Bundi has around 60 beautiful baori s , some right in the town centre. The majesty of many of them is unfortunately diminished by their lack of water today – a result of declining groundwater levels – and by the rubbish that collects in them which no one bothers to clean up. The most impressive, Raniji-ki-Baori (Queen’s Step-Well), is 46m deep and decorated with sinuous carvings, including the avatars of Lord Vishnu. Built in 1699 by Rani Nathawati, wife of Rao Raja Anirudh Singh, it’s one of the largest of its kind anywhere. The Nagar Sagar Kund is a pair of matching step-wells just outside the old city’s Chogan Gate. The Dhabhai-ka-Kund is an impressively deep 19th-century tank south of the Raniji-ki-Baori – and on our last visit clean, though dry.
Visible from the fort is the rectangular artificial lake Nawal Sagar , which tends to dry up if the monsoon is poor. At its centre is a temple to Varuna, the Aryan god of water.
Opposite the Abhaynath Temple , one of Bundi’s oldest Shiva temples, west of Nawal Sagar, is the 16th-century tank Bhora-ji-ka-Kund , which attracts a variety of bird life after a good monsoon, including kingfishers.
