DISCOVER INDIA’S FRIENDLIEST VILLAGE

The best thing about the 230year-old hilltop Fort Bishangarh in northern Rajasthan is not the fact it has recently been carefully turned into a 59-suite hotel run by the luxury Alila group (alilahotels. com). Nor is it the spa, set in a warren of granite bedrock where the fortress dungeons once were, or the ornate Madhuveni bar, where the king and his court would gather.

The best thing about Alila Fort Bishangarh is the village that splays out from its base like a sari laid out to dry in a millet field. The fort’s reinvention as a five-star hotel has been a boon for Bishangarh village, which has gone from having five shops to 15. But stay at Alila and you’ll reap the rewards.

Bishangarh must be the most friendly village in India. Everyone waves and says “hello” or “ta-ta” when hotel vehicles pass through town. The local jeweller will talk you through the respective qualities of silver and dig out antique and heirloom pieces to catch the eye. A potter will turn a single lump of clay into ornaments and crockery using a hand-turned wheel. The hotel also leads walks to a nearby temple where peacocks preen in the trees and mist settles like a cobweb on the plains.

Keen for a few hours of local life? Sisters Deya and Sunita Yada welcome guests from the hotel to the 80-year-old farmhouse they share with their husbands (two brothers, incidentally). Let their children show you around the farmyard and the crops while the sisters stuff millet chapatis with buffalo butter and stir pots of dal and curried vegetables on a rasoi ground oven. The food is generous but they’ll insist on more chapatis, more aloo gobi and more chilli paste as they ask and answer questions thoughtfully. Yes, the hotel has been good for the village, they say. It has given them a living and some independence. “Lots of people have got jobs and are earning money,” says Deya. “We feel good that people come here and visit us.”