Tag Archives: India

India is a sensory feast: a multilayered tapestry of sights and sounds in colours that pulsate, wrapped in a rich weave of smells, where the aromas of flowers and cardamon battle with the stink of dust and refuse and the unwashed. Even the air has tangible depth. Nowhere is this better epitomised than in Chandni Chowk, one […]

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“I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them […]

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Trip Advisor gives it a good rating. “Fort Khejarla offers guests an enlivening experience,”says the official website. I still think of it as the hotel that tried to kill me. Well, shock and asphyxiate me; “kill” might be a bit extreme. I was looking forward to our stay at the heritage “resort”, Fort Khejarla Hotel, 85 km east of Jodhpur in […]

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Like the rest of India, the Great Thar Desert is a beautiful expanse, full of contrasts. At one end of the spectrum was the luxury tented resort where I, my tour companions, photographer Karl Grobl, and local guide DV Singh, were all staying; Manvar Desert Camp, amongst the dunes of the Great Thar Desert and just off the Jodhpur- Jaisalmer […]

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With 83 people per kilometre, compared with about two and a half people per km in the Sahara, the Thar Desert – that large arid region that stretches across most of the border between India and Pakistan – is the most densely populated desert in the world. About 85% of this desert is in India, and about 60% of that covers Rajasthan – where it is home to 40% of the state’s population. […]

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