You want to see Jaipur with its majestic Palaces but do not want the crowd & noise of Jaipur city? Well there is one option that we discovered just by fluke- Sirsi Haveli, on the outskirts of Jaipur. You have the option of staying in the older section which is more than 100 years old or the newer section, both with a different charm of their own.

Again for the food at Sirsi you have the option of eating traditional food ( Rajasthanis eat a curry called Lal Maas great taste but you have to request the Chef to temper down the spices & chilly) alternatively the chef offers to prepare anything of your choice.

Food is great, location beautiful & rural, rooms are clean with the right touch of being homey & the staff extremely courteous without being intrusive.

Anshul Sharma who is the manager at Sirsi Haveli is extremely helpful & simply steps out of his way to make your stay comfortable.

If you stay there ask the Manager to arrange for a visit to other villages to get a true feel of rural India an experience unlike any other typical packaged tourist experiences.

Take a camel cart ride all over Sirsi village & the most amazing thing is villagers come forward to welcome you to their homes & farms. Request Anshul & you can be part of a day in any villagers life- from caring of the animals to milking a cow to even being offered fresh milk to drink.

Jaipur is about 45 minutes to 1 hour away. However whenever you are close to any heritage site at Jaipur you will have an avalanche of guides & touts. They will lead to you to places where you have to purchase local goodies (not necessarily of best quality, all clothes bleed colour, gems are fake). Even if you ask them the way to Hawa Mahal/ Lake Palace, they will offer to lead you there but on the way first stop at a shop where one after the other sales guys will convince you to buy.

These agents are extremely irritating & hand in glove with each other sharing commission on number of customers brought into any shop, including Government authorised shops. When asked, most of these agents will also claim to have Government License.

The best way to deal with these agents is ignore & avoid eye contact, also keep your vehicle windows rolled up. Do not buy any gems & jewellery. The best bet while buying Souvenirs is any inlay work on Marble.

As in any part of India negotiate on rates of Hotels & all purchases. While purchasing esp walkout & come back later if the prices are not brought down.

We stayed at Sirsi Haveli for two nights, while visiting Jaipur. The haveli is situated in the middle of an authentic village with friendly people. It's location (12 km from the city) might be viewed by some as a disadvantage, however for us the benefit of staying in a peaceful surrounding was more than worth the extra half hour of getting there.
The haveli itself is over 100 years old, but it has been renovated and it offers high standard accommodation. The staff is very friendly and welcoming, especially the operating manager Mr. Anshul Sharma, who went out of his way to make our stay enjoyable and confortable.
We had two dinners at the hotel restaurant, which were excellent and reasonable in price. The vegetables came directly from the village's fields and were fresh and tasty.

We wanted to live in a heritage property so we chose to live at this place..We were pleasantly surprised to see how this age old haveli of 100 yrs has been transformed into a lovely hotel while retaining the heritage of the place..
Room interiors are good..Staff is very cordial and polite..We were greeted by the manager of the hotel ..He was very cordial and also showed us around the haveli..
Food is good..The only trouble we had was to locate the hotel..but it seemed very minor in the whole spectrum of our pleasant stay and experience..

Excellent place to go for relaxing & chilling out....warm personal staff...a very rustic and quaint atmosphere .....Jaipur city can be reached in max 15 to 20 minutes. The haveli is charming, the library cozy & cute.