For me, 25 to 30th of every month, is reserved for my road trips. And in July I planned to visit Bundi, the city of Step wells, but the God of Rain “Indra” has been graceful on us as it has been raining all July.
And finally in the 1st week of August, clouds gave me a break, and I hired a cab to visit Neemrana & Narnual at the borders of both Rajasthan and Haryana.
FYI, roads in Rajasthan are better than the ones in Haryana (keeping national highways apart)
Neemrana Boali, Rajasthan
Me at Neemrana Baoli
This masterpiece is the third baoli or baori (Stepwell) which I have seen in the last two months, with Abhaneri Chand Baori being the first and Panna Meena ka Kund in Amer being second.
Neemrana Baoli is in the royal city of Neemrana which is famous for its 13th century Fort that is now a luxurious hotel, operated by Neemrana Group.
Fun fact – You can also enjoy aerial zip line adventures at Neemrana Fort, which will cost you some nice amount of money.
History lesson
Ground Floor of Neemrana Baoli
Coming back to the Neemrana Step well, this is a 16th century (1760) Marvel, with nine stories inside the ground, not the sky.
There is no name mentioned anywhere on the site which tell us that who build this baoli, but after talking with the locals, I got some glimpse of this baoli history.
The Maharaja of Neemrana developed this step well in the 1760s to restore water, and as I can clearly see the rooms type structure on both sides, so this Baoli must have been an AC like Inn (Hotel) as the temperature in these step wells is 5 degrees lower than the weather outside.
Time to travel inside this Baoli
There isn’t any entry ticket, so I just parked the car on the main road and went inside. The path, which is on the entry level is like the ground floor of the baoli, and from here I could clearly saw the 6th floor. Check the below pics to see yourself.
View of 2nd, 3rd and 4th floor
View of 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th floor
Then I walked up to the other side of this baoli and climbed a floor above.
The thing is that if we consider the entry path as the ground floor than there are eight stories under the ground and one above.
The below picture is the view from the top storey. Have a look.
View from the top of Neemrana Baoli
After taking some pics from this floor, I walked deeper to get the glimpse of all the floors of the Boali and here is what I saw.
Neemrana Baoli 1st floor
View from 1st floor
View from 1st floor of Neemrana Baoli
View from 3rd floor
View from 6th floor
Last floor
Main stairs of Neemrana Baoli from seventh floor
A sense of Neemrana Baoli from the last stair
A sense of Neemrana Baoli from the last stair
And this concludes my trip to Neemrana. I didn’t visit Neemrana Fort as they have this crazy entry fee of INR 1600 per person to explore the fort and besides I had to visit Narnaul Boali which is 40 km west from here.
Narnaul Baoli
I came to know about Narnual Baoli from a list of India step-wells at Wikipedia but after traveling an hour, I reached Narnaul City and was surprised to see that no one no nothing about the Narnaul Baoli.
Because there isn’t any baoli here.
But pictures don’t lie and after spending an hour asking locals, I heard about a village name Mukundpura (or Mukendpura), which is 9-10 km from here. As I came close to this village, one thing was sure that there is a baoli here.
Mukundpura Baoli
Mukendpura is 10 km from the Narnual city, and Yes, there is an ancient baoli here, but it’s not Narnaul Baoli, its Mukendpura Baoli.
Mukendpura Baoli
That’s the real name, and I am also trying to correct the name from Narnaul to Mukendpura Baoli in Google Map, Tripadvisor, and Wikipedia.
Mukendpura Baoli isn’t a fancy spot as the condition isn’t great and but the good thing is that the local village panchayat does clean the step well once in a year.
Here are some pics which I collected for the blog and for you.
Mukundpura Baoli entrance
Mukundpura Baoli stairs
Mukundpura Baoli inside view
Mukundpura Baoli floors (3)
Mukundpura locals
My regards to the guy (ex-sarpanch) in the middle who gave me a lift on the muddy road.
And with this, I have officially visited four ancient step wells of India, and now 39 left to go.
How to reach Neemrana & Mukendpura (Narnaul)
Neemrana is at the center of Delhi-Jaipur Highway and thus you won’t find it difficult to reach, but Mukundpura is a bit tough, as there isn’t any GPS location available of this village.
So to reach Mukendpura, you need to take a right cut before Behror on Delhi-Jaipur Highway (NH 48), drive straight 28 km towards Narnaul City. From here, you will have to ask the route for Mukundpura village which is a 8 km bumpy road, west to Narnaul city.
But if you have that travel addiction, no road is bumpy for you. So be ready as in some places, you won’t even find road. :)
Hi, i saw somw of your posts on your blog and found that you are very interested in visiting baoli, check. haryanatourism.gov. in/showpage.aspx?contentid=5411
This baoli is in Meham, which is my hometown in Haryana, it’s aprrox. 100 K.M from Delhi.
You are welcome to visit there anytime ?
Will visit for sure…
Wow thank you so much for sharing your travel’s with me . I’m disabled and cannot travel far. Love the history and pictures…
Well India is full of historical marvels and I plan to cover as many I can in this lifetime…
You should have taken a shot of the 9 floor deep cylindrical well at the end of the Neemrana Baoli. It is a scary sight in itself.
Did you visit the Neemrana fort palace? I visited the place on January and I was floored by its grandeur.
Hi Sawan, I do have the pics of cylindrical well of Neemrama, sadly the condition of it was so horrible, so I didn’t added that here. I have seen Neemrana Palace but it isn’t as majestic can the ones in Jaipur, Jodhpur and Udaipur.
Sir,i belong to mahendergarh distt.i read your post.very good work done by you .thanks. i want to tell you some thing about narnaul city.there are two bawari in narnaul city.one is located in baba khetanath govt polytecnic college narnal campus and other is located near chhota-bada talab nijampur road narnaul.apart from these two bawai there are at least 11 talab in narnaul.some names are jal mahal,bahdar singh talab,chhota bada talab;two talab near jal mahal.there are many other monuments in narnaul.birbal ka chhatta,chor gumad,ibrahim kha sur ka makabara,shah kuli khan ka makabara,many ancient havilis.7 kms west of narnaul,there is dhosi mytholotical hill .in dhosi there are many temples and ponds.18km south west of narnaul (tibba basai ) there is a big temple baba rameswardas ka mandir.it is a big temle in a serene surrounding on the bank of the river dohan.big attraction of this temple is that there is no houses of any type only lonely temple.total area covered by temple building is around 4 acres.huge and attractive temple.in mahengergarh city there is good bawari on bucholi road.apart, a big old fort and 10km west of mahender garh there is a hill fortess named madhogarh fort
Kabhi mauka Mila to ye baolo bhi jrur dekhne jaaenge , nice post bhai