Bundi is the Rajasthan that didn't make it onto the main itinerary — and that is entirely its visitors' fault, not the city's.

The murals inside Garh Palace are better preserved than those in many Jaipur palaces and barely studied by anyone outside specialist circles. The fort above it is older than Amber, and held more battles, and has a hidden treasure room whose location died with the last person who knew it. The stepwells — fifty of them — represent an engineering tradition that built water infrastructure across the Aravalli region for four centuries, and the most photographed one is the fifth or sixth most impressive.

Kipling visited, wrote about it at length, and left. Tagore visited. Ray visited. Backpackers who arrive on their way between Kota and Udaipur find themselves extending their stay by days, then scrambling to rebook trains.

None of this has translated into Bundi becoming crowded. The ownership dispute, the relative difficulty of reaching it without a private vehicle, the general India-circuit preference for Jaipur and Jodhpur — all of it has conspired to leave Bundi as the city where the past descends, gradually and completely, without anyone having to manage the experience for you.