Balaram: A Palace in the Banaskantha Forest

The road north from Palanpur towards Ambaji runs through dry, scrubby, unpromising country, and then the hills close in, a river appears, and there is suddenly a white colonnaded palace sitting in a wooded valley with peacocks on the lawn. Balaram Palace was built in the 1920s as a hunting and summer retreat for the Nawabs of Palanpur, and it is now a heritage hotel — which means the most enjoyable way to experience the Aravalli forests of north Gujarat is to check in and sit on the terrace.

Around it lies the Balaram-Ambaji Wildlife Sanctuary, a large protected area of hill forest running along the Rajasthan border, notable for sloth bear and leopard and for being almost entirely absent from tourist itineraries. Add the small Balaram Mahadev temple by the river, the road on to Ambaji, and Mount Abu within striking distance, and this becomes the most comfortable base in a corner of Gujarat that very few people bother with.

The Nawab's retreat

Palanpur was a princely state of some standing, and its ruling family — the Lohani Nawabs, of Afghan descent — built Balaram in the early twentieth century as an escape from the heat and formality of the capital. The architecture is the confident colonial-Indian hybrid of its era: a symmetrical white facade with a deep arcaded verandah, neoclassical columns, tall shuttered windows, high ceilings inside and a broad flight of steps down to a lawn. It is not a fortress or an ancient monument; it is a comfortable country house built by people with money and a good eye for a site.

That site is the point. The palace stands in a wooded valley on the Balaram river with the Aravalli slopes rising behind it, and the setting does most of the work. It has been converted into a heritage hotel with rooms in the main building and in newer garden wings, a pool, and terraces from which to watch the light change on the hills. Peafowl are everywhere. Langurs come through the trees. It is the sort of place where the correct itinerary is a book and a long afternoon.

As with most heritage-hotel conversions in India, standards are not those of a modern luxury property, and reviews vary — the building is old, the maintenance is a constant battle and the food is competent rather than remarkable. What it has instead is atmosphere and location, and for the price it is one of the better-value heritage stays in Gujarat, particularly out of the winter peak.

A Nawab's hunting retreat at the edge of a 500-square-kilometre sanctuary, now a hotel you can sleep in.

A sanctuary nobody visits

The Balaram-Ambaji Wildlife Sanctuary covers something in the order of five hundred square kilometres of hill forest, dry deciduous woodland and river valley along the Aravalli range in Banaskantha, and it is one of the least-visited protected areas in the state. Sloth bear are the notable resident and this is regarded as reasonably good sloth bear country; leopard, striped hyena, jackal, jungle cat, chinkara, nilgai, four-horned antelope, porcupine and pangolin are all present, along with a solid list of forest birds.

Five hundred square kilometres of Aravalli forest with sloth bears in it, and essentially no tourist infrastructure at all

Be realistic about what a visit involves. There is no safari operation in the sense of Gir or Velavadar — no jeep fleet, no fixed circuits, no reliable sighting economy. What exists is a large forest with tracks through it, forest department oversight, and the possibility of arranging access and a guide locally. Mammal sightings are a matter of genuine luck. The birding is dependable, the landscape is attractive, and the walking and driving through hill forest is the actual product.

Anyone wanting to explore the sanctuary properly should talk to the forest department in advance and to the hotel, which can usually arrange guides and advise on what is currently permitted. Access rules and open zones change, and this is not a place to wander into unaccompanied. Early morning and late afternoon are the productive hours, as everywhere, and the cool months are much the most comfortable for time in the forest.

Balaram Mahadev and the small things nearby

A short distance from the palace, on the bank of the Balaram river, stands the Balaram Mahadev temple — a modest, old, locally important Shiva shrine in a genuinely lovely spot among trees and rocks with water running past. It is not architecturally spectacular and it is not trying to be; it is a quiet, well-used village temple in a beautiful setting, and it makes a good short walk from the hotel. Shravan, the monsoon month sacred to Shiva, brings local pilgrims in numbers.

The wider area rewards aimless driving. There are tribal villages in the hills, the Jessore Sloth Bear Sanctuary lies to the west near the Rajasthan border, Danta — another former princely state with a palace of its own — is nearby, and the Dantiwada dam on the Banas river is a short drive. None of these are must-see attractions; collectively they make the case for two nights at Balaram rather than one, with a day spent going nowhere in particular.

Getting there and fitting it in

Balaram is in Banaskantha district, about 15 km from Palanpur and roughly 140 km north of Ahmedabad, on the Palanpur–Ambaji road. Palanpur is the practical railhead, well served on the Ahmedabad–Abu Road line and by road from Ahmedabad in around three hours; Abu Road station is also close. A car is essential for the sanctuary and for the surrounding drives, and most visitors arrive by road as part of a longer route.

The geography is genuinely convenient. Ambaji, with its Shakti Peeth and Gabbar Hill, is about 45 km north; Mount Abu and the Dilwara temples are around 90 km; Taranga Hill's Jain temples sit to the south-east; and the whole north Gujarat heritage cluster of Vadnagar, Sidhpur, Patan and Modhera is within a couple of hours. The natural itinerary uses Balaram as the comfortable overnight in the middle of that circuit. October to March is the season — winter nights are cold and the forest is at its most pleasant — while the monsoon makes the Aravallis green and lovely at the cost of humidity and difficult forest tracks.

If you go

• Book two nights, not one. The palace and its valley are the destination, and the surrounding drives need an unhurried day.
• Set expectations for the heritage hotel: real atmosphere and a superb setting, ordinary modern comforts.
• Arrange sanctuary access and a guide through the hotel or the forest department in advance; do not head into the forest unaccompanied.
• Treat sloth bear or leopard as luck. The reliable rewards are the birding, the hill forest and the walk to Balaram Mahadev.
• Use it as the comfortable overnight between north Gujarat's heritage circuit, Ambaji and Mount Abu.

Balaram is the most comfortable way to spend a night in the least-visited corner of Gujarat: a 1920s Nawab's retreat with a colonnaded verandah and peacocks on the lawn, standing in a wooded valley at the edge of five hundred square kilometres of Aravalli forest that has sloth bears in it and almost no visitors. Come in the cool months, book two nights, arrange a forest guide, and give yourself one full day with nothing planned.