Same Day Abhaneri Trip with Monkey Temple From Jaipur

The deepest stepwell in India, and a temple in a gorge

Two sites, both extraordinary, both quiet. Eight hours with a car, and a guide on the fuller option.

Chand Baori, Abhaneri

This is the one. 3,500 steps in perfect double flights, dropping thirteen storeys to a square of green water at the bottom, cut in the 9th century by King Chanda for a village that needed water through a desert summer.

The temperature at the base runs five or six degrees below the surface, which was as much the point as the water — it was a place to draw and a place to sit out the heat.

The geometry photographs like an Escher print, and you will have seen it in films without knowing where it was. You cannot descend to the water; the upper gallery and the Harshat Mata temple beside it are open.

Abhaneri is about 90 km from Jaipur on the Agra road, which makes this a good day to combine with a transfer if you are heading that way.

Galta Ji, the monkey temple

A temple complex wedged into a gorge in the Aravalli hills east of Jaipur. Natural springs run down through a series of stone tanks — the Galta Kund at the top has never been known to dry up — and pilgrims have bathed here for centuries.

The buildings are 18th-century pink sandstone with painted interiors that are fading in a way that makes seeing them now worth doing. Above the complex, the Surya Temple on the ridge gives you the whole city laid out below.

The macaques live here, which is the nickname. They are wild: do not hold food in your hand, do not hold your phone out over a wall, and take sunglasses off your head.

Two options

Car and driver, or car with a guide. Take the guide for Abhaneri — the iconography on the temple is unlabelled.

Practical

About eight hours. Real walking on hot uneven stone at both sites; flat shoes and water.