Battielal was our naturalist guide for our game drives through the Ranthambore Tiger Reserve in Sawai Madhopur, a town located about 100 miles southeast of Jaipur, reached by way of a four-hour hair-raising, constantly bumpy but most interesting drive. Until 1971, the year Indira Gandhi brought about a constitutional amendment which took away most of…
Peacocks, Fenugreek and Blue Pottery
Peacocks, Fenugreek and Blue Pottery. In exotic Jaipur, I am having breakfast after a short but wondrous visit and am feeling adventurous. After all, we have surveyed the city from 2000+ feet above it in a sunrise hot air balloon ride, entered the courtyard of the magnificent Amber Palace dating from 1592 on top of…
Hot air balloon, elephants and peacocks – Jaipur !
Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. The peacock is the national bird of India, and our hotel, the Oberoi Rajvilas in Jaipur, has several of them running around freely on the property. They are not only beautiful, even though it is early in the year and their annual “plumage” has not grown yet, but, as I found out…
The Gandhi paradox – A day in New Delhi!
The Gandhi paradox. We visited the Gandhi Smriti (Memorial) in the center of New Delhi, the house and garden where Gandhi lived the last month of his life and where he was assassinated on the 30th of January 1948. Even today, the Gandhi Smriti is a remarkably peaceful oasis in the middle of a…
Room service Maharajah-style!
Room service Maharajah-style! When we ordered tea and toast from room service for delivery at 5am, little did we know that room service at the Oberoi Rajvilas in Jaipur is taken to a whole new level. The waiter brought a toaster to the room and patiently toasted six pieces of bread to perfection before…
The best of colonial living : The Delhi Gymkhana Club
Delhi Gymkhana Club. “You’ll get your dentures before your get a membership at the Delhi Gymkhana Club”, headlined a 2011 Times of India article about the Delhi Gymkhana Club. “That’s if you apply young”, the article went on, “It will be a 37-year wait if you apply now”. That’s the average number of years an…
Kingdom of Dreams : Where Bollywood meets Epcot
Kingdom of Dreams. For an unconventional twist to your vacation in India, consider a visit to the Kingdom of Dreams, the recently completed Disneyesque mega entertainment center in Gurgaon, about ten miles southwest of the Indira Gandhi International Airport of New Delhi. Spending an afternoon at the Kingdom of Dreams represented for us an alternative…
Safari Lodge : The Tarangire Safari Lodge in Tanzania !
Safari Lodge : The Tarangire Safari Lodge in Tanzania! The Tarangire Safari Lodge in the Tarangire national park offers two features which you should not miss during any safari in Tanzania, two features which are unique and marvelous enough to make a huge difference to your safari experience. Though it does not lack in comfort…
How to get really close to the Giant Panda bears!
Giant Panda Bears. The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding on the outskirts of Chengdu in the Sichuan province of China is one of the best locations in the world to get exposed to the giant pandas (called giant only to distinguish them from the smaller red pandas). More than one million visitors per…
DELECTABLE TIDBIT : The hidden passageway atop the Ponte Vecchio in Florence
Ponte Vecchio. Millions of tourists flock to Florence (Firenze) every year, but only a handful get to take what may well be the best walking tour in the city. Actually, few tourists even know about the existence of the Percorso del Principe (Passageway of the Prince) tour, and even fewer visitors plan their trip sufficiently…
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