India (Frommer's, 4th Edition) - Keith Bain [11]
• Glenburn Tea Estate (Darjeeling): Centered around the 100-year-old Burra Bungalow, which offers just four magnificent rooms, this tea plantation is by far the best place to stay in the “Land of the Celestial Thunderbolt,” with great decor, delectable cuisine, and superb views of the Kanchenjunga. You can spend a night at Glenburn Lodge by the river without giving up your room at the Bungalow—the two rooms here are charming, especially at night when bathed in the orange glow of hurricane lamps (no electricity) with only the burbling of the river for music. Picnics (anywhere on the estate) will be served by liveried bearers on portable tables complete with a tablecloth, delicate crockery, and a vase of fresh flowers—all that’s missing is a chandelier.
• 360° Leti (Uttarakhand): If you want to feel top of the world, look no further than this stylish four-cottage paradise perched on a mountain, with panoramic views, fantastic walks and excellent whiskey to come back to.
4 Most Memorable Moments
• Sharing a Cup of Chai with a Perfect Stranger: You will typically be asked to sit and share a cup of chai (tea) a dozen times a day, usually by merchants keen to keep you browsing. Although you may at first be nervous of what this may entail, don’t hesitate to accept when you’re feeling more comfortable, for while sipping the milky sweet brew (often flavored with ginger and cardamom), conversation will flow, and you might find yourself discussing anything from women’s rights in India to the individualism that mars Western society.
• Helping Lord Venkatesware Repay His Debt to the God of Wealth (Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh): Tirupati, the richest temple in India, is the most active religious pilgrimage destination on earth, drawing more than 10 million devoted pilgrims every year (more than either Jerusalem or Rome!) who line up for hours, even days, to see the diamond-decorated black stone idol Lord Venkateshwara (aka Vishnu) for just a few seconds. Afterward, you stare in disbelief as vast piles of cash and other contributions are counted by scores of clerks behind a wall of glass. See chapter 8.
• Watching the Moon Rise from Pushkar Palace during the Pushkar Mela (Pushkar, Rajasthan): The sunset is a spectacular sight on any given evening, but on the evening of the full moon during the Pushkar mela, hundreds of Hindu pilgrims, accompanied by temple bells and drums, wade into a sacred lake—believed to miraculously cleanse the soul—before lighting clay lamps and setting them afloat on its holy waters, the twinkling lights a surreal reflection of the desert night sky. If you’re lucky enough to have bagged a room at Pushkar Palace, you can watch this ancient ritual from a deck chair on the terrace on the banks of the lake. See chapter 11.
• Gawking and Being Gawked At (Dungarpur, near Udaipur, Rajasthan): As a foreigner, you may attract uncomfortably long stares (particularly on public transport), but there are a few moments that you will recall with a wry smile, like the gimlet eye of the toothless old royal retainer as he watches your reaction to the explicit Kama Sutra paintings he will reveal hidden in a cupboard of Dungarpur’s 13th-century Juna Mahal—one of the Rajasthan’s undiscovered gems. See chapter 11.
• Playing Chicken with a Tata Truck: The rules of the road (which is almost always single-laned, potholed, and unmarked) are hard to understand, but it would seem that (after the cow, which is of course sacred) Tata trucks, all with HORN ON PLEASE written on their bumpers, rule the road, an assumption your hired driver is likely to test—and you will, more than once, find yourself involuntarily closing your eyes as destiny appears to race toward you, blaring its horn.
• Meeting a Maharaja (Rajasthan): India must be the only place in the world where you can, armed with a credit card, find yourself sleeping in a king’s bed, having dined with the aristocrat whose forebears built, and quite often died for, the castle or palace