century AD have been discovered. I walked at great speed inside an eerily quiet park towards the site to see the excavations before night staked its claim over what was left of our day and found Harappa-Mohen-jo-daro style housing colonies. It is a staggering find that has yielded coins used by Indo-Greek and Indo-Sassanian kingdoms, terracotta figurines from Sunga, Kushana and Gupta dynasties (these items have been displayed inside the Jaipur museum).

As my trip came to an end, and we drove towards Jaipur airport along the Jaipur-Ajmer highway, I thought about the many beautiful nature reserves that had been contaminated by unplanned tourism and commercial hotels. I hoped that the next time I visited Sambhar, its pristine beauty will still be intact. Because sometimes, staying unknown was the best way to be.