Alwar & Sariska

Sariska is the closest tiger reserve to Delhi: 1,200 square kilometres of dhok forest and grassland in the folds of the Aravallis, with an 881 square kilometre core, all of it once the hunting ground of the Alwar maharajas, whose lodge at the gate is now the Sariska Palace hotel. The reserve's story is a cautionary one: in 2004 investigators found that every tiger had been poached, and from 2008 tigers were flown in by helicopter from Ranthambore, the first relocation of its kind. They bred, and the count has climbed back past thirty, with leopards, striped hyena, sambar and the temple of Pandupol, where a reclining Hanuman draws pilgrims on Tuesdays and Saturdays.

Kankwari Fort deep inside is where Aurangzeb held his brother Dara Shikoh, and the Neelkanth Mahadev temples on the ridge date from the sixth to ninth centuries. Alwar itself, founded by Rao Pratap Singh in the 1770s, is a busy town with Bala Quila on the ridge above, the City Palace museum with its manuscripts and swords, and Moosi Maharani ki Chhatri, a two-storey cenotaph in marble and sandstone. Siliserh Lake, 13 km away, has an 1845 lake palace turned hotel with boating in the evening.

Bhangarh, on the reserve's southern edge, is a sixteenth-century town abandoned to legend; the Archaeological Survey closes it at sunset and the ruins are best in the low morning light. Alwar's kalakand, the milk sweet born here, is the thing to bring home.