Diwali this year was spent around the Delhi area. While visiting the Taj Majal was part of the destination, we also intended to visit several Neemrana Heritage Hotels. The Neemrana chain is unique; they pride themselves on being the non-hotel hotel. This group takes old palaces, forts, mansions, whatever and changes them into beautiful hotels. We stayed at three of them: the Patoudi Palace Hotel, Neemrana Fort Hotel, and Kesaroli Fort Hotel. They are fabulous, and anyone who comes to visit will have to join us on a trip to the one two hours from Bombay called the Verandah in the Forest in Matheran. Here’s the link if you’d like to be enticed, http://neemranahotels.com/
Aside from fabulous hotel rooms, we had a wonderful trip! Camels were seen every day. If the kids acted up in a car ride, all we had to do was start counting camels. That was enough distraction to refocus their attentions. Camels weren’t the only competitors on the highways up north! There were water buffalo, oxen, more camels, as well as people pulling their carts along with the crazy traffic including jeep like vehicles with people literally hanging out of them going 60 miles per hour! The driving was insane as you will see in pictures below! It was quite terrifying at times. Especially at dusk when they refuse to use their headlights!
The historical sites were fantastic. The Taj is absolutely breathtaking. We woke up very early to make it before the sunrise and opening at 6 am. The kids were total troopers and enthusiastic the whole way. After seeing the Taj Majal, we then continued to the baby Taj (Itama Doud Mahal) and Agra Fort. Vincent was such an amazing historian; he kept wanting to know more. I needed Corky there to help tell (create) the history.
The trip included adventure walks around our various hotels–we stayed in five, and afternoons filled with swimming. We had our fair share of Indian food and enjoyed all the yummy naan found up north. Vincent started eating spicy chips which is like a major feat for us. Now a whole world of foods can be introduced, and we can keep referring to those chips. Overall, the trip was fantastic as proven by the photos found here. Enjoy! (There is no order to the pics–I tried but it was too hard to figure it out. Blogger isn’t quite totally user friendly:)
