India 2013 & 2014

M A RT I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L A RT • A R C H I T E C T U R E • G A S T R O N O M Y • A R C H A E O L O G Y • H I S T O R Y • M U S I C • L I T E R AT U R E

India 2013 & 2014

India 2013 & 2014

Varanasi, after a painting by William Carpenter (1818–1899), from The Illustrated London News 1857.

Our policies & style.......................................................3

Painted Palaces of Rajasthan 4–15 November 2013, with Dr Giles Tillotson...........................4

Karnataka

Essential India 15–29 November 2013, with Dr Anna-Maria Misra 31 January–24 Febrary 2014, with Sue Rollin........................... 20

The British Raj

18–29 January 2014, with John M. Fritz..................................... 6

4–16 January 2014, with David Gilmour & Professor Gavin Stamp.......................................................... 23

The Indian Mutiny

Sailing the Ganges

19 November–2 Dec. 2013, with Major Gordon Corrigan.........9

Mughal & Nawabi Architecture 5–15 February 2014, with Dr Giles Tillotson........................... 12

18 February–2 March 2014, with John Keay............................. 26

Bengal by River

Indian Summer

8–21 December 2013, with Dr Rosie Llewellyn-Jones 9–22 March 2014, with Dr Anna-Maria Misra........................ 29

24 March–5 April 2014, with Raaja Bhasin.............................. 14

More about the tours & our policies........................ 32

Kingdoms of the Deccan

Booking form................................................................ 33–34

7–20 February 2014, with John M. Fritz................................... 17

Making a booking, booking conditions.................. 35

Martin Randall Travel Voysey House, Barley Mow Passage London W4 4GF Telephone 020 8742 3355 Fax 020 8742 7766 info@martinrandall.co.uk www.martinrandall.com

Australia: Martin Randall Marketing, PO Box 537, Toowong, Queensland 4066 Telephone 1300 55 95 95 Fax 07 3377 0142 anz@martinrandall.com.au New Zealand: telephone 0800 877 622 Canada: telephone 647 382 1644 canada@martinrandall.ca USA: telephone 1 800 988 6168

Martin Randall Travel in India: our policies & style Our aim: the finest cultural and historical tours to India

Our aim is to create the most enjoyable and memorable tours to India – the best designed, the best led, and the most informative and illuminating. For the season 2013–14 we have planned eleven different itineraries, all either unique or the finest of their kind.

Founded in 1988, Martin Randall Travel (MRT) is Britain’s leading specialist in cultural tours and is one of the most respected specialist travel companies in the world.

We only send clients to countries which we know well, and our entry into India in 2012 was preceded by years of research, prospecting and careful recruitment. In innumerable small ways, we lift the experience for our clients above standards which are regarded as normal for tourists.

Learn from leading experts

All the tours are accompanied by expert lecturers – academics, writers, curators, broadcasters and researchers. They are selected not only for their knowledge but also for their ability to communicate their learning in ways that are engaging and stimulating. And they are also good travelling companions.

We are proud to have appointed some of the world’s leading India scholars, some of whom have spent much of their lives in the subcontinent.

Nearly all the tours are also accompanied by a trained tour manager, someone from our office or one of a number of freelance professionals who work for us regularly. Local guides are the best available, and some of them have been trained by MRT.

Innovative itineraries, meticulously planned

MRT is famed for the superb quality of its itineraries – original, imaginative, meticulous and considerate. They rest on the bedrock of relentless attention to detail, and are the fruits of deep knowledge of the destination and its culture.

In India we have challenged some of the conventions which have governed tourism there for decades. There are a number of things we do differently which distinguish our tours from both mainstream and specialist alternatives.

The staff who plan and operate our India tours are steeped in the country’s history and culture and are thoroughly familiar with present-day realities. Uniquely among cultural tour specialists, we are also India experts.

Do less, see more

The tours have a full programme of visits, but we are careful not to cram too much into the day. More time is spent in the places visited than on conventional tours, allowing opportunity to explore more thoroughly and assimilate at leisure.

We strive to avert the overload and exhaustion which frequently characterises travelling in India. There are few or no early starts, and one-night stays are rare. Less time is spent travelling than is the norm.

Travelling in comfort

All the hotels we have selected are comfortable, many are luxurious. Usually they are the best in the vicinity. In remoter destinations the hotel may be relatively simple, but base-level criteria include cleanliness, en suite facilities and air conditioning.

Similarly we use the best and most modern coaches available.

And when travelling by train, we book the highest class available.

Intercontinental and domestic flights are day-time services.

Tours with a focus, and seeing what few others see Most of the tours are designed around a theme or concentrate on particular regional phenomena.

Having a focus does not preclude learning about other aspects of India. On all our tours plenty of information is provided about broader aspects of Indian history and culture, past and present, and some sights included which are not central to the theme.

All the tours incorporate special arrangements for admission to places not generally accessible to individual travellers, or for entry at times when they are closed to the public. Even in the most visited destinations there is often much that is fascinating and beautiful which eludes all but the most intrepid traveller.

Less visited and more out-of-the-way places are a significant feature of many tours.

Value for money, and no surcharges

The price includes nearly everything, not only the major ingredients such as flights, hotels, transportation and the lecturer and tour manager but also many lesser charges such as tips and drinks with meals.

We do not levy surcharges for fuel price increases, exchange rate changes, additional taxes or for any other reason. We do not charge extra for payment by credit card. The price published in this brochure is the price you pay.

Front cover: Shah Jahan receiving his son.

20th-century miniature painting after a 18th-century original.

This brochure was produced in-house. The text was written and edited by Hubert Giraud, Linda Hanks, Martin Randall and Hannah Wrigley. Lecturers also contributed. It was designed by Jo Murray. Special thanks also to Caroline Cuss for her proofing skills.

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Painted Palaces of Rajasthan Delhi, Jodhpur, Nagaur, Bikaner, Shekhawati

The Fort at Jodhpur, from the north-west, after a drawing by C.W. Waddington 1933.

4–15 November 2013 (ma 765) 12 days • £5,170 Lecturer: Dr Giles Tillotson A chronological survey of the remarkable phenomenon of architectural paintings.

Architecture of forts and palaces, from the grimly defensible to filigree finesse.

Includes places rarely visited by tourists, and lingers longer in well-known places.

Led by Dr Giles Tillotson, a leading expert in Rajput and Mughal history and architecture.

Rajasthan has long been famous for the great forts and palaces built by the Rajputs.

These Hindu maharajas first resisted Muslim expansion in north India but then became co-architects of the Mughal empire. Their fine cities have been magnets for tourists and travellers since the days of Pierre Loti and Rudyard Kipling. Some have ancient origins, but in the more settled times of the heyday of M A R T I N R ANDA L L T R A V E L

the Mughals and of the period of British rule, they built increasingly elaborate and delicately ornamented palace apartments within the embattled forts of their forebears. These deservedly rank among the most visited and admired of Indian sites.

More recently rediscovered are the exquisite painted mansions built by the merchant classes in some of the smaller towns of the region. The Rajput rulers represent the warrior class, the people who carved out kingdoms and asserted the right to rule by force of arms. Powerful as they were, they could never work alone and they looked to other communities – to the priests and the merchant classes – to provide the administrative brains and business acumen that ensured their states were well governed and prosperous. The most successful people among these groups developed their own styles of architectural opulence.

This unusual tour of Rajasthan presents both aspects of the state, combining relatively short travel distances with maximum cultural

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impact. The three forts of Mehrangarh (in Jodhpur), Ahichhatragarh (in Nagaur) and Junagadh (in Bikaner) include some of the finest painted interiors in all of Rajasthan, dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The stylistic starting point is the composite culture that the Rajputs developed with their Mughal contemporaries; but in these interiors that style is invigorated by elements drawn from Rajasthan’s distinctive folk culture. There are also exquisite gardens, especially the extensive and recently restored garden complex in Nagaur. And with the later palace buildings of Jodhpur, the Sufi shrine of Nagaur and the temples of Bikaner, these three cities have much else to offer besides.

The second part of the tour takes us through the best preserved towns in the area known as Shekhawati. Here especially, the merchant communities constructed elegant palatial homes or courtyard houses known as havelis. In the arid landscape these buildings appear like a colourful pageant celebrating the muralists’ art. Even the exterior walls Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

are covered with lively scenes drawn from religion, from folklore and from everyday life. Ironically some of the leading patrons never got to live in these homes. With the rise of British power in the nineteenth century, they migrated to Calcutta, where the greater business opportunities lay. They continued to remit funds in generous quantities to the towns of their origins, funding public welfare schemes as well as their own estates – all undertaken against the day of eventual return, which has still not come to pass.

The tour begins and ends in Delhi, India’s capital. Visiting the city’s Mughal and British monuments enables us to place the various phases of our Rajasthani odyssey in the larger imperial context.

Itinerary Day 1: London to Delhi. Fly from London Heathrow to Delhi at c. 12 noon, and after a 51/2-hour time change reach the hotel in New Delhi c. 2.00am.

Day 2: Delhi. Nothing is planned before a pre-lunch talk. In the afternoon visit the National Museum’s impressive and welldisplayed collection of miniature paintings, from both Mughal and Rajput traditions, studying their differences and similarities.

The National Gallery of Modern Art houses a collection of ‘Company Paintings’ by Indian artists for European patrons. Overnight Delhi.

Day 3: Delhi, Jodhpur. Fly from Delhi to Jodhpur in the morning. Presiding over the capital of one of the largest Rajput states in western Rajasthan is the magnificent Mehrangarh Fort. Described by Kipling as the ‘work of angels, fairies and giants’, it was built in 1459 and has some of the most imposing fortifications in the world. The first of two visits focuses on its refined architecture. First of two nights in Jodhpur.

Day 4: Jodhpur. Created in resplendent white marble, Jaswant Thada is the large 19th-cent. memorial of Jaswant Singh II and cremation ground of the Marwar rulers. The second visit to Mehrangarh examines the painting tradition of the Marwari Rajputs, with special admission to the gallery led by the curator. The buildings of the lively Old City are painted in a variety of blues, originally the colour denoting the homes of Brahmins.

Overnight Jodhpur.

Day 5: Mandore, Nagaur. Mandore was the capital of the Marwari state until 1895 when it moved to Jodhpur. On the ancient cremation I ND I A 2 0 1 3 & 2 0 1 4

grounds, the royal cenotaphs are unique in Rajasthan as they resemble Hindu temples.

In the afternoon, drive through the desert to Nagaur, one of the earliest Rajput settlements and an important Sufi centre. First of two nights in Nagaur.

Lecturer

Day 6: Nagaur. Ahichhatragarh Fort (linked to the hotel by a corridor) was founded in the 4th cent. and developed and embellished in the 18th. Pre-Mughal and Mughal architecture is well preserved in the palace chambers; the Akbari Mahal, built to commemorate the visit of the Emperor Akbar in 1570, has some original floral murals, while the Hadi Rani Mahal houses some 16th-cent. murals in shades of green depicting daily and courtly scenes. The rest of the day is free.

Overnight Nagaur.

Day 7: Nagaur, Bikaner. In the morning, drive to Bikaner for lunch at the Laxmi Vilas Palace, a masterpiece of Indo-Saracenic architecture designed by Sir Swinton Jacob (1902). The Jain Bhandasar Temple is said to be older than the city itself, although the current building dates from the 15th cent. and has fine paintings. First of two nights in Gajner, near Bikaner, in the former royal hunting lodge.

which provide insight into the creative process.

The Morarka and Podar havelis are two of the finest in Nawalgarh, with a clearly delineated pictorial programme. Overnight in Mandawa.

Day 8: Bikaner. Unlike most Rajput strongholds, Junagadh Fort is not built on a hill. Founded in 1588, it displays a variety of painting styles, from traditional Rajput motifs to early 20th-cent. depictions of trains. The Monsoon Palace has some highly unusual paintings of rain clouds and lightning, while the Diwan-i-Khas, the hall of private audience, is profusely decorated with gold leaf.

There is a special opening of the Phool Mahal, the oldest part of the palace. Options for the rest of the day include bird watching and a 4x4 excursion. Overnight Gajner.

Day 9: Bikaner, Mandawa (Shekhawati).

The desert villages of the Shekhawati region of northern Rajasthan are celebrated for their painted havelis (merchants’ mansions), which go back to the 18th century. The Nand Lal Devra haveli in Fatehpur has some newly restored examples. A leisurely walk in Mandawa reveals some interesting depictions of flying machines and other modern appliances. First of two nights in Mandawa.

Day 10: Parasrampura, Nawalgarh. The simple 18th-cent. cenotaph of Sardur Singh possesses some of the earliest paintings in the region. The ochre monochromes are typical of the early period. The equally modest Gopinath temple nearby has unfinished medallions,

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Dr Giles Tillotson.

Fellow (and former Director) of the Royal Asiatic Society, he has been Reader in History of Art and Chair of Art & Archaeology at SOAS. His specialisms include the history and architecture of the Rajput courts of Rajasthan and of the Mughal cities of Delhi and Agra, Indian architecture in the period of British rule and after Independence, and landscape painting in India. Books include Taj Mahal, Jaipur City Palace, Mughal India and The Tradition of Indian Architecture.

Day 11: Jhunjhunu, Delhi. The controversial Rani Sati temple in Jhunjhunu celebrates both the goddess and the eponymous practice of self-immolation by widows on their husbands’ pyres. Drive in the afternoon to Gurgaon, a Delhi suburb, where the final night is spent.

Day 12: Delhi to London. The direct flight is scheduled to arrive at Heathrow before noon.

Practicalities Price: £5,170 (deposit £450). This includes: air travel (economy class) on flights with British Airways: return London to Delhi (Boeing 747–400) and with Jet Airways: Delhi to Jodhpur (Boeing 737); travel by private air-conditioned coach; accommodation as described below, breakfasts, 9 lunches and 8 dinners with wine or beer, water and coffee; all admissions to museums and sites; all tips for drivers, restaurant staff, and local guides; airport taxes; the service of a lecturer.

Single supplement £680. Price without international flights: £4,490.

Hotels: New Delhi (2 nights): dating to the early 1900s, it retains colonial charm and is ideally situated in the heart of Lutyens’ Delhi. Attractive garden and swimming pool.

Jodhpur (2 nights): a boutique hotel located in the heart of the walled city beneath the Fort, successfully combining modern and

b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Karnataka

Painted Palaces of Rajasthan continued

Temples, sculptures & Princely palaces in the south-west traditional design. Swimming pool. Nagaur (2 nights): the former zenana, women’s quarter inside the fort-palace, has been converted into this highly comfortable hotel, with pool.

Gajner (2 nights): a lake-side hunting lodge converted into a comfortable and quiet hotel.

Mandawa (2 nights): this newly converted haveli combines the traditional painted decor of the region with modern furniture and amenities. Swimming pool. Delhi-Gurgaon (1 night): ideally located near the international airport, this modern 4-star hotel has comfortable rooms.

How strenuous? A good level of fitness is essential. Unless you enjoy entirely unimpaired mobility, cope with everyday walking and stair-climbing without difficulty and are reliably sure-footed, this tour is not for you. A rough indication of the minimum level of fitness required is that you ought to be able to walk briskly at about 3 miles per hour for at least half an hour, and undertake a walk at a more leisurely pace for an hour or two unaided. Uneven ground and irregular paving are standard. There are a few fairly steep ascents to hilltop forts and temples.

There are some long coach journeys during which facilities are limited and may be of poor quality. Most sites have some shade but the Indian sun is strong, even in the cooler seasons. We regret that we do not accept bookings from people who would be 81 or over at the time of the tour. Average distance by coach per day: 49 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Engraving 1898.

Possible linking tours: combine this tour with Essential India, 15–29 November (see page 20) and The Indian Mutiny, 19 November–2 December (see page 9).

M A R T I N R ANDA L L T R A V E L

18–29 January 2014 (ma 805) 12 days • £3,860 Lecturer: John M. Fritz Temple architecture and sculpture spanning more than ten centuries amid the varied landscapes of this little-visited state.

Includes three nights in the historic capital of Mysore and a visit to Srirangapatana, site of Wellesley’s victory over Tipu Sultan.

Led by John M. Fritz, who has been directing research in the area for thirty years.

The defeat of Tipu Sultan in May 1799 by the combined forces of the British East India Company and the Nizam of Hyderabad established not only British rule but also the influence of European styles on the cultures of southern India. This transformation is particularly evident in Karnataka, the old Mysore State, which is of outstanding interest for its indigenous temple architectural tradition – considerably better preserved than in other parts of the country – and for European-influenced building after the defeat of Tipu.

Geographically speaking, Karnataka is one of the more varied states of the Indian subcontinent, from the lush mountains in the south to the dusty plains of the Deccan Plateau in the north.

A sequence of temple-building by several consecutive ruling dynasties spans more than 1,000 years, beginning with the sixth to eighth-century Early Chalukya monuments in and around Badami and reaching a climax in the vast religious projects of the Vijayanagara emperors and of their successors. Jain Bastis at Shravanabelagola exemplify the more severe style patronized in the ninth-tenth century by the Gangas. This contrasts with the twelfth to thirteenth-century Hoysala temples at Belur, Halebid, and Somnathpur, with their intricately carved wall friezes and bracket figures.

Western Chalukya temples dating to the eleventh to twelfth centuries seen at Lakkundi emphasize architectural embellishment. The outer walls of the fourteenth to sixteenthcentury temples seen at Hampi are relatively unadorned, but later examples have halls with intricately carved pillars and are set into large, formal complexes.

Hampi also preserves great rings of fortifications which defended its palace zone, where a large number of courtly buildings are preserved in interlocking enclosures. Many

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of these combine Islamic building techniques and styles with local practice, creating a new courtly style. By the end of the eighteenth century the influence of Persian and European traditions on the civic and defensive architecture of Tipu is seen in his island fortress at Srirangapatana. A century later British engineers were designing civic and religious buildings for use by representatives of the Crown and for local rulers. In Mysore, the seat of a model princely state, the extraordinary early twentieth-century IndoSaracenic palace of the Wadiyar maharajas, with its cast-iron columns and stained glass ceilings, is a particularly fine example of a later synthesis.

Itinerary Days 1 & 2: London to Bangalore to Mysore.

Fly from London Heathrow to Bangalore at c. 2.00pm. After a 51/2 hour time change reach the hotel in Bangalore at c. 6.00am. After a few hours rest, drive to Mysore. First of three nights in Mysore.

Day 3: Mysore. The Wodiars, the 19th-cent. ruling Hindu dynasty, and British engineers rebuilt Mysore as a model capital. The IndoSaracenic Amba Vilas Palace was designed

by Henry Irwin and completed in 1912. The Jaganmohan Palace is now a picture gallery.

Chamundi Hill, where the goddess who protected the rulers resides, has commanding views of the city. Overnight Mysore.

Day 4: Somnathpur, Srirangapatana. Known to the British as Seringapatam, the islandfortress of Srirangapatana on the Kaveri river is celebrated as the site of battles fought by the British against Tipu Sultan, whose defeat

by General Harris in 1799 finally asserted the British hegemony in South India. The extensive fortifications were built by French engineers. Just outside the ramparts lies the summer palace of Tipu Sultan, Daria Daulat Bagh (1784), where Wellesley resided after Tipu’s defeat. Overnight Mysore.

Day 5: Melukote, Shravanabelagola. The holy hill of Melukote is associated with the 12th-cent. Vaishnava saint Sri Ramanuja.

The complex was patronised by successive dynasties; the Narayana temple dates from the 15th cent., while the Narasimha temple on the summit was supported by the Wadiyars in the 19th century. The sacred Jain pilgrimage complex of Shravanabelagola is more ancient.

The monolithic Bahubali colossus was dedicated in 981 and is a superb example of early sculpture. Overnight Hassan.

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Hampi, Dutch wood engraving 1871.

Day 6: Halebid, Chikmagalur. The Hoysala dynasty ruled southern Karnataka between the 11th and 14th centuries. In Halebid, the capital of the Hoysala kingdom in the 12th cent., the intricately carved Hoysaleshvara Temple was dedicated to Lord Shiva in 1121.

The double shrines are each faced by a pavilion containing Nandi. In the archaeological museum, sculptures almost in the round depict figures from Hindu mythology as well as animals, birds and dancers. We continue to our hotel in the foothills of the Western Ghats, a region noted for coffee plantations.

The afternoon is at leisure. First of two nights in Chikmagalur.

Day 7: Belur. Our morning’s drive takes us to Chennakeshava Temple complex on the edge of the busy town of Belur, the first capital of the Hoysala dynasty. A 16th–cent. gateway leads into the complex where a colonnade surrounds a courtyard with a small stepwell and two damaged temples. The main temple commemorates a royal victory in 1117.

Overnight Chikmagalur.

I ND I A 2 0 1 3 & 2 0 1 4

Day 8: Chikmagalur to Hospet. The coach journey today is around 200 miles and passes the Tungabhadra Reservoir, resulting from a dam built in the 1950s, and through the Sandur Hills, an important source of iron ore and manganese. With a 9.00am start and morning, lunchtime and afternoon stops, we reach the hotel before 6.00pm. First of three nights in Hospet.

of the Hindu epic, the Ramayana, as well as unique courtly processions. Overnight Hospet.

Day 9: Hampi. The ruins of the Vijayanagara capital, 1336–1565, lie in a remarkable landscape strewn with granite boulders and spread along the Tungabhadra River. The extensive site is organised around two main areas, the Sacred Centre with its concentration of temples and shrines, and the Royal Centre.

Hemakuta hill with its small pavilions and shrines predating the Vijayanagara Empire has panoramic views of the area. The Virupaksha Temple in the village below was much enlarged in the early 16th cent. and is characteristic of the Vijayanagara style. The walls of the Ramachandra temple at the core of the Royal Centre display two depictions

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Day 10: Hampi. In the morning we return to the Sacred Centre to drift by boat down the Tungabhadra to see the finely carved halls of the Vitthala Temple complex. The afternoon visits focus on the Royal Centre and its secular buildings. The so-called Lotus Mahal in the zenana with its cusped arches and pyramidal towers is a superb example of the syncretic architecture of Vijayanagara, while structures such as the Mahanavami Dibba highlight the courtly rituals. Overnight Hospet.

Day 11: Lakkundi, Hubli to Bengaluru (Bangalore). On our way to Hubli to catch the Bangalore flight, stop at Lakkundi where a number of monuments dating to the 11th and 12th centuries are built using a grey-green schist. These late Chalukyan temples and a step-well preserve finely carved architectural details. Overnight Bangalore.

Day 12: Bengaluru to London. The direct flight to Heathrow arrives at c. 1.30pm.

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Karnataka continued

Practicalities Price: £3,860 (deposit £350). This includes: air travel (economy class) with British Airways, London–Bengaluru–London (Boeing 747– 400), and with SpiceJet, Hubli to Bengaluru (Boeing 737–900); travel by modern airconditioned coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 6 lunches (including 1 packed lunch) and 6 dinners with wine, beer, water and coffee; admissions to museums and sites; tips for drivers, restaurant staff, and local guides; airport taxes; the service of a lecturer and tour manager.

Single supplement: £550, price without international flights: £3,270.

Hotels: Bangalore (2 nights): a conveniently located 5-star hotel with all modern amenities.

Mysore (3 nights): on a ridge outside the city centre, this former palace has commanding views of the city. Décor is dated but the rooms are comfortable and the property is not without charm. Hassan (1 night): spacious, comfortable rooms designed to reflect rural living, set in an extensive garden with a swimming pool. Chikmagalur (2 nights): located high in the coffee-producing hills, the hotel has a tranquil location with spectacular valley views. Rooms are well equipped with all modern amenities. Well-tended grounds with

swimming pool. Hospet (3 nights): the newest and best in town, a comfortable 4-star hotel with a swimming pool.

How strenuous? A good level of fitness is essential. Unless you enjoy entirely unimpaired mobility, cope with everyday walking and stair-climbing without difficulty and are reliably sure-footed, this tour is not for you.

A rough indication of the minimum level of fitness required is that you ought to be able to walk briskly at about three miles per hour for at least half an hour, and undertake a walk at a more leisurely pace for an hour or two unaided. Uneven ground and irregular paving are standard. There are fairly steep ascents to hilltop forts and temples. There are some long coach journeys during which facilities are limited and may be of poor quality. Most sites have some shade but the Indian sun is strong, even in the cooler seasons. We regret that we do not accept bookings from people who would be 81 or over at the time of the tour.

Average distance by coach per day: 61 miles.

Lecturer John M. Fritz. Studied Anthropology at the University of Chicago and is currently Associate Professor of Archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Since 1981, with George Michell, he has codirected a team of researchers at Hampi, carrying out intensive documentation of surface remains, and has written on the city’s layout and cultural meaning.

Among his joint publications are Where Gods and Kings Meet: the Royal Centre at Vijayanagara; City of Victory, New Light on Hampi and Hampi, a Story in Stone.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours: combine this tour with The British Raj, 4–16 January (see page 23) and Essential India, 31 Jan–14 February (see page 20).

A view in Mysore, late-18th-century copper engraving after a painting attributed to Sir Alexander Allan (1764–1820).

M A R T I N R ANDA L L T R A V E L

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Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

The Indian Mutiny Delhi, Meerut, Lucknow, Gwalior, Agra 19 November–2 Dec. 2013 (ma 772) 14 days • £4,520 Lecturer: Major Gordon Corrigan A study of the single most important and controversial set of events in the history of the British in India, a turning point for the Subcontinent and also for Victorian Britain.

A tour of intense interest for military, imperial and Indian history.

Special arrangements for exclusive access.

Led by military historian Major Gordon Corrigan.

The First War of Indian Independence or an ill-planned and illegitimate rebellion? The death-throes of a traditional society slipping beneath the waves of progress or an historic advance towards the emancipation of peoples oppressed by colonialism? The Indian Mutiny, to use the name given by the British upon its outbreak in 1857, has been subject to many interpretations. This tour aims to present a clear-sighted understanding of the events and their meaning, and a moving study of conflict and reconciliation.

In 1857 the Bengal Army, one of the Honourable East India Company’s locally raised armies, turned on its British officers, murdered them and their families or drove them away, and attempted to establish their own authority in Delhi. Newly issued cartridges greased with pig and cow fat, thus alienating both Muslims and Hindus, though rapidly withdrawn, may have precipitated the Mutiny; that it spread so rapidly and enjoyed widespread support reveals deep underlying discontent. Challenged by westernisation, Indian society, rarely at peace with itself anyway, was becoming disorientated and disenchanted.

There followed the most serious challenge to Queen Victoria’s authority of her entire reign. The rebellion sucked in thousands of loyal native troops as well as British regiments – some of them fresh from the Crimea – and plunged the Empire into chaos. The battles were bitter, the destruction enormous and the whole episode complicated by unprecedented inter-tribal and religious violence that looked to the outsider like civil war.

The imperial forces displayed extraordinary endurance and skill, but there were atrocities on both sides as well as acts of great gallantry. Many of Victoria’s military heroes made their names in the Mutiny as the press reported every move of rebels and loyal troops I ND I A 2 0 1 3 & 2 0 1 4

Gwalior Fort, from The Illustrated London News 1858.

alike. The horror of Wheeler’s Entrenchment at Cawnpore, the dogged defence of the Residency at Lucknow and the storming of the Kashmiri Gate at Delhi still echo down the years.

There are remarkable traces of military engagement surviving in places, and memorials and monuments commemorate the events. Fortuitously, the rebellion spread across some of the most beautiful parts of the country, and the tour provides an excellent overview of Indian landscapes, culture and architecture.

We also follow the path of the most glamorous of rebels, the warrior queen Rani

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Lakshmibai, from her own Kingdom of Jhansi to the remote and spectacular fortress of Gwalior. She caused the entire Central India Field Force to be pitted against her and only with her death was the fire of unrest finally dampened down.

Itinerary Day 1: London to Delhi. Fly from London Heathrow at c. 10.00am, and after a 5 1/2 -hour time change, reach the hotel in Old Delhi shortly after midnight.

Day 2: Old Delhi, the heart of the uprising.

Nothing is planned before a pre-lunch talk. In b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

The Indian Mutiny continued

May 1857 rebellious sepoys flocked to Delhi to establish it as the capital of their newly freed nation. In June the British occupied a ridge overlooking the city, which at one stage looked too weak to survive the sallies of the mutineers. A walk on the Ridge takes in Flagstaff Tower, a safe haven for the British.

The Mutiny Memorial commemorating those killed in action is a neo-Gothic spire with elements of Indian design, built in the local sandstone in 1863. Overnight Old Delhi.

Day 3: Old Delhi. By early September the besiegers were strong enough to attack and after a week’s vicious fighting Delhi once more came under British control. Visit the sites of some of the battles, including the much-shelled Kashmiri Gate and the British magazine. Walk the route of General Nicholson’s advance (he died while storming the Lahore Gate). Visit the imposing Red Fort, entering via the Lahore Gate where King Bahadur Shah Zafar reluctantly accommodated the Meerut sepoys. Overnight Old Delhi.

Day 4: Meerut, the start of the Mutiny.

Inspired by an incident near Calcutta, on Sunday 10th May sepoys in the garrison at Meerut began an open revolt. From here the virus spread. Visit St John’s garrison church and the cemetery with graves of that day’s victims. Lunch at a private home and a visit by special appointment to the residence of Lt Col Carmichael-Smyth, whose court-martial of 90 men for refusing to use greased bullets is said to have provided the spark that ignited the outbreak. Overnight Old Delhi.

Day 5: Old and New Delhi. The beautiful garden tomb of Humayun, an important example of Mughal architecture, was where Zafar was eventually captured. The Mutiny eventually led to the birth of the Raj. Its new capital was established in 1911 and designed

by Sir Edwin Lutyens and Sir Herbert Baker, integrating some Mughal, Hindu and Buddhist elements into the monumental classical buildings of the Viceroy’s House and the Secretariats. Fly to Lucknow; first of three nights at Lucknow.

Day 6: Kanpur (Cawnpore), betrayal and horror. The garrison commander at Cawnpore, Gen. Wheeler, was besieged by his own native troops in a hastily constructed fort known as Wheeler’s Entrenchment.

A visit to this barren, walled area and All Soul’s Memorial Church evokes the dreadful conditions endured by soldiers, civilians, women and children until the rebel leader M A R T I N R ANDA L L T R A V E L

called a ceasefire. Visit Satichaura Ghat on the Ganges, where Europeans and loyal Indians were permitted to board boats but were promptly fired upon in one of the worst scenes in the Mutiny. Overnight Lucknow.

Day 7: Lucknow, where the Mutiny ebbed and flowed. The battered Residency at Lucknow: a monument to the fortunes of war. In July 1857 a tiny garrison of British and Indian troops was besieged here until, in September, Sir Henry Havelock forced his way through and, in turn, was assailed.

In November Sir Colin Campbell drove the mutineers aside and evacuated the defenders.

In March 1858 he returned and finally recaptured the city. See Havelock’s Memorial and the battle-scarred Alambagh Palace, alternately occupied by the rebels and the British. Sikandra Bagh, a pleasure garden of the nawabs, served as a sepoy stronghold.

Overnight Lucknow.

Day 8: Lucknow. Before leaving Lucknow, there is a special visit to La Martinière Boys’ School, a flamboyant hybrid building of 1796.

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The principal, masters and boys of the college successfully defended the perimeter of the grounds in 1857. Dilkusha Hunting Lodge still stands nearby despite shelling during the siege. Havelock died here. Board a noon train and travel 5 hours to Jhansi and by coach for 15 miles to Orchha. Spend the first of two nights in Orchha.

Day 9: Orchha. Located close to the Betwa River on dramatic rocky terrain, Orchha’s former glory as capital of the Bundela kings is evident in the multi-chambered Jehangir Mahal with lapis lazuli tiles and ornate gateways. The Lakshmi Temple contains 19thcent. frescoes depicting the defence of Jhansi Fort. Most of the afternoon is free though there is an optional visit to Chatturbhuj Temple. Overnight Orchha.

Day 10: Jhansi, scene of massacre and duplicity. The debate still rages over whether Rani Lakshmibai, Queen of Jhansi, knew that the tiny European garrison to whom she guaranteed safe passage were going to be attacked. Their murder, however, led the Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

‘The Storming of Delhi – the Cashmere Gate’, from The Illustrated London News 1857.

British to send troops to crush her. Walk along the concentric walls of Shankar Fort where the Rani battled hard against her British opponents in March 1858 before avoiding capture on horseback and riding to Gwalior, a route we drive in the relative comfort of a coach. Overnight Gwalior.

Day 11: Gwalior, the Mutiny’s dénouement.

Situated on a hill, the formidable fort at Gwalior is lavishly embellished with cupolas and blue tiles; inside are superb 9th- and 11th-cent. temples. Here Rani Lakshmibai held strong with fellow rebel Tatya Tope, until, leading a cavalry patrol, she was surprised at Kotah-ki-Serai in June 1858 (where fortifications are still visible) and killed while the British closed in on the fort from east and west simultaneously. Tatya’s forces disintegrated as the citadel fell – the last battle of the uprising. Overnight Gwalior.

Day 12: Agra, a decisive engagement. Drive from Gwalior to Agra, a route marked by the dramatic ravines of the Chambal River. Lunch is at a former royal residence at Dholpur. In I ND I A 2 0 1 3 & 2 0 1 4

August 1857 Col Greathead marched with 3,000 men from Delhi to Agra to recapture the besieged city. The mutineers had been reinforced after Delhi’s fall, but the successful assault prevented the sepoys from linking their forces from central India with those from the rest of Bengal. An evening stroll by the Yamuna river is rewarded by a view of the Taj Mahal. Overnight Agra.

Day 13: Agra to Delhi. Rise early to visit the Taj Mahal in the first light of the day. After breakfast, visit the magnificent Fort. Permanent reminders of the events of 1857 scar this formidable defensive structure – a cannon ball mark on the Sheesh Mahal (Mirror Palace) and the somewhat incongruous but poignant tomb of Col John Russell, Lieutenant Governor of the Northwest Provinces, who died here in 1857.

Drive to Delhi. Overnight near the airport.

Day 14: Delhi to London. Rise early for the flight, arriving Heathrow at c. 11.00am.

Practicalities Price: £4,520 (deposit £400). This includes: air travel (economy class) with British Airways: London to Delhi (Boeing 747-400), and Delhi to London (Boeing 777), and with Jet Airways: Delhi to Lucknow (Boeing 737-800); transport by air-conditioned coach and one journey by train (in the best class available); accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 11 lunches (including 2 packed lunches) and 8 dinners with wine or beer, water, coffee, tea; all admission charges to museums etc.; all tips for waiters, drivers, etc.; the services of the lecturer, tour manager and local guides. Single supplement £540. Price without the international flights: £3,860.

Hotels: Old Delhi (4 nights): dating to the early 1900s, the hotel retains colonial charm and is ideally located in the heart of the old city. Attractive garden. Lucknow (3 nights): a very comfortable 4-star with spacious public areas and rooms with all modern amenities, surrounded by extensive garden. Orchha (2 nights): though the rooms are adequately equipped and have air conditioning, this is the most basic of the hotels on this tour. Located very near the main sites; garden. Gwalior (2 nights): set in 9 acres of land, this charming hotel was formerly a private palace. Rooms combine traditional decor with modern features and are large, light and bright. Agra (1 night): a comfortable, well-run, modern 4-star close to the main sites with a spacious garden. New Delhi (1 night): functional 4-star

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Lecturer Major Gordon Corrigan.

Military historian and former officer of the Royal Gurkha Rifles.

He served mainly in the Far East, but also in Berlin, Cyprus, Belize and Northern Ireland. Author of Wellington, A Military Life; Mud, Blood and Poppycock: Britain and the First World War and Loos 1915, The Unwanted Battle.

Television appearances include Napoleon’s Waterloo and Battlefield Detectives. He is an Honorary Research Fellow of the Universities of Birmingham and Kent, a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society and a Member of the British Commission for Military History. close to the airport. Four of the hotels have swimming pools.

How strenuous? A good level of fitness is essential. Unless you enjoy entirely unimpaired mobility, cope with everyday walking and stair-climbing without difficulty and are reliably sure-footed, this tour is not for you. A rough indication of the minimum level of fitness required is that you ought to be able to walk briskly at about three miles per hour for at least half an hour, and undertake a walk at a more leisurely pace for an hour or two unaided. Uneven ground and irregular paving are standard. There are some fairly steep ascents to hilltop forts and temples.

Unruly traffic and the busy streets of larger cities require some vigilance. There are some long coach journeys during which facilities are limited and may be of poor quality. Most sites have some shade but the Indian sun is strong, even in the cooler seasons. We regret that we do not accept bookings from people who would be 81 or over at the time of the tour.

Average distance by coach per day: 43 miles.

Small group: the tour will operate with between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tour: combine this tour with Painted Palaces of Rajasthan, 4–15 November (see page 4).

b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Mughal & Nawabi Architecture Delhi, Vrindavan, Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Lucknow

Delhi, principal gate of the Palace of the Emperors, from India & Its Native Princes 1876.

5–15 February 2014 (ma 810) 11 days • £4,260 Lecturer: Dr Giles Tillotson One of the world’s greatest schools of architecture and decoration, rooted in several traditions but becoming an original, harmonious and beautiful synthesis.

Led by Dr Giles Tillotson, the leading expert on Mughal architecture.

An unusual amount of time is spent in Agra to allow for exploration of the many Mughal tombs and gardens.

Also unusual is the inclusion of little-visited Lucknow, the city of the Nawabs with its distinctive late-Mughal architecture.

M A R T I N R ANDA L L T R A V E L

After heroic struggles, Babur, exiled prince from a minor Central Asian province, seized Delhi in 1526 and thus became the first Mughal emperor of India. His successors expanded their territories until towards the end of the seventeenth century they encompassed most of modern India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.

Thereafter their power waned; before the last Mughal was deposed in 1858 his writ scarcely extended beyond his Delhi fortress. During their period of glory, however, the dynasty ruled one of the great empires in history.

And the body of architecture bequeathed by emperors and empresses, warlords and administrators, nobles and governors, ranks among the world’s finest.

Though constantly waging war, and proud of their descent from both Ghengis Khan

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and Tamerlane, most of the Mughals were discerning and lavish patrons of the arts. The immense wealth to which they had access (which far exceeded that of the Ottomans and Safavids, the other Islamic powers of the time) enabled them to build not only for their own pleasure but also to impress on their subjects the power and permanence of the dynasty. Much Mughal architecture of the earlier periods was public, and exterior majesty counted for more than interior delights.

The style had eclectic roots: Central Asia, where the building arts had reached high levels of sophistication; Persia, source of the dominant cultural values in the region; and India itself, which provided traditions of stone carving and construction that went back a thousand years. The result, however, after an early phase of experimentation, led to the Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

creation of a remarkably harmonious and consistent architectural style.

The tour begins in Delhi among the remains of pre-Mughal sultanates; India’s first Islamic dynasty arrived here in 1193. Here also are some of the great glories of Mughal architecture. Vrindavan receives few visitors, but stately temples built by contemporaries of the early Mughals show how the Rajputs put the shared heritage to very different uses.

Agra is of course much visited, but the tour allows time to explore the city’s other great monuments that place the Taj Mahal in context. The astonishing abandoned city of Fatehpur Sikri was built as a new capital.

Awadh (Oudh), with its capital Lucknow, was a province of the Mughal empire until in the mid-eighteenth century its Nawabs (governors) led it to de facto independence and primacy among the provinces of northern India. Their magnificent buildings further develop the Mughal style, stressing ornament and elaboration, and are marked by a creative interaction with European culture. There is also a playfulness that some have seen as decadent, but the style was taken up all over India, and beyond: Brighton Pavilion manifests this tradition.

Itinerary Day 1: London to Delhi. Fly from London Heathrow to Delhi at c. 12 noon, and after a 5 1/2 -hour time change reach the hotel in New Delhi c. 3.00am. First of four nights in Delhi.

Day 2: Delhi. Nothing is planned before a pre-lunch talk. The tour begins at the mosque and towering minaret of Qutb Minar (1190s), erected by the first Muslim conqueror, Muhammed of Ghur and the earliest Islamic building in India. It was built with masonry from plundered Hindu temples. A stroll in the serene Lodi Gardens takes in the 15th-cent. tombs of the Sayyid and Lodi dynasties, relatively simple but beguiling in design.

Overnight Delhi.

Day 3: Delhi. The red sandstone Jamali Kamali mosque is an excellent and wellconserved example of 16th-cent. Islamic architecture, with a finely carved mihrab. The interior of the adjoining tomb has original glazed tiles and ornate plaster work. Next comes the first great building arising from Mughal patronage, the magnificent tomb of Emperor Humayun (1572). It established the pattern of red sandstone with white marble inlay which dominated for the next 80 years, and is set in a traditional char-bagh garden.

Overnight Delhi.

I ND I A 2 0 1 3 & 2 0 1 4

the exquisite tomb of Itimad ud Daula (1628) is a pioneer of intricate marble inlay work.

Overnight Agra.

Lecturer Dr Giles Tillotson.

Fellow (and former Director) of the Royal Asiatic Society, he has been Reader in History of Art and Chair of Art & Archaeology at SOAS. His specialisms include the history and architecture of the Rajput courts of Rajasthan and of the Mughal cities of Delhi and Agra; Indian architecture in the period of British rule and after Independence; and landscape painting in India. Books include Taj Mahal, Jaipur City Palace, Mughal India and The Tradition of Indian Architecture.

Day 7: Agra. The Taj Mahal (1631–47) was famously built by Shah Jahan as the tomb of his favourite wife. Rise early to see it in the first light of day; despite inevitable scepticism, it is likely that you will indeed conclude that this is the most beautiful building in the world. Return to the hotel for breakfast before visiting the Red Fort, first constructed by Akbar (1565–73) and added to by Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb. Among the highlights are Akbar’s Jehangiri Mahal, with high-quality sandstone carvings of Hindu influence; the Sheesh Mahal, with its mirror-mosaic interiors; and the elaborately decorated Musamman Burj pavilion. The rest of the day is free. Overnight Agra.

Day 4: Delhi. The Purana Qila, the Old Fort, marks the site of Humayun’s 16th-cent. capital. The much larger Red Fort (from 1639) and the Friday Mosque (1656), the largest in India, date from the reign of Shah Jahan.

The massive red sandstone curtain wall of the fort shelters a few remaining structures of exquisite delicacy, among them the pietra dura work of Shah Jahan’s throne pavilion (1640) and Aurangzeb’s white marble Pearl Mosque (1663). Overnight Delhi.

Day 5: Vrindavan, Sikandra. Like most Hindu temples in Vrindavan, the Govinda Deva temple (1590) is dedicated to the god Krishna, but the red sandstone structure emulates contemporary Mughal architecture and eschews figurative carvings and other Hindu elements. Akbar’s mausoleum at Sikandra (1613) far surpasses that of his father, Humayun, in size and elaboration, being situated in a garden nearly 1 km 2 and encrusted with domed marble kiosks. First of three nights in Agra.

Day 6: Fatehpur Sikri, Agra. Fourteen years after its inception in 1571 Akbar abandoned his new capital at Fatehpur Sikri, but the most important elements of the city had been constructed. The palace complex consists of beautifully wrought red sandstone pavilions amid a series of courtyards. In the Diwan-iKhas (semi-private assembly hall) the central pillar fuses a spectrum of architectural styles and religious symbols. Set in a pleasure garden on the banks of the River Yamuna in Agra,

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Day 8: Lucknow. Travel for 4 hours by express train to Lucknow. While the Mughals were Sunni, the Nawabs of Lucknow were Shia, and this led to the development of new types of building such as the imambara alongside the familiar mosques and palaces. The scarred ruins of the Residency complex are silent reminders of the mutiny of 1857, which led to the demise of the Nawabs. First of two nights in Lucknow.

Day 9: Lucknow. The small Nadal Mahal is the only reminder of the early Mughal period in Lucknow. By contrast, the Great Imambara (1784), incorporating the Asfi Mosque, is quintessential Nawabi with its ornate stucco floral decorations. The Rumi Darwaza nearby is the most extravagant of the Lucknow buildings, with its trumpet-like protrusions, slender minarets and Baroque elements.

Overnight Lucknow.

Day 10: Lucknow, Delhi. La Martinière School was built in 1796 as the residence of Claude Martin, a French soldier and merchant highly influential in 18th-cent. Awadh. It is an extravagant example of the hybrid East-West style. Afternoon flight to Delhi. Overnight Gurgaon (near Delhi).

Day 11: Delhi to London. Rise early for the flight, arriving Heathrow before noon.

Practicalities Price: £4,260 (deposit £400). This includes: air travel (economy class) on flights with British Airways: return London to Delhi (Boeing 747–400) and with IndiGo (Airbus A320); travel by private air-conditioned coach; one train journey in the best class

b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Mughal & Nawabi Architecture continued

Indian Summer Delhi, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Shimla

available; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 8 lunches and 5 dinners with wine or beer, water and coffee; all admissions to museums and sites; all tips for drivers, restaurant staff, and local guides; airport taxes; the service of a lecturer. Single supplement £520. Price without international flights: £3,650.

Hotels: Delhi (4 nights): dating to the early 1900s, it retains colonial charm and is ideally situated in the heart of Lutyens’s Delhi.

Attractive garden and swimming pool. Agra (3 nights): a comfortable, well-run, modern 4-star close to the main sites, centred around a pleasant garden. Lucknow (2 nights): a very comfortable 4-star with spacious public areas and rooms with all modern amenities, surrounded by extensive garden. Gurgaon, Delhi (1 night): sleek and contemporary hotel, conveniently located near the airport. All hotels have swimming pools.

How strenuous? A good level of fitness is essential. Unless you enjoy entirely unimpaired mobility, cope with everyday walking and stair-climbing without difficulty and are reliably sure-footed, these tours are not for you. A rough indication of the minimum level of fitness required is that you ought to be able to walk briskly at about 3 miles per hour for at least half an hour, and undertake a walk at a more leisurely pace for an hour or two unaided. Uneven ground and irregular paving are standard. Unruly traffic and the busy streets of larger cities require some vigilance. There is one long coach journey during which facilities are limited and may be of poor quality. Most sites have some shade but the Indian sun is strong, even in the cooler seasons. We regret that we do not accept bookings from people who would be 81 or over at the time of the tour. Average distance by coach per day: 29 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tour: combine this tour with Sailing the Ganges, 18 February–2 March 2014 (see page 26).

Amritsar, The Golden Temple, from Across India at the Dawn of the 20th Century 1898.

24 March–5 April 2014 (ma 840) 13 days • £5,120 Lecturer: Raaja Bhasin A fascinating selection of places which have the common feature of relating to the last years of the Raj. Led by Raaja Bhasin, historian, author, lecturer and Shimla resident.

Shimla, the grandest hill station, the buildings a hotch-potch of bastardised European styles.

Reached by the famous mountain ‘toy train’.

Chandigarh, the modern ideal city built by Le Corbusier.

Both the high noon of the British Empire in India and its closing years were played out in the city of Delhi and in the ‘summer capital’, Simla (now Shimla), dubbed by many the grandest outpost of the Pax Britannica.

Tracing the flow and ebb of the Raj in two

M A R T I N R ANDA L L T R A V E L

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imperial capitals, this tour covers architecture, events, lifestyles, landscapes of the Western Himalaya and numerous stories of places and people. Amritsar is part of this story, and Chandigarh provides a glimpse into Indian Utopia after Independence.

Built, destroyed and rebuilt a dozen times, Delhi is one of the oldest cities in the world, and also one of the most multilayered. It is home to some fifteen million people and its heterogeneous population has genetic strands that span the Indian subcontinent, Central Asia and several other parts of the world.

Today, towers of chrome and steel stand side by side with centuries-old monuments built by the Mughal rulers. Between the two, the immense architectural momentum of the Raj culminated in the creation of New Delhi, still the core of this fast-expanding city.

Up in the hills of the Western Himalaya, Simla was the summer capital of British India, the grandest of the British hill stations. For around a century, a fifth of the human race Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

Lecturer Raaja Bhasin.

Author, historian and free-lance journalist, he has published seven critically acclaimed books on the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh and its capital, Shimla, and is recognized as an authority on both. He has handled assignments for the BBC and organisations including the UNDP, the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, various departments of the Government of India and several hospitality chains, and writes regularly for various magazines and papers in India and elsewhere. He is also the state Coconvenor of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage. His first work of fiction, a collection of stories is to be published in 2013. was ruled from its heights for the better part of every year. The architecture is practically a gazetteer of western styles, but often with a twist, a nod to heritage of the subcontinent.

The town created an enigmatic way of life and the steamier side of its social world gave inspiration to Rudyard Kipling, who as a young correspondent spent some summers amid the cedars. Many decisions that shaped India and the region were made within sight of the snow-clad Himalayas. Today it is the capital of the state of Himachal Pradesh and many of the grander buildings, bungalows and streets still evoke the heyday of a past age.

West of it lies the fertile ‘Land of Five Rivers’, the Punjab. Here is the sacred city of Amritsar, site of the Golden Temple, the most sacred shrine of the Sikh faith. This was also where the Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place in 1919, when a crowd of unarmed civilians was fired upon. The event totally altered the face of Indian nationalism. Even Winston Churchill was moved enough to remark, ‘It is an extraordinary event, an event which stands in singular and sinister isolation’.

The border with Pakistan is close to Amritsar, and with belligerence which is almost histrionic, the sundown ceremony of lowering the flags and closing the gates is played out daily. Nearby is the former princely state of Kapurthala where the Francophile ruler, Jagatjit Singh, completed a palace in I ND I A 2 0 1 3 & 2 0 1 4

1908, loosely modelled on Versailles. He tried to introduce French as his court language.

When the Punjab was divided between India and Pakistan in 1947 the state capital Lahore was replaced in the Indian portion by a brand new city, Chandigarh. Its building in the 1950s was a deliberate break with the past.

Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru called it ‘a new city of free India, totally fresh and wholly responsive to the future generations of this great country.’ Led by Le Corbusier, the city design and urban elements were unabashedly modern and western. Still admired and criticized in equal measure by planners, architects and urban historians, it is yet rated as among the best cities in India in which to live.

Itinerary Days 1 & 2: London to Delhi. Fly from London Heathrow at c. 9.30am and, after a 51/2 -hour time change, reach the hotel in New Delhi early the following morning. Nothing is planned before a pre-lunch talk. In the afternoon, visit Old Delhi for a short walk on The Ridge, taking in Flagstaff Tower, a safe haven for the British during the Mutiny of 1857. The Mutiny Memorial commemorating those killed in action is a Neo-Gothic spire with elements of Indian design. First of three nights in New Delhi.

Day 3: New Delhi. New Delhi was created 1912–31 by Lutyens, Baker and others as a uniquely grand and spacious city. The Secretariat buildings on Raisina Hill are Classical at first glance, but closer inspection reveals Buddhist and Mughal motifs. Subject to special permission, it may be possible to visit the interior of the vast Rashtrapati Bhavan, the former Viceroy’s residence. The fortress-like garrison church of St Martin, designed by Arthur Shoosmith (1930), has been called one of the great buildings of the 20th century. Overnight New Delhi.

Day 4: Delhi to Amritsar. The Teen Murthi Bhavan was built in Classical style in the 1930s as Flagstaff House before becoming the home of the first Indian prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Today, it is a museum dedicated to one of the fathers of modern India. Fly from Delhi to Amritsar at c.

2.00pm. First of two nights in Amritsar.

Day 5: Amritsar, Wagah. Amritsar was founded by the 4th Sikh guru in 1579 and is home to Sikhism’s holiest shrine, the Golden Temple. The sacred lake surrounding the temple dates from this period but the current

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form of the temple is 18th-cent., and the gilt early 19th-cent. Jallianwala Bagh was the scene of the massacre of demonstrators against British rule in 1919 and now is a moving memorial garden. In the afternoon, drive to Wagah for the theatrical sunset closing ceremony of the border with Pakistan.

Overnight Amritsar.

Day 6: Kapurthala, Chandigarh. In the morning, drive to Kapurthala, where the local ruler, an ardent francophile, built his palace (1900–1908) loosely modelled on the palace of Versailles and the chateau of Fontainebleau.

Now a boys’ school, the interior is lavish, while the gardens are embellished by fountains and statuary in the traditional French style.

Continue to Chandigarh to arrive at the hotel in time for dinner. First of two nights in Chandigarh.

Day 7: Chandigarh. The joint capital of the states of Haryana and Punjab emerged from the partition of the Punjab in 1947. Conceived

by Le Corbusier and Maxwell Fry following the principles of the International Modern movement, it is laid out on the grid principle.

The Capital Complex is the home of the administrative buildings, the ‘head’ of the city and some of Le Corbusier’s most ambitious planning. Overnight Chandigarh.

Day 8: Chandigarh, Shimla. Transfer to Kalka in the foothills of the Himalayas to board the ‘toy train’ to Shimla. The Kalka– Shimla Railway has been operating daily since 1903 and is a remarkable feat of engineering. After a 5-hour ride through stunning scenery, transfer to the hotel. First of three nights in Shimla.

Day 9: Shimla, Mashobra. The former summer capital of British India, Shimla is set in the lush pine and cedar forests of the Himalayan foothills. Its impressive colonial architecture is best admired through walks along the Mall. Viceregal Lodge, the summer residence of the British viceroy is probably Shimla’s best-known building. Built in 1888, the grey sandstone structure retains the British royal coat of arms on its façade. After lunch at Wildflower Hall, visit Bishop Cotton School, Shimla’s oldest educational institution, founded in 1859. Overnight Shimla.

Day 10: Shimla. Walk eastward along The Mall towards Christ Church. The Gaiety Theatre was built in 1887 as the original Town Hall. The Gothic building has been the centre of Shimla’s social life for over a century. The tower of Christ Church (1857) dominates Shimla’s skyline from the Ridge, above the

b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Indian Summer continued

town. Time for independent exploration in the afternoon. Overnight Shimla.

Day 11: Kasauli, Chandigarh. Morning drive to Kasauli via Dagshai, scene of the Connaught Rangers’ Mutiny in 1920. The Central Jail (1849) is where the executions took place. The pretty hill station of Kasauli has some interesting 19th-cent. buildings such as Christ Church and the Kasauli Club.

Afternoon drive to Chandigarh. Overnight Chandigarh.

Day 12: Chandigarh to Delhi. In the morning, fly to Delhi. Coronation Park in north Delhi was the location of the 1911 Durbar, at which George V announced the shift of the British capital from Calcutta.

Following Independence, it became the resting place of the statues of kings and officials of the British Raj. Overnight New Delhi.

Day 13: Delhi to London. Rise early for the flight, arriving Heathrow at c. 1.00pm.

Simla, steel engraving 1845.

M A R T I N R ANDA L L T R A V E L

Practicalities Price: £5,120 (deposit £450). This includes: air travel (economy class) on flights with British Airways: return London to Delhi (Boeing 747–400) and with SpiceJet: Delhi to Amritsar and Chandigarh to Delhi (Boeing 737–800); travel by private air-conditioned coach and people carriers; accommodation as described below, breakfasts, 8 lunches (including 1 packed lunch) and 8 dinners with wine or beer, water and coffee; all admissions to museums and sites; all tips for drivers, restaurant staff, and local guides; airport taxes; the service of a lecturer.

Single supplement £740. Price without international flights: £4,520.

Hotels: New Delhi (4 nights): dating to the early 1900s, it retains colonial charm and is ideally situated in the heart of Lutyens’ Delhi.

Garden and swimming pool. Amritsar (2 nights): attractive colonial mansion converted into a characterful boutique hotel down a narrow alley off the main road. Chandigarh (2 nights): modern hotel with elegantly furnished and well-appointed rooms. Shimla (3 nights): landmark 19th-cent. heritage hotel converted into a luxury hotel in the 1930s. Delhi– Gurgaon (1 night): ideally located near the

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international airport, this modern 4-star hotel has comfortable rooms.

How strenuous? A good level of fitness is essential. Unless you enjoy entirely unimpaired mobility, cope with everyday walking and stair-climbing without difficulty and are reliably sure-footed, this tour is not for you. A rough indication of the minimum level of fitness required is that you ought to be able to walk briskly at about three miles per hour for at least half an hour, and undertake a walk at a more leisurely pace for an hour or two unaided. Uneven ground and irregular paving are standard. There are some steep walks. Unruly traffic and the busy streets of larger cities require some vigilance. There are a few long coach and car journeys during which facilities are limited and may be of poor quality. Most sites have some shade but the Indian sun is strong, even in the cooler seasons. We regret that we do not accept bookings from people who would be 81 or over at the time of the tour. Average distance by coach per day: 33 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tour: combine this tour with Bengal by River, 9–22 March (see page 29).

Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

Kingdoms of the Deccan Art & architecture sixth to eighteenth centuries 7–20 February 2014 (ma 811) 14 days • £4,940 Lecturer: John M. Fritz Islamic architecture in the four cities of the Bahmani sultanate founded in the 14th and 15th centuries (Gulbarga, Bidar, Bijapur, Golconda).

Hindu architecture of the Chalukyas from the 6th to the 12th centuries (Badami, Aihole, Pattadakal).

The Islamic state of Hyderabad was one of India’s largest princedoms and retains a rich artistic heritage.

Hampi was capital of the leading Hindu power from the 14th to 16th centuries, a most beautiful and fascinating centre.

The Deccan plateau has distinctive, dramatic, rocky landscapes.

Led by the archaeologist John M. Fritz, co-director for research at Hampi.

Vijayanagara, the City of Victory, was founded in 1336 and its eponymous empire ruled the Deccan until its defeat by the Islamic forces at the battle of Talikota in 1565. This political entity is often regarded by historians as the last Hindu power of the region. It marks the transition between the early Hindu kingdoms, such as the Chalukyas who ruled from the sixth century to the twelfth, and the Muslim sultanates which succeeded them and continued to rule until Independence in 1947.

The Chalukyas’ architectural tradition developed from the early rock-cut caves at Aihole and Badami to the free-standing structural Hindu temples in Pattadakal.

This evolution is clearly confined to sacred architecture. By contrast, the Vijayanagara empire, while further developing and standardising the sacred architecture of Hinduism, also developed an imperial idiom, mixing sacred and vernacular elements and gradually integrating Islamic elements borrowed from the emerging sultanates.

From the fourteenth century onwards, the Deccan saw a sequence of four Islamic sultanates, each with its own capital. In 1347, Ala-ud-Din Bahman founded his capital in Gulbarga after declaring his independence from the Delhi sultans. The capital was later shifted to Bidar in 1425. Bijapur and Golconda later gained importance following the demise of Bidar.

The foundation of every new capital gave impetus to the local building traditions.

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Bijapur, Muhammed Shah’s tomb, engraving after Samuel Prout 1845.

Unlike in north India where most Islamic centres were built on existing Hindu cities, the Deccan sultanates built their capitals anew and a distinct Islamic architecture developed.

A feature of the tour is time spent visiting places where very few tourists venture.

This involves some long coach journeys and two overnight stays in fairly simple accommodation, but the reward is the thrill of deserted citadels with their superb palaces and mosques and impressive fortifications.

Itinerary Days 1 & 2: London to Hyderabad. Fly from London Heathrow at c. 2.00pm direct to Hyderabad, and after a 51/2 hour time change reach the hotel at c. 6.00am. The time till lunch is free, and in the afternoon there is a walk in Lal Bazaar, the centre of the historical city; see the Char Minar, the monumental gateway to the new 16th-cent. palace complex.

First of three nights in Hyderabad.

Day 3: Golconda. Now within Hyderabad, Golconda was the first Islamic settlement in the area. The citadel of the Qutb Shahis, protected by three concentric walls built 1512–1687, is an excellent example of the Bahmani military architecture. Nearby are grand royal tombs, with bulbous domes and elaborate stucco, and the Badshahi

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Ashurkhana is a very fine example of the Shia architectural tradition. Lunch today is in the former Nizam’s palace. Overnight Hyderabad.

Day 4: Hyderabad. Today’s visits focus on Hyderabad after it was annexed by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in 1687 and subsequently ruled by the Nizam. The Chaumahalla Palace was completed in 1750 and comprises four mansions set around a garden. The Durbar Hall (public meeting space) with its Belgian crystal chandeliers is an indication of the Nizam’s wealth and taste for things European.

The day ends with a special visit to a private collection of Indian paintings and textiles.

Overnight Hyderabad.

Day 5: Bidar. A four-hour drive to Bidar, the capital of the Bahmani Sultanate from 1425 until its annexation to the kingdom of Bijapur in 1619. Of particular interest are the 16-pillared mosque and the Rangeen Mahal, the Palace of Colours, so called because of the wall tiles and mother-of-pearl inlays. Following a visit to the Royal Tombs at Ashtur, continue to Gulbarga. Overnight Gulbarga.

Day 6: Gulbarga, Bijapur. The small town of Gulbarga is of major historical importance.

The first Bahmani capital in the Deccan, it was founded in 1347 before being abandoned in 1424 in favour of Bidar. The Jami Masjid (Friday Mosque), similar to the Cordoba

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Kingdoms of the Deccan continued

Mezquita in form and dimensions, is unique in south India as it is fully covered and has no minarets; one theory claims it was built as a palace. A five-hour drive to Bijapur, arriving in time to visit the Gol Gumbaz, a monumental domed tomb, before sunset.

Overnight Bijapur.

Day 7: Bijapur, Badami. In the morning there is a walk through the old town to see the many historic buildings. The walk continues around the city walls and gates. The Ibrahim Rauza tomb complex consists of two intricately carved twin buildings finished in 1626, the tomb of Ibrahim Adil Shah II and the mosque. In the afternoon we leave the Islamic region and drive for four hours to the centre of

the former Hindu Chalukya kingdom. First of three nights in Badami.

Day 8: Aihole, Pattadakal. Numerous Jain and Hindu temples are scattered around the village of Aihole, a clear sign of its religious significance from the 6th to the 12th cents.

The sculptures of the Durga temple are among the finest of the Chalukya period. The World Heritage Site of Pattadakal nearby is celebrated for embodying the last stage of Chalukyan architecture, 8th–9th cents. This is a unique site where the three distinct styles of Indian religious architecture are found in close proximity. Overnight Badami.

Day 9: Badami. The capital of the early Chalukyas from the 6th to the 8th centuries,

Badami has superb examples of early sacred architecture, both rock-cut and free-standing.

Moreover, the sculptural programme of the cave temples provides a fascinating insight into the Hindu iconographic development of this period. Overnight Badami.

Day 10: Badami. Free morning in Badami, now a charming small town beside a lake overlooked by rugged red sandstone cliffs.

In the afternoon there is a five-hour drive through remote and rural countryside to Hospet, our base to visit the World Heritage Site of Hampi. First of three nights here.

Hyderabad, the Char Minar, steel engraving c. 1850.

Day 11: Hospet, Hampi. The ruins of the Vijayanagara capital, 1336–1565, lie in a remarkable landscape strewn with granite boulders and spread along the Tunghabhadra river. The extensive site is organised around two main areas, the Sacred Centre with its concentration of temples and shrines, and the Royal Centre. The Sacred Centre is close to the river and includes the Virupaksha Temple in the middle of the village and Hemakuta Hill with its numerous shrines and commanding views of the area.

Overnight Hospet.

Day 12: Hampi. Following a visit to the Vitthala temple, today’s visits focus on the Royal Centre and its secular buildings.

Most striking is the Lotus Mahal in the Zenana enclosure with its cusped arches and pyramidal towers, a superb example of the syncretic architecture of Vijayanagara.

Overnight Hospet.

Day 13: Hospet, Lakkundi, Hubli. The morning is free, though there is the option of an excursion to another remarkable temple.

In the afternoon, visit the forgotten temples in Lakkundi. Continue to Hubli airport and fly to Bengaluru (Bangalore). Overnight Bengaluru.

Day 14: Bengaluru. The direct flight from Bengaluru to Heathrow is scheduled for c. 07.00 to c. 13.30.

Practicalities Price: £4,940 (deposit £400). This includes: air travel (economy class) on flights with British Airways: London to Hyderabad (Boeing 777) and Bengaluru to London (Boeing 777), with SpiceJet: Hubli to Bengaluru (ATR42/ ATR72); travel by private air-conditioned coach; accommodation as described below, breakfasts, 12 lunches (including 3 packed lunches) and 12 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions to museums and sites; M A R T I N R ANDA L L T R A V E L

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Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

Golconda, the Royal Necropolis, wood engraving 1876.

all tips for drivers, restaurant staff, and local guides; airport taxes; the service of a lecturer.

Single supplement ÂŁ520. Price without international flights: ÂŁ4,330.

Hotels. Some of the hotels on this tour are less than luxurious, but they are adequately clean and comfortable and all the rooms have en suite bathrooms. Hyderabad (3 nights): grand and comfortable 5-star hotel, modern if a little dated. Gulbarga (1 night): a fairly simple hotel though the best in town; clean and not uncomfortable, rooms are spacious and have en suite facilities. Bijapur (1 night): basic but friendly hotel, similar to Gulbarga.

Badami (3 nights): pleasant hotel with willing service around a garden with a small pool. Hospet (3 nights): the newest and best in town, a comfortable 4-star hotel with a swimming pool. Bengaluru (Bangalore): a conveniently located 4-star hotel with all modern amenities.

stair-climbing without difficulty and are reliably sure-footed, this tour is not for you.

A rough indication of the minimum level of fitness required is that you ought to be able to walk briskly at about three miles per hour for at least half an hour, and undertake a walk at a more leisurely pace for an hour or two unaided. Uneven ground and irregular paving are standard. Unruly traffic and the busy streets of larger cities require some vigilance.

There are fairly steep ascents to hilltop forts and temples and long coach journeys during which facilities are limited and may be of poor quality. Most sites have some shade but the Indian sun is strong, even in the cooler seasons. We regret that we do not accept bookings from people who would be 81 or over at the time of the tour. Average distance by coach per day: 56 miles.

Small group: the tour will operate with between 10 and 22 participants.

How strenuous? A good level of fitness is essential. Unless you enjoy entirely unimpaired mobility, cope with everyday walking and I ND I A 2 0 1 3 & 2 0 1 4

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Lecturer John M. Fritz. Studied Anthropology at the University of Chicago and is currently Associate Professor of Archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Since 1981, with George Michell, he has codirected a team of researchers at Hampi, carrying out intensive documentation of surface remains, and has written on the city’s layout and cultural meaning.

Among his joint publications are Where Gods and Kings Meet: the Royal Centre at Vijayanagara, City of Victory, New Light on Hampi and Hampi, a Story in Stone.

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Essential India Delhi, Varanasi, Khajuraho, Orchha, Agra Agra, the Taj Mahal, steel engraving 1834.

Opposite page: window of a building in Varanasi, from India & Its Native Princes 1876.

15–29 November 2013 (ma 771) 15 days • £5,550 Lecturer: Dr Anna-Maria Misra 31 January–14 February 2014 (ma 806) 15 days • £5,550 Lecturer: Sue Rollin Includes some of India’s most celebrated sites and also lesser-known but quintessential places. Arrangements for special access a feature.

Spends more time at the centres visited than most mainstream tours, and free time is allowed for rest or independent exploration.

Varanasi, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, and the most sacred in India; the Hindu temples of Khajuraho; Rajput and Mughal forts, palaces and funerary monuments.

No fewer than seven unesco World Heritage Sites visited.

In November, led by Dr Anna-Maria Misra who teaches at Oxford and researches the history of India and the British Empire. In February, led by Sue Rollin, an experienced tour leader in India.

M A R T I N R ANDA L L T R A V E L

The rich and fertile riverine plains of northern India have long formed a corridor allowing migrations and invasions to spread across the Subcontinent. The result is an area of fascinating cultural diversity.

Like the Ganges and the Yamuna, the sacred rivers of Hindu lore, this tour runs through the modern state of Uttar Pradesh and neighbouring Madhya Pradesh. But these geo-political boundaries do not restrict it thematically. Participants are treated to a comprehensive overview of the history of the Subcontinent, from the emergence of Hinduism and Buddhism to the decline of the Mughal Empire, the last Islamic power before the British Raj of the nineteenth century.

Located on the banks of the Ganges, Varanasi is India’s most sacred place and claims to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. Founded by Lord Shiva, the city is mentioned in scriptures dating from the early Vedic period, in the second millennium bc. It was known as Kanchi, the Luminous, during the life of the Buddha who visited on several occasions on his way to Sarnath nearby where he preached his first sermon. Pilgrims still flock here to wash away their sins in the holy Ganges. The modern Varanasi is also a place of learning and culture, with the first Hindu university in India.

The Chandelas of Khajuraho and the

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Bundelas of Orchha are two Rajput clans tracing lineage to the Lunar Dynasty from Varanasi, a commonly used device to claim political authority. The eleventh-century Chandelas built intricately carved temples in Khajuraho, today celebrated (and often misunderstood) for their sensual carvings.

They are superb examples of the Nagara or northern style of sacred architecture, with its linear succession of halls leading to the sanctum, topped by a Sikhara, or mountainpeak tower.

Later Bundela Rajputs built impressive palaces and temple-like cenotaphs in the lush landscape of northern Madhya Pradesh. Their palaces bring together elements borrowed from both the Rajput and Mughal traditions, while their funerary architecture asserts their dynastic authority.

The buildings and arts of the Mughals in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are often regarded as the apex of India’s artistic achievements, a prestige due no doubt in no small part to its best-known representative, the Taj Mahal, a creation which hovers somewhere between architecture, jewellery and myth. White marble is typical of the late period, while earlier buildings are of red sandstone – the deserted capital of Akbar at Fatehpur Sikri, and the Red Forts of Agra and Delhi.

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Delhi is among a rare elite of the world’s cities which have been capital of several successive regimes. With most new ruling powers establishing their headquarters on a site adjacent to its predecessors, the architectural legacy ranges from a monumental thirteenth-century minaret to the majestic expansiveness of Lutyens’s New Delhi. Empire succeeds empire; eighteen years after the Viceroy took up residence in Government House it was handed over to an independent India.

Itinerary Days 1 & 2: London to Delhi. Fly from London Heathrow at about noon and after a 51/2 hour time change reach the hotel in New Delhi c. 3.00am. Free morning, lunch in the hotel. The severely beautiful 15th-cent. tombs of the Sayyid and Lodi dynasties are located in the serene Lodi Gardens, close to the hotel. Humayun’s striking tomb, with its high-arched façades set in a walled garden, is an important example of early Mughal architecture. Overnight Delhi.

Day 3: Delhi. Visit the imposing Red Fort, founded in 1639 under Shah Jahan. Exquisite pietra dura work remains intact in the throne pavilion. Together with the fort, the Jami Masjid, India’s largest mosque, dominates Old Delhi with its minarets and domes.

Rickshaw through the labyrinthine streets near Chandni Chowk. After lunch, visit New Delhi where Lutyens, Baker and other British architects created a grand city with unique designs. Baker’s Secretariat buildings on the Raisina hill are Classical buildings at first glance but closer attention reveals Mughal motifs. Subject to special permission, it may be possible to visit the manicured gardens and interior of the vast Rashtrapati Bhavan, the former Viceroy’s residence. Overnight Delhi.

Day 4: Delhi to Varanasi. Fly from Delhi to Varanasi at c. 10.30am. After lunch in the hotel, drive to Shivala Ghat for a walk, visiting the hidden shrines of the old town and experiencing the busy life along the river.

Ends at Dasaswamedha Ghat, named after the ancient ten horse sacrifice which took place here in mythical time. A boat ride along the Ganges ends with the evening prayer ceremony (Aarti), a ritual going back to the Vedic Age. First of three nights in Varanasi.

Day 5: Sarnath, Varanasi. Buddha preached his first sermon at Sarnath and the site remains an active Buddhist centre. The Dhamek stupa in the Deer Park marks the I ND I A 2 0 1 3 & 2 0 1 4

spot where the Buddha sat to preach. The museum houses the 3rd-cent. bc lion capital which has become the symbol of modern India since independence. An afternoon visit to the Bharat Kala Bhavan, the university museum, is followed by a private visit to a contemporary art gallery. Overnight Varanasi.

Day 6: Jaunpur. Drive to Jaunpur where the ruins of the fort and mosques are striking reminders of its brief importance as an Islamic centre in the 14th and 15th cents. The 16th-cent. Akbari Bridge has magnificent arches that span the Gomati River. Return to Varanasi for some free time. Overnight Varanasi.

Day 7: Varanasi to Khajuraho. An early morning boat ride to witness the morning prayers and ablutions of the devout is followed by a walk amongst the sacred temples and holy ponds of the south part of the city, near the Assi Ghat. Breakfast on the ghats (stepped embankments). Fly at noon to Khajuraho.

First of two nights in Khajuraho.

Day 8: Khajuraho. Visit the spectacular group of temples built during the Chandela

carved Jain Temple. The Chaturbhuj Temple is unique in its absence of any erotic depictions.

Overnight Khajuraho.

Day 9: Khajuraho to Orchha. Drive to Orchha. Located close to the Betwa River on dramatic rocky terrain, Orchha’s former glory as capital of the Bundela kings is evident in the multi-chambered Jehangir Mahal with lapis lazuli tiles and ornate gateways. The Raj Mahal palace contains some beautiful murals with religious and secular themes. Elegant Royal Chhatris (cenotaphs) line the ghats of the Betwa. First of two nights in Orchha.

Day 10: Orchha. A walk in the old town includes a visit to the Lakshmi Temple whose architecture incorporates fortress elements and whose 19th-cent. frescoes depict scenes of the 1857 Mutiny. The high-ceilinged Chaturbhuj Temple follows a cross plan, representing the four-armed Krishna. Lunch is on the banks of the Betwa before driving the short distance to the towering 18th-cent. fort of Barua Sagar which played an important role in the Mutiny.

The rest of the day is free. Overnight Orchha.

Day 11: Datia, Dholpur, Agra. Drive to the little-visited rural town of Datia to see the 17th-cent. palace of the Bundela ruler Bir Singh Deo. Here Mughal and Rajput styles blend in the decoration of the many-layered residence. Drive to Dholpur for lunch at a former royal residence before continuing to Agra. Take an evening stroll near the Yamuna river for a rewarding view of the Taj Mahal.

First of three nights in Agra.

Day 12: Agra. Rise early to visit the Taj Mahal in the first light of day. Return to the hotel for breakfast and then visit the magnificent Red Fort. The Jehangiri Mahal despite its name was built by Akbar and is the best preserved of the palaces built during his reign. Later additions by Shah Jahan include the glorious mirror-inlaid Sheesh Mahal and the elegant marble Khas Mahal. Free afternoon. Overnight Agra.

Rajput dynasty, famous for the beautifully carved erotic scenes. The awe-inspiring 11th-cent. Kandariya Mahadev Temple is one of the finest examples of North Indian temple architecture, richly embellished with sensuous sculptures. Nearby, the Jagadambi Temple contains excellent carvings of Vishnu.

The Lakshman Temple has attractive female brackets. In the afternoon visit the intricately

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Day 13: Fatehpur Sikri, Agra. Drive to Fatehpur Sikri, a new capital built by Akbar (1570) but abandoned after a mere 15 years.

The walled city occupies a ridge with excellent views. The palace complex consists of a series of courtyards and beautifully wrought red sandstone pavilions. In the Diwan-i-Khas an intriguing column fuses architectural styles and religious symbols. On return to Agra, visit the Itamad ud Daula, an exquisite garden tomb, and the Chini ka Rauza Tomb, notable for its tiled exterior. Overnight Agra. b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Essential India continued

Lecturers

Day 14: Sikandra, Delhi. Drive to Delhi via Akbar’s mausoleum at Sikandra, built on his death in 1605. Set in a traditional char-bagh, it has no central dome unlike other Mughal mausolea. In Delhi, visit the Qutb Minar, site of the first Islamic city of Delhi, established in 1193 on the grounds of a defeated Rajput fort.

The towering minaret and its mosque survive as testament to the might of the invaders.

Overnight Delhi.

Day 15: Delhi. Fly from Delhi in the morning, arriving in London Heathrow before noon.

Practicalities Price: £5,550 (deposit £450). This includes: air travel (economy class) on flights with British Airways: return London to Delhi (Boeing 747–400) and with Jet Airways: Delhi to Varanasi (Boeing 737–800), Varanasi to Khajuraho (Boeing 737–800); travel by private air-conditioned coach; accommodation as described below, breakfasts, 11 lunches (including 2 packed lunches) and 9 dinners with wine or beer, water and coffee; all admissions to museums and sites; all tips for drivers, restaurant staff, and local guides; airport taxes; the service of a lecturer.

Single supplement £820. Price without international flights: £4,960.

Hotels: Delhi (3 nights): dating to the early 1900s, it retains colonial charm and is ideally situated in the heart of Lutyens’s Delhi.

Attractive garden and swimming pool.

Varanasi (3 nights): a large, functional yet comfortable 4-star hotel with contemporary M A R T I N R ANDA L L T R A V E L

touches to the recently renovated rooms. It is conveniently located close to the centre, but removed from the bustle in its 40 acres of private garden, with a pool. Khajuraho (2 nights): a modern hotel, walking distance from the main site, surrounded by a welltended garden. Rooms are spacious and light with large windows overlooking the pool or garden. Orchha (2 nights): the most basic of the hotels on this tour, located very near to the main sites. The rooms are adequately equipped and have air conditioning. There is a garden and pool. Agra (3 nights): a comfortable, well-run, modern 4-star close to the main sites with a spacious internal garden with pool. Delhi–Gurgaon: ideally located near the international airport, this modern 4-star hotel has comfortable rooms.

How strenuous? A good level of fitness is essential. Unless you enjoy entirely unimpaired mobility, cope with everyday walking and stair-climbing without difficulty and are reliably sure-footed, this tour is not for you. A rough indication of the minimum level of fitness required is that you ought to be able to walk briskly at about 3 miles per hour for at least half an hour, and undertake a walk at a more leisurely pace for an hour or two unaided. Uneven ground and irregular paving are standard. Sure-footedness is essential to board the river boats. Unruly traffic and the busy streets of larger cities require some vigilance. There are some fairly steep ascents to hilltop forts and temples. There are some long coach journeys during which facilities are limited and may be of poor quality. Most sites have some shade but the Indian sun is strong,

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Dr AnnaMaria Misra teaches history at Oxford University and is as Fellow of Keble College. She is a specialist on Indian history and the British Empire. She has written extensively on many aspects of India’s history and culture, including Vishnu’s Crowded Temple: India since the Great Rebellion (Yale, 2008). She wrote and presented the Channel 4 series An Indian Affair and is a regular writer and broadcaster for the British media. She is currently writing a book on global crosscurrents in art and architecture.

Sue Rollin.

Archaeologist, interpreter and lecturer. She did an MA in South Asian Studies at London University (Institute of Archaeology and SOAS) and has visited India many times since her first visit in 1972. She led her first tour there in 1989. She also studied languages and her repertoire includes three ancient Near-Eastern languages and several modern European ones. She has taught at UCL, SOAS and Cambridge University and interpreted for the EU and UN. Illustration: Delhi, the Red Fort, aquatint by William Daniell 1812.

even in the cooler seasons. We regret that we do not accept bookings from people who would be 81 or over at the time of the tour.

Average distance by coach per day: 45 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours: combine the November departure with Painted Palaces of Rajasthan, 4–15 November (see page 4) and the January departure with Karnataka, 18–29 January (see page 6) and Sailing the Ganges, 18 February–2 March (see page 26).

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The British Raj Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi: history & architecture 4–16 January 2014 (ma 801) 13 days • £6,220 Lecturers: David Gilmour & Professor Gavin Stamp Led by two eminent lecturers: a historian of the Raj and a specialist in Victorian and Edwardian architecture.

Visits the major centres of British power, still India’s leading cities – Bombay (Mumbai), Calcutta (Kolkata) and Delhi.

There is an extraordinary wealth of Europeanstyle architecture from the late eighteenth century to the middle of the twentieth.

Little-visited treasures as well as the major ones included, with private visits and special access a feature of the tour.

An archetypical case of the MRT policy of travelling less and seeing more, with four days in each of the cities and free time.

withdrew in 1947.

Colonisation is also a term to be used warily. Plantations were rare, settling very much the exception (and planters were often a thorn in the flesh of the administration). Most Britons who went to India expected to end their days in Britain. India was a place to seek adventure and to pursue a career, rarely a place to which to emigrate. If the imperial venture had its roots in trade, its fulfilment manifested itself in bureaucracy.

At the height of the Raj, about a thousand Anglo-Indians administered a population of 300 million. The Indian Civil Service was perhaps the most efficient and least corrupt in history. There was no shortage of arrogance and prejudice; but devotion to duty, sense of service, religious tolerance and idealism concerning the benefits of their work were abundantly prevalent. It was not lost on some that their mission to inculcate the native population with Enlightenment values – order,

In a history of the world’s empires, British India would stand out as an extreme oddity.

Both the way in which India was acquired and the means by which she was governed and administrated were exceptional.

It is not much of an exaggeration to say that the Subcontinent became British almost by accident. There was never an official expansionist strategy, and indeed time and again governments in London urged restraint or proscribed further territorial enlargement.

When on occasion enthusiasts conceived grand designs they were usually stymied by the doctrine of ‘masterly inactivity’.

Extraordinarily, for the first two-and-ahalf centuries of British presence, India was not ruled by the Crown but by a commercial firm. The Honourable East India Company was founded in 1599, one of several such European enterprises initiated at the time to trade with the East via the recently discovered sea routes. But unlike most of the others, the EIC was not regarded as an arm of government and did not receive state subsidy. Only in the aftermath of the Mutiny of 1857–8 did India come to be ruled from Westminster and Whitehall.

British India was initially a trading enterprise, with treaties willingly entered into by local rulers. Military means were used intermittently to defend the status quo or for piecemeal consolidation of interests.

Conquest is an inappropriate term to describe the process of acquisition. And it was not as a consequence of military defeat that the British I ND I A 2 0 1 3 & 2 0 1 4

justice, liberty, democracy and equality before the law – must lead inevitably to emancipation and independence. Most of those joining the Indian Civil Service in the twentieth century believed that their function was to prepare native Indians to take over.

Considering independence came nearly seventy years ago, it is perhaps surprising that so much physical evidence of the Raj survives. The centres of the major cities are astonishingly, bizarrely British. Bombay is perhaps the world’s greatest Gothic Revival townscape; the classical architecture of Calcutta can be spoken of in the same breath as St Petersburg; New Delhi is the ‘new town’ of the twentieth century.

It is startling to see so many buildings which seem to have been transported bodily from Manchester, Glasgow, Bristol or London – except that many are very much bigger than their peers in Britain and that, on closer inspection, adaptations to the climate are evident. Some are designed by major British architects – George Gilbert Scott and Edwin Lutyens among them – but most are by less familiar names: British-based competitionwinning practices who found a moment of glory in the sun, architects who settled in India for years or decades, and, towards the end, native Indian talent.

Calcutta, Government House, a drawing by Desmond Doig c. 1960.

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The British Raj continued

Indo-Saracenic architecture, an Orientalist hybrid, is a fascinating phenomenon. A Battle of the Styles raged in Victorian India in parallel with the GothicClassical debates back home: to impose our native styles as would any conqueror, proclaiming the superiority of British civilisation, or legitimise our role as rulers by appropriating Indian styles? There will be much to debate on this tour.

building in the Indo-Saracenic style which houses, among much else, a collection of both European and Indian paintings. Second of four nights in Bombay.

Day 3: Bombay. The Gothic Victoria Terminus railway station was clearly inspired by St Pancras in London. The Gothic Revival Afghan Memorial Church is also a melancholy reminder of the first of Britain’s several disastrous interventions in

Calcutta, engraving 1895.

Itinerary Days 1 & 2: London to Bombay (Mumbai).

Fly from London Heathrow at c. 10.00am, and after a 5 1 /₂-hour time change reach the hotel in Bombay in the early hours of the following morning. The rest of the night constitutes the first night in Bombay.

Day 2: Bombay. Nothing is planned before a pre-lunch talk. Our hotel, a domed Edwardian pile which is one of the most famous in India, faces the Gateway of India, an Orientalised triumphal arch marking the spot where King George V and Queen Mary landed in 1911. In the afternoon we walk around the Victorian heart of Bombay, seeing the major public buildings which make it the most complete Gothic Revival city outside England: the Secretariat, the High Court and, above all, the University. Other buildings include Watson’s Hotel, a mid-Victorian structure of prefabricated cast-iron, and the Prince of Wales Museum, an Edwardian M A R T I N R ANDA L L T R A V E L

Afghanistan. St Thomas’s Cathedral, typical of so many Anglican churches in India: a Classical building adapted to the climate and filled with poignant monuments to British merchants, soldiers and administrators who never returned home. The Sassoon Library and the University Library, erected from designs sent out by Sir Gilbert Scott, two of the more remarkable Gothic Revival buildings. We finish with the eclectic home of the Royal Bombay Yacht Club, the oldest such institution in Asia. Evening free. Third night in Bombay.

Day 4: Bombay. In the morning we experience a rather older India with a visit by boat to the famous caves on Elephanta Island, with their rock-cut architectural forms and sculptures dating from the 5th to the 8th centuries. In the afternoon we visit by special arrangement the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum, the oldest in the city, founded as the Victorian and Albert Museum in 1855. Remainder of the afternoon free. Fourth and final night in Bombay.

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Day 5: Bombay, Calcutta (Kolkata). Visit Mani Bhavan, the house which was used as Gandhi’s political headquarters in Bombay from 1917 until 1934 and from which he launched his campaign of civil disobedience against British rule. Then drive to the airport and fly to Calcutta, where we stay at the Oberoi Grand, a late 19th-cent. building. First of four nights in Calcutta.

Day 6: Calcutta. Established in 1690, Calcutta flourished as an East India Company trading post and later as the capital of British India, especially after Clive’s victory over the Nawab of Murshidabad in 1757. Located in the vicinity of Dalhousie Square at the heart of the city are St John’s Church, with the tomb of Job Charnock the city’s founder, Town Hall, Writers’ Building, General Post Office and High Court (Gothic, unlike most of Calcutta). Government House, begun in 1799

by Governor-General Marquess Wellesley, was the grandest of the palaces. The Rabindra Bharati Museum is an 18th-cent. house which was the home of the poet and writer Rabindranath Tagore. Cross the Howrah Bridge, the huge cantilever steel structure over the Hooghly river opened in 1943, to see the Howrah Station, an Edwardian building which is still a vital testament to the importance of the railway in unifying British India. Overnight Calcutta.

Day 7: Calcutta. St Paul’s Cathedral, 1839–47, is one of the few Gothic buildings in Calcutta, and contains many good memorials and a superb Burne-Jones window. The huge domed Edwardian Baroque Victoria Memorial, by far the grandest building in Calcutta, was founded by Lord Curzon as a museum of British India and contains a magnificent collection of paintings and sculpture. The Belvedere was the residence of the Lieutenant Governors of Bengal and now houses the National Library. Finally we see the home of Warren Hastings, the controversial early Governor-General, which is a stuccoed Classical villa typical of its time, followed by the house in which the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray was born in 1811. Overnight Calcutta.

Day 8: Calcutta. South Park Street Cemetery is a beautiful as well as poignant burial ground in which so many of Calcutta’s early residents lie in or under remarkably magnificent and sophisticated monuments. The La Martinière Schools, one for girls, one for boys, were established under the will of the French mercenary Major General Claude Martin.

The Indian Museum was established in 1814 Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

by the Asiatic Society; its present home opened in 1878 and was the work of Walter Granville, architect of the Post Office and the High Court. It contains India’s most important collection of sculpture. Remainder of afternoon free. Last night in Calcutta.

Day 9: Calcutta. The Maghen David Synagogue of 1884 and the Armenian Church of 1707 survive as reminders of the cosmopolitan nature of the city before Independence. The Marble Palace is one of the grandest of the many stuccoed merchants’ houses which gave rise to Calcutta being known as the ‘City of Palaces’; built in 1835 by Raja Rajendra Mullick, behind its colonnades is housed a remarkable collection of antiquities and art (by private arrangement). Fly to Delhi at c. 5.30pm. First of four nights in Delhi.

Day 10: Delhi. On this first day we shall explore the area north of Old Delhi. It was here that some of the fiercest fighting took place during the 1857 Mutiny; we see the Flagstaff Tower and the Mutiny Memorial. Here also the move of the capital from Calcutta to Delhi was announced at the 1911 Coronation Durbar; visit the temporary Viceregal Lodge, now part of Delhi University, occupied by the Viceroys until the new palace Lutyens designed for them was ready. Located inside the Kashmir Gate of Old Delhi, scene of desperate fighting in 1857, is St James’s or Skinner’s Church, with its unusual centralized plan built by a cavalry officer, Colonel James Skinner, in the 1830s.

Overnight in Delhi.

Day 11: Delhi. This day is devoted to the magnificent Islamic architecture of Delhi. Delhi is a very ancient city but its principal architectural glories date from the 17th century when it was the capital of the Mughal emperors. Shah Jahan began the Red Fort and its palace in 1639 (the British nearly demolished them after 1857) with its open diwans (audience chambers) and the Moti Masjid (Pearl Mosque) of white marble.

The huge Jami Masjid (Friday Mosque) with its two noble minarets is one of the very finest Islamic buildings, and the 16th-cent. garden mausoleum of the Emperor Humayun is an outstanding example of earlier Islamic design. Some free time in the afternoon.

Overnight Delhi.

Day 12: New Delhi. The day is devoted to New Delhi, established in 1911 and inaugurated 20 years later. The magnificent group of government buildings at the heart of the low-density plan include the Secretariat I ND I A 2 0 1 3 & 2 0 1 4

and Parliament, both by Sir Herbert Baker, and the Viceroy’s House (now residence of the President) in which Sir Edwin Lutyens integrated Mughal, Hindu and Buddhist elements into his monumental Classical concept. Also by Lutyens, Hyderabad House is one of the palaces built for native princes; another such palace, Jaipur House, close to the All India Arch at the end of the long vista from Viceroy’s House, is now the National Gallery of Modern Art. Among the buildings designed by Lutyens’s disciples are the Anglican cathedral by Henry Medd and the Garrison Church by Arthur Shoosmith, an astonishing building which is a 20th-cent. monument of rare distinction.

Overnight Delhi.

Lecturers

Day 13: Delhi to London. Fly from Delhi at c. 1.30pm, and arrive in London at c. 5.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £6,220 (deposit £500). This includes: air travel (economy class) on flights with Jet Airways: London to Mumbai (Boeing 777–300), Mumbai to Kolkata (Boeing 737800), Kolkata to Delhi (Boeing 737-800) and Delhi to London (Boeing 777–300); travel by private air-conditioned coach; accommodation in the hotels as described below; breakfasts, 9 lunches (including 2 packed lunches) and 6 dinners with wine or beer, water and coffee; all admissions to museums and sites; all tips for drivers, restaurant staff, and local guides; airport taxes; the service of two lecturers.

Single supplement £840. Price without all flights: £5,460.

Hotels: Mumbai (4 nights): an iconic landmark and a masterpiece of Indo-Saracenic architecture, comfortable and centrally located. Calcutta (4 nights): a long-established luxury hotel conveniently located in the city centre, impeccable service, pool in courtyard gardens. Delhi (4 nights): dating to the early 1900s, it retains colonial charm and is ideally situated in the heart of Lutyens’s Delhi, attractive garden and swimming pool.

How strenuous? A good level of fitness is essential. Unless you enjoy entirely unimpaired mobility, cope with everyday walking and stair-climbing without difficulty and are reliably sure-footed, this tour is not for you.

A rough indication of the minimum level of fitness required is that you ought to be able to walk briskly at about three miles per hour for at least half an hour, and undertake a walk at a more leisurely pace for an hour or two unaided. Uneven ground and irregular paving

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David Gilmour.

Historian and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a former Research Fellow of Oxford University.

Formerly a journalist and more recently a reviewer for the Financial Times, Spectator, Independent on Sunday and the New York Review of Books. His awardwinning biographies include Curzon: Imperial Statesman, and The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling. Other work includes The Ruling Caste, a study of the administration the Subcontinent during the reign of Queen Victoria.

Gavin Stamp.

Honorary Fellow of both the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland and the Royal Institute of British Architects and honorary Professor of the University of Glasgow. He taught History of Architecture at the Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow, and is a former chairman of the 20th-Century Society and Director of the Victorian Society Summer School. His research interests are 19th- and 20th-cent. British architecture and he has published on Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson, the Gilbert Scott dynasty and Sir Edwin Lutyens.

are standard, especially in the cities visited on this tour. Unruly traffic and busy streets also require vigilance. We very much regret that bookings will not be accepted from those who would be 81 or over at the time of the tour.

Average distance by coach per day: 14 miles.

Small group: the tour will operate with between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tour: combine this tour with Karnataka, 18–29 January (see page 6).

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Sailing the Ganges A cruise down the Ganges, with time in Varanasi & Calcutta

Varanasi, aquatint by William Daniell 1812.

18 February–2 March 2014 (ma 817) 13 days • £5,140 Lecturer: John Keay Little-visited places on or close to the Ganges from an exclusively chartered river vessel.

Time in Varanasi and Sarnath at the beginning and in Calcutta at the end.

Accompanied by John Keay, one of the most distinguished authorities on India’s history.

Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic monuments, and the life of the riverbank where ancient blends with modern.

As the Nile is to Egypt, so the Ganges is to India, coursing as waywardly through the past as it does through the terrain. Here myths were born, empires founded, the modern age began and, for the lucky few, the inexorable cycle of rebirth ends. The ‘real India’ is wherever you find it, but as history’s highway and the lifeblood of India’s sacred heartland, the Ganges is unique.

Three thousand years ago the earliest M A R T I N R ANDA L L T R A V E L

known kingdoms and republics took shape here, among them one based on Varanasi (Benares), the eternal city of Lord Shiva and still India’s pilgrimage destination par excellence. At Bodhgaya south of Patna, Siddhartha Gautama achieved Enlightenment, and at Sarnath near Varanasi he preached his first sermon as the Buddha. Pataliputra near Patna was the capital of Ashoka the Great’s pan-Indian empire; Nalanda, then Vikramshila, housed Buddhism’s foremost monastic universities.

Jainism, Islam and Sikhism were also drawn to the banks of the river, partly in recognition of its sanctity, partly to challenge it. The Varanasi skyline acquired airy hospices, towering minarets and sumptuous maharajahs’ palaces to become a microcosm of all India.

But the river also served as a vital thoroughfare of trade, culture and conquest.

In the days before motorable roads and railways it was the obvious link between upper India and the eastern seaboard. Marching downriver, the Afghan Muhammad Bakhtiyar extended the triumph of Islam to Bengal in the early thirteenth century. The Mughal

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emperor Akbar followed in the sixteenth century, launching from Akbarnagar, otherwise Rajmahal, his own conquest of that ‘hell full of good things’ as he called Bengal. Two hundred years later, and from the opposite direction, came the merchants, emissaries and armies of the East India Company. From its bridgehead at Kolkata (Calcutta) the Company acquired control of Bengal in the mid-eighteenth century. The golden age of ‘The Honourable Company’ is mirrored in the waters of the Ganges. Under Warren Hastings, the first and greatest of its governors-general, scholars, artists and fortune-seekers piled into country ‘budgerows’ and stylish ‘pinnaces’ to sail ‘upcountry’.

Sighting the snowy peaks of the Himalayas from Bhagalpur in 1784, the polymath Sir William Jones was the first to declare them ‘the highest mountains in the world, without excepting the Andes’.

Four years later Thomas and William Daniell sketched their way upriver to record the set-piece sights. Jonathan Duncan, one of many enlightened scholar-administrators, founded the Benares Hindu University; and Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

there in 1830 Sir Alexander Cunningham launched his fifty-year career as ‘the father of Indian archaeology’ with a painstaking excavation of the great Dhamekh Stupa at Sarnath.

Then as now, the river experience was reckoned just as rewarding as its sights. Fed

by Himalayan snowmelt and the monsoon, ‘Mother Ganga’ is navigable for only part of the year. In the summer months it floods, inundating the surrounding countryside for miles. Varanasi’s celebrity owes much to its being one of the few places where the river is contained by a high bank. Elsewhere it meanders past lush brakes to the piping of kingfishers and the rhythms of rural life. The creak of ox-carts and the scent of frangipani carry across the water at the sunset. As past and present blur, cruising on the world’s holiest river proves a seductive experience in itself.

The cruiser chartered for this tour is fairly new (built in Calcutta in 2006), but on board it feels closer to the India of the Raj than to the India of today. By the standards of vessels on European rivers it is not luxurious, but it is comfortable, has great charm and the crew are welcoming and efficient.

Itinerary Days 1 & 2: London to Varanasi, via Delhi.

Fly from Heathrow in the morning and after a 51/2 -hour time change reach the hotel in Delhi at c. 2.00am. Fly to Varanasi later this morning and arrive in time for a boat ride on the Ganges at dusk to witness the Aarti ritual.

This fire offering, which dates back to the Vedic period, is a daily blessing ceremony and a central element of the religious life of this sacred city. First of three nights in Varanasi.

Day 3: Sarnath. Sarnath near Varanasi is where the Buddha preached his first sermon, and it remains an active Buddhist centre. The Dhamek stupa in the Deer Park marks the spot where the Buddha sat to preach, and the museum houses the Ashokan lion capital, the symbol of modern India since Independence.

Overnight Varanasi.

Day 4: Varanasi. An early morning boat ride to witness the morning prayers and ablutions of the devout is followed by a walk to look at buildings in the city, said to be the oldest inhabited place on earth. An afternoon visit to the Bharat Kala Bhavan, the university museum, is followed by a private visit to an art gallery. Overnight Varanasi.

I ND I A 2 0 1 3 & 2 0 1 4

Day 5: Varanasi to Patna. In the morning, there is a 150-mile coach journey along the Great Trunk Road, India’s oldest highway, built by the Great Ashoka. The destination is Patna, the capital of Bihar, where we board the ship, RV Sukapha, at c. 4.00pm. First of six nights on board the RV Sukapha.

Day 6: Patna. The city of Patna in the state of Bihar has remains of 18th-cent. opium factories by the river and the Golghar, a 27-metre high ovoid granary, built by the British in 1786 ‘for the perpetual prevention of famine’, an extraordinary structure without parallel in British or Indian architecture.

The archaeological museum displays the Didarganj Yakshi, a 3rd-cent.-bc sculpted female nude. Afternoon sailing to Barh.

Overnight RV Sukapha.

Day 7: Nalanda. The spectacular remains of brick-built temples and monasteries at the world’s oldest university mainly date from the 5th to 12th cents and form one of the most extensive ancient Buddhist sites in Asia. The museum has a good collection of artefacts but the highlight is the finely sculpted Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of compassion in Mahayana Buddhism. Drive to Mokameh to meet the ship. Overnight RV Sukapha.

Day 8: Monghyr, Jahangira Island. Spread along the southern bank of the Ganges, Monghyr was a strategic Mughal centre defended by a fort, much admired in the British period as a fine example of Islamic military architecture, and painted by William Hodges in 1781. Jahangira Island, the only permanent island on the river, has some ancient Hindu and Buddhist rock carvings and cave temples. Overnight RV Sukapha.

Day 9: Bhagalpur, Bateshwar, Vikramshila.

Augustus Cleveland was the Collector of Revenues of Bhagalpur, an important silk production centre, until his untimely death in 1784. See his elegant mansion, and visit a silk-weaving village. Idyllic Bateshwar nearby has some 6th-cent. Hindu carvings.

Along with Nalanda, Vikramshila was an important centre of Buddhist learning under the Pala dynasty (8th–12th cent.). Overnight RV Sukapha.

Day 10: Rajmahal, Farakka. Sail to Rajmahal in the morning. Once known as Akbarnagar, it was founded by the Mughal Emperor Akbar as his eastern capital. His son Shah Jahan, the builder of the Taj Mahal, spent most of his youth here. The overgrown remains of palaces, forts and mosques perfectly embody

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Lecturer John Keay. John Keay has been visiting India for over forty years as a journalist (Economist, BBC), author (Into India 1973, India Discovered 1981 etc.) and lecturer (British Council, literary festivals, tour groups). His India: A History (2000) and The Honourable Company: A History of the East India Company (1991) are considered standard texts; The Great Arc (2000) on the mapping of India was a best-seller. A history scholar at Magdalen, Oxford, but long resident in Scotland, he also writes on exploration (e.g. The Royal Geographical Society’s History of World Exploration 1991) and other Asian regions (e.g. China: A History 2008), and he co-edited The Collins Encyclopaedia of Scotland (1994) and Macmillan’s London Encyclopaedia (third edition, 2008).

the Romantic concept of the Sublime. Sail down the Ganges to the great Farakka Barrage.

Overnight RV Sukapha.

Day 11: Calcutta. At Farakka disembark in the early morning and travel by train to Calcutta (about six hours). After settling into the hotel, visit the South Park Street Cemetery, where tombs of the early British settlers are of a monumental classicism without parallel in Britain. First of two nights in Calcutta.

Day 12: Calcutta. This morning walk takes in some of the finest structures of the British Raj, most European in style but adapted to Bengali climate: the Georgian classicism of St John’s Church (1784) and the Town Hall, and Victorian historicism of the Gothic High Court and Classical General Post Office. The Anglican cathedral of St Paul (1847) has many fine memorials and a magnificent window

by Burne-Jones, and the Victoria Memorial (1906–21) is the most imposing building in Calcutta. Overnight in Calcutta.

Day 13: Calcutta. After a two-hour stopover in Dubai, the flight arrives at London Heathrow at c. 6.00pm. b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Sailing the Ganges continued

Practicalities Price: £5,140 (deposit £450). This includes: air travel (economy class) on flights with British Airways: return London to Delhi (Boeing 747–400) and with Jet Airways: Delhi to Varanasi (Boeing 737–800); travel by private air-conditioned coach; hotel accommodation as described below; river cruiser accommodation for 6 nights; breakfasts, 9 lunches (including 2 packed lunches) and 11 dinners with wine or beer, water and coffee; all admissions to museums and sites; all tips for drivers, restaurant staff, and local guides; airport taxes; the service of a lecturer. Single supplement £1,390. Price without international flights £4,540.

Hotels: New Delhi (1 night): ideally located near the international airport, a modern 4-star hotel with comfortable rooms. Bathrooms have showers only. Varanasi (3 nights): a large, functional yet comfortable 4-star hotel with contemporary touches to the recently renovated rooms. It is conveniently located close to the centre, but removed from the bustle in its 40 acres of private garden, with a pool. Calcutta (2 nights): a long-established luxury hotel conveniently located in the city centre. An oasis of colonial charm, defined by impeccable service. There is a pool in the central courtyard garden.

River cruiser: RV Sukapha (6 nights): built in 2006, it is not luxurious but it is adequately comfortable and has great charm. The decor is simple, floors and walls being of wood.

Cabins are fairly spacious with excellent showers. There is a spacious dining room with full-length windows, which are generally open during the day, a saloon with a bar at the bow and an open deck half covered with a tarpaulin and well stocked with wickerwork chairs and loungers. There is a massage and health treatment room, appropriately staffed.

Shore is reached by a small launch. Service is excellent.

Changes to the itinerary: circumstances might arise which prevent us from operating the tour as advertised. On the river, circumstances such as the ebb and flow of the tide and shifting silt levels might necessitate omission of one or more ports of call. We would try and devise a satisfactory alternative.

Sarnath, Dhamek stupa, from India & Its Native Princes 1876.

How strenuous? A good level of fitness is essential. Unless you enjoy entirely unimpaired mobility, cope with everyday walking and stair-climbing without difficulty, this tour is not for you. Sure-footedness is essential to get on and off the ship; the riverbanks may be slippery. A rough indication of the minimum level of fitness required is that you ought to be able to walk briskly at about three miles per hour for at least half an hour, and undertake a walk at a more leisurely pace for an hour or two unaided. Uneven ground and irregular paving are standard. Unruly traffic and busy streets also require vigilance. There are some long coach journeys during which facilities are limited and may be of poor quality. Most sites have some shade but the Indian sun is strong, even in the cooler seasons. We regret that bookings would not be accepted from those who would be 81 or over at the time of the tour.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours: combine this tour with Essential India, 31 Jan–14 February (see page 20) and Mughal & Nawabi Architecture, 5–15 February (see page 12).

M A R T I N R ANDA L L T R A V E L

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Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

Bengal by River Calcutta and a week’s cruise along the Hooghly Detail of a map by Thomas Kitchin c. 1800.

8–21 December 2013 (ma 785) 14 days • £4,580 Lecturer: Dr Rosie Llewellyn-Jones 9–22 March 2014 (ma 829) 14 days • £4,890 Lecturer: Dr Anna-Maria Misra Four days in Calcutta, Bengal’s capital, and a week visiting places along the River Hooghly on an exclusively chartered cruiser.

Bengal, an outpost of the Mughal Empire and the first region to come under the control of the East India Company.

Islamic architecture in Murshidabad and Gaur, Hindu temples in Baranagar and Kalna, Georgian and Victorian buildings of the Raj. Sailing along the banks of the Hooghly gives a unique insight into unspoilt village life.

In December led by Dr Rosie Llewellyn-Jones, an authority on colonial India, in March by Dr Anna-Maria Misra, an Oxford academic.

I ND I A 2 0 1 3 & 2 0 1 4

When George V announced in 1911 that the capital of British India was to be transferred from Calcutta to Delhi, there was disbelief and horror in Bengal. It seemed to overturn the natural order of things. Founded by Job Charnock in 1690 on the banks of the mighty Hooghly River, Calcutta (now Kolkata) had been the headquarters of British rule in India ever since. Today the city is home to over fifteen million, but the central district remains largely as it was during the Raj. Buildings of all sorts – political, economic, educational, religious, residential – formed the British city. Their styles, Classical and Gothic, are bizarrely familiar, and their size is startling, often exceeding their equivalents in Britain. A walk through the South Park Street Cemetery shows the high price that many Britons paid for coming to Calcutta in search of wealth. ‘Power on silt!’ wrote Kipling of the city. ‘Death in my hands, but Gold!’

West Bengal is the land of lost capitals and fading grandeur. Calcutta was only the latest city whose power was snatched away by changing political events. Hindus, Muslims,

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Portuguese, Dutch, Danish and French all founded settlements on the dreamy, fertile banks of the Hooghly.

For a time Bengal was the richest province in India, not only because everything seemed to grow in its lush soil but from the industry of its people too. Indigo, opium and rice were cash crops, but textiles first attracted European traders in the seventeenth century.

Beautiful silk and muslin fabrics were known as ‘woven wind’ because they were so fine. The river was a natural highway. Apart from the Grand Trunk Road of the Mughals, there was no other way to travel.

Steeped in history but still very much off the conventional tourist route, this tour adds a new dimension to India for those who already know it, and for those who are yet to encounter it.

Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, and Christianity are all practised in Bengal and each faith has built buildings to its gods and goddesses. The town of Kalna is named after a manifestation of the dreaded goddess Kali, the destroyer who lives in cremation grounds

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Bengal by River continued

and wears a necklace of skulls. By contrast the Jain temples in the village of Baranagar are a peaceful anthem in carved brick to non-violence and harmony. Bengal contains the largest imambaras in India, buildings associated with the Shi’a strand of Islam, not quite mausolea, although burials are frequently found in them, more gathering places for the devout. Serampore, the Danish settlement, is known for its eighteenth-century church.

Had the British under Clive not defeated the Nawab Siraj-ud-daula at the Battle of Plassey in 1757, the history of India would have been very different. The French, established at Chandernagore and allies of the Nawab, would have seized their opportunity, supported by Francophone rulers elsewhere in India who wanted to counterbalance the pervasive British presence. But it was from their base in Bengal that the British steadily extended their rule through the subcontinent.

The charm of the river cruiser we have chartered for this tour is that, though the boat is fairly new (built in Calcutta in 2006), on board it feels far removed from modern India and quite close to the India of the Raj. Although not luxurious, it is comfortable and has great charm and an excellent crew. There will be a maximum of twenty passengers.

Lounging on the top deck after a fulfilling day of sightseeing with a gin & tonic (of which a quota is included in the price), watching rural life on the banks as dusk falls, comes pretty close to a perfect Indian experience.

Itinerary Days 1 & 2: London to Calcutta (Kolkata), via Dubai. Fly at c. 1.30pm from London Heathrow to Calcutta via Dubai where there is a 2-hour stop. Reach the hotel c. 9.00am (time difference from UK is 51/2 hours.) The rest of the morning is free. In the afternoon visit the South Park Street Cemetery, where tombs of the early British settlers are of a monumental classicism without parallel in Britain, and walk to La Martinière Schools.

First of four nights in Calcutta.

Day 3: Calcutta. The Anglican cathedral of St Paul, completed in 1847 in Gothic style, has many fine memorials and a window by BurneJones, one of his best. Completed in 1921, the Victoria Memorial is the most imposing building in Calcutta. It houses a collection of European paintings and a display on the history of the city. The Indian Museum, built

by Granville to house the collection from the Asiatic Society, is India’s most important collection of sculpture. Overnight Calcutta.

M A R T I N R ANDA L L T R A V E L

A mosque on the Hooghly, near Calcutta, from India & Its Native Princes 1876.

Day 4: Calcutta. This morning’s walk provides a survey of the civic buildings from the late 18th century. St John’s Church, which dates back to 1784, is loosely modelled on St Martin-in-the-Fields in London (like hundreds throughout the globe). In the grounds, the mausoleum of Job Charnock, the founder of Calcutta, is the earliest British building in India. We also visit the antiquarian collections of the Marble Palace (by special arrangement). Overnight Calcutta.

Day 5: Calcutta. The Maghen David Synagogue (1884) and the Armenian Church (1707) are reminders of the variety of religions which thrived in Calcutta prior to Independence. The Home of Rabindranath Tagore, the Bengali poet and philosopher who received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913, provides an insight into the Bengali Intellectual Renaissance which in turn led to the Independentist movement. Overnight Calcutta.

Day 6: Barrackpore, Serampore. Board the MV Sukapha in Calcutta. Sail to the former

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British garrison town of Barrackpore. Many 19th-cent. buildings remain, including the riverside Government House (1813) with its Semaphore Tower, part of a river signalling system, and the elegant neo-Greek Temple of Fame. The gardens of Flagstaff House now serve as repository for colonial statuary removed from Calcutta. The Danish colony of Serampore is across the river. First of seven nights on board the RV Sukapha.

Day 7: Chandernagore, Chinsura, Hooghly.

In the morning, sail upstream to the former French colony of Chandernagore, established in 1673. Visit the remaining churches and cemeteries as well as Governor Joseph François Dupleix’s House. Sail to Chinsura to visit the 17th-cent. Dutch cemetery before continuing by cycle-rickshaw to Hooghly where the 19th-cent. Shi’a Imambara of Hazi Mohammed Mohasin contains fine marble inlay. Overnight RV Sukapha.

Day 8: Kalna, Nabadwip, Mayapur. At Kalna, visit the series of fine 18th-cent. terracotta temples and the unique Shiva Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

temple with concentric rings comprising 108 double-vaulted shrines. Sail to the pilgrimage centre of Nabadwip, where the river ghats are lined with active temples. The skyline of Mayapur on the opposite bank is dominated by a vast new temple. Overnight RV Sukapha.

Day 9: Matiari, Plassey. Visit the village of Matiari where brass is worked using traditional methods. After sailing further, there is an excursion to the site of the battle of Plassey, where Robert Clive’s 1757 victory over the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-Daulah was the prelude to consolidation and extension of the East India Company’s power in Bengal and beyond. Overnight RV Sukapha at Murshidabad.

Day 10: Murshidabad. The Mughal Khushbagh is a peaceful walled pleasuregarden containing the Tomb of Siraj-udDaulah and family. A magnificent example of Greek Revival architecture, the Hazarduari Palace was built by Duncan McLeod in 1837 as a guest house for the Nawab. The museum holds a respectable collection of European paintings, sculpture and arms. The imposing Katra Mosque (1724) is modelled on the great mosque at Mecca. Visit the Nashipara and Katgola palaces, 18th-cent. homes of rich Jain merchants in classical Georgian style.

Overnight RV Sukapha.

Day 11: Baranagar. Sail to the village of Baranagar and walk through fields to visit three miniature carved-brick Jain temples.

Sail in the afternoon through a stretch of charming waterway that weaves past banks lush with mango groves and mustard crops.

Overnight RV Sukapha at Jangipur.

Day 12: Gaur, Farakka. Drive from Jangipur to the quiet city of Gaur, the ancient capital of Bengal. Situated within easy reach of the black basalt Rajmahal hills, Gaur is filled with elegant Muslim ruins. The many mosques, palaces and gateways stand as testament to a prosperous past and gifted stonemasons.

Overnight RV Sukapha.

Day 13: Disembark Farakka. Calcutta. At Farakka, disembark the RV Sukupha in the early morning and transfer to the station to board a train for Calcutta (a journey of c. 6 hours). The rest of the day is at leisure. One more night in Calcutta.

Day 14: Calcutta. After a 2-hour stopover in Dubai, the flight arrives Heathrow c. 6.00pm.

I ND I A 2 0 1 3 & 2 0 1 4

Practicalities Price: £4,580 (December), £4,890 (March) (deposit £400). This includes: flights (economy class) with Emirates: return London–Dubai (Airbus 380–800), Dubai to Calcutta (Airbus 330–200); travel by private air-conditioned coach; accommodation in the hotel and aboard the river cruiser; breakfasts, 10 lunches (including 1 packed) and 11 dinners with wine or beer, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; airport taxes; the service of a lecturer. Single supplement £1,390 (December), £1,550 (March). Price without international flights: £4,000 (December), £4,270 (March).

Hotels: Calcutta (4 nights, 1 night): a longestablished luxury hotel conveniently located in the city centre. An oasis of colonial charm, defined by impeccable service. There is a pool in central courtyard garden.

River cruiser: RV Sukapha (7 nights): built in 2006, it is not luxurious but it is adequately comfortable and has great charm. The decor is simple, floors and walls being of wood.

Cabins are fairly spacious with excellent showers. There is a spacious dining room with full-length windows, which are generally open during the day, a saloon with a bar at the bow and an open deck half covered with a tarpaulin and well stocked with wickerwork chairs and loungers. There is a massage and health treatment room, appropriately staffed.

Shore is reached by a small launch. Service is excellent.

Changes to the itinerary: circumstances might arise which prevent us operating the tour as advertised. On the river, circumstances such as the ebb and flow of the tide and shifting silt levels might necessitate omission of one or more ports of call. We would try and devise a satisfactory alternative.

How strenuous? A good level of fitness is essential. Unless you enjoy entirely unimpaired mobility, cope with everyday walking and stair-climbing without difficulty, this tour is not for you. Sure-footedness is essential to get on and off the ship; the riverbanks may be slippery. A rough indication of the minimum level of fitness required is that you ought to be able to walk briskly at about three miles per hour for at least half an hour, and undertake a walk at a more leisurely pace for an hour or two unaided. Uneven ground and irregular paving are standard. Unruly traffic and busy streets also require vigilance. There are a few fairly steep ascents to hilltop forts and temples.

There are some long coach journeys during

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Lecturers Dr Rosie LlewellynJones. An authority on colonial India from the 18th to the 20th century. She has published books on Lucknow including Engaging Scoundrels: True Tales of Old Lucknow and Lucknow, City of Illusion. Her book Mutiny, The Great Uprising in India: Untold stories, Indian and British won critical praise.

She lectures for the Asian Arts course at the V&A. She is currently Secretary of BACSA (British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia) and works as part-time archivist at the Royal Society for Asian Affairs.

Dr AnnaMaria Misra teaches history at Oxford University and is a Fellow of Keble College. She is a specialist on Indian history and the British Empire. She has written extensively on many aspects of India’s history and culture, including Vishnu’s Crowded Temple: India since the Great Rebellion (Yale, 2008). She wrote and presented the Channel 4 series An Indian Affair and is a regular writer and broadcaster for the British media. She is currently writing a book on global crosscurrents in art and architecture.

which facilities are limited and may be of poor quality. Most sites have some shade but the Indian sun is strong, even in the cooler seasons. We very much regret that bookings will not be accepted from those who would be 81 or over at the time of the tour.

Small group: the tour will operate with between 12 and 20 participants.

Possible linking tour: combine the March departure with Indian Summer, 24 March–5 April (see page 14).

b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

More about the tours & our policies

Visas

Air, road and rail

Tailoring the package

British citizens and most other foreign nationals require a tourist visa. The current cost for UK nationals is around £45 including service fees. This is not included in the price of the tour because you have to procure it yourself. You need to submit your passport to the India Visa Application Centre in your country of residence prior to departure – we will advise on the procedure. Processing times vary from country to country but UK residents should expect to be without their passport for up to ten days.

Upgrades. The package prices are based on standard or economy fares but we can quote for other classes on international flights upon request. Most internal flights are oneclass only.

We can provide a tour without the international flights, allowing you to make your own arrangements for travel to India. A price for this is given in each tour description.

Roads are improving rapidly, and we only use modern, air-conditioned coaches.

Speed and comfort on railways do not compare with Europe but the experience provides both scenic interest and contact with the ‘real’ India.

Private tours. We would be happy to discuss the possibility of versions of these tours for groups of friends and family or for societies and affinity groups.

Fitness requirements A good level of fitness is essential. Unless you enjoy entirely unimpaired mobility, cope with everyday walking and stair-climbing without difficulty and are reliably sure-footed, these tours are not for you.

A rough indication of the minimum level of fitness required is that you ought to be able to walk briskly at about three miles per hour for at least half an hour, and undertake a walk at a more leisurely pace for an hour or two unaided. Uneven ground and irregular paving are standard. On many tours there are fairly steep ascents to hilltop forts and temples.

Usually there are some long coach journeys during which facilities are limited and may be of poor quality. Most sites have some shade but the Indian sun is strong, even in the cooler seasons.

Age limit. We regret that applications from people who would be aged eighty-one or over at the time of the tour will not be accepted.

We know this is a harsh and somewhat arbitrary rule, but it has proved effective in reducing instances of tours being spoilt for the majority because of the inability of one or two individuals to cope with the demands of the tour.

Health & hygiene, food & drink Participants will be sent information about inoculations and other precautionary measures. A course of malaria tablets is advisable for some of the tours.

Stomach upsets are not uncommon despite higher levels of hygiene in restaurants. Bottled water is provided at the hotels, in the coaches and at restaurants. Some special dietary requirements might be difficult to cope with, though vegetarianism is well catered for.

Illustration: wood engraving 1886.

M A R T I N R ANDA L L T R A V E L

Please ask if you would like to travel to India in advance of the tour or to return later.

Hotels, transfers and other services can be booked through us. For any change to the package there would be a fee – for a change to flights it would be £80 – in addition to any extra costs.

Weather and clothing

Hotels and restaurants

We choose dates for tours which avoid periods of extreme weather. However, even in winter (November to April), most of India can be quite hot. For most days on most of the tours you would not need a top over a shirt.

On the other hand, in northern India it can be quite cool, especially at night and in the early morning.

We select our hotels with great care. Nearly all have been stayed in, not merely inspected, by one or more members of our staff.

Information about weather and guidance concerning dress specific to each tour is given to clients upon booking.

The importance we attach to charm, character, location and warmth of welcome might count against the most prestigious establishments.

Outside the principal cities, the hotels we use are usually the best in the area.

Small groups and congenial company

Many of the hotels we have selected are as good as or better than ones we use in Europe and the Middle East. But because some of our tours travel to parts where few mainstream tourists go, not all of them are top category.

All, however, have en suite bathrooms and are adequately comfortable and clean. If we deem that the hotels in a particular area are not of the requisite standard, we do not send tours to that area.

Single supplement. Most hotels in India charge for the room irrespective of the number of occupants. Single travellers are therefore effectively charged double. To mitigate this unfairness, we subsidise solo travellers by charging less for the single occupancy supplement than the hotel charges us.

As with hotels, we choose restaurants with care, though sometimes there is not much choice. Generally we select Indian dishes, though many restaurants offer international menus as an alternative.

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We strictly limit the numbers on the tours.

The maximum is 20 or 22, as specified in the tour description, though most run with fewer. The higher costs of smaller numbers are outweighed by the benefits of manoeuvrability, social cohesion and access to the lecturer.

Not the least attractive aspect of travelling with MRT is that you are highly likely to find yourself in congenial company, self-selected by common interests and endorsement of the company’s ethos.

Care for our clients We aim for faultless administration from your first encounter with us to the end of the holiday, and beyond. Personal service is a feature. And if anything does go wrong, we will put it right or compensate appropriately.

We want you to come back again and again – as most of our clients do.

We never forget our clients are responsible adults, deserving of respect and courtesy at all times.

Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

Booking form NAME OF TOUR(S)

DATES

TRAVELLERS’ NAMES Give your name as you would like it to appear on documents issued to other tour participants – in block capitals please.

ROOM TYPE – please tick your preference.

Twin 2 beds

TOUR CODE(S)

Double 1 bed

Single(s)

Traveller 1

Traveller 2

YOUR DETAILS – in block capitals please Address

If ticking for a double-occupancy room, please bear in mind that you may not get your preferred room-type as some hotels have limited numbers of each type of bedroom.

EXTRA NIGHTS. Please tick if you would like a quote: Before the tour Number of nights required: _____ Car transfer from airport required? (please delete one): yes/no After the tour Number of nights required: _____ Car transfer to airport required? (please delete one): yes/no

INTERNATIONAL FLIGHTS. Please tick.

Group International flights

Postcode Telephone (home) Telephone (work) Mobile Fax number Email Please tick if you do NOT want to receive updates on our range of cultural tours and music festivals by email.

YOUR NEXT OF KIN or contact in case of emergency.

Name Telephone Relationship to you

No International flights

Traveller 1 Traveller 2 FLIGHT UPGRADES. Please tick if you would like a quote: Business Class First Class SPECIAL REQUESTS. Please tell us about any dietary requirements, or other requests, below.

Booking form PASSPORT DETAILS. Essential for airlines and in case of emergency on tour.

Title

Surname

First name(s)

Nationality

1.

2.

Date of birth (dd/mm/yy)

Place of birth

Passport number

Place of issue

Date of issue (dd/mm/yy)

Date of expiry (dd/mm/yy)

1.

2.

FELLOW TRAVELLER

If you have made a booking for someone who does not have the same address as yourself, please give their details here.

We shall then send correspondence and documents directly to them.

If you would also like the invoice to be sent to the fellow traveller's address, please tick:

PAYMENT EITHER Deposit(s) deposits are per person

ÂŁ

OR Full Payment

ÂŁ

Full payment is required if you are booking within ten weeks of departure.

Name

EITHER BY CHEQUE. Please make cheques payable to Martin Randall Travel Ltd, and write the tour code on the back (eg ma 123).

Address

OR BY DEBIT OR CREDIT CARD. I wish to pay by Visa, Mastercard or Amex.

Card no.

Start date Expiry date

Postcode

OR BY BANK TRANSFER. Please give your surname and tour code (eg ma 123) as a reference and allow for all bank charges.

Please charge my card.

Account name: Martin Randall Travel Ltd Royal Bank of Scotland, Drummonds, 49 Charing Cross, London SW1A 2DX Account number 0019 6050 Sort code 16-00-38 IBAN: GB71 RBOS 1600 3800 1960 50; Swift/BIC: RBOS GB2L

Telephone Email

Please tick here if you have paid by bank transfer:

Next of kin Name

I have read and agree to the Booking Conditions on behalf of all listed on this form.

Relationship

Signature

Telephone

Date

M A R T I N R ANDA L L T R A V E L Voysey House, Barley Mow Passage London W4 4GF T 020 8742 3355 F 020 8742 7766 info@martinrandall.co.uk www.martinrandall.com

Australia: Martin Randall Marketing, PO Box 537, Toowong, Queensland 4066 Telephone 1300 55 95 95 Fax 07 3377 0142 anz@martinrandall.com.au New Zealand: telephone 0800 877 622 Canada: telephone 647 382 1644 canada@martinrandall.ca USA: telephone 1 800 988 6168

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Booking Details Making a booking 1. Provisional booking

We recommend that you contact us first to make a provisional booking which we will hold for one week. To confirm it please send the booking form and deposit within this period.

2. Definite booking

3. Our confirmation

Passports and visas. British citizens and most other foreign nationals must have valid passports and a visa for travel to India. The passport needs to be valid for six months beyond the date of the tour with at least two blank pages. We will advise UK citizens about obtaining visas. Nationals of other countries should ascertain procedures for obtaining visas in their case.

with an ATOL Certificate. Please check to ensure that everything you booked is listed on it. For more information about financial protection and the ATOL Certificate go to: www.atol.org.uk/ATOLcertificate

Fill in the booking form and send it to us with the deposit (specified in the price paragraph of the tour description). It is important that you read the Booking Conditions at this stage, and that you sign the booking form. Full payment is required if you are booking within ten weeks of departure.

Upon receipt of the booking form and deposit we shall send you confirmation of your booking. After this your deposit is nonreturnable except in the special circumstances mentioned in the Booking Conditions.

Further details of the tour will also be sent at this stage.

Booking Conditions Please read these

You need to sign your assent to these booking conditions on the booking form.

Our promises to you

We aim to be fair, reasonable and sympathetic in all our dealings with clients, and to act always with integrity.

We will meet all our legal and regulatory responsibilities, often going beyond the minimum obligations.

We aim to provide full and accurate information about our holidays. If there are changes, we will tell you promptly.

If something does go wrong, we will try to put it right. Our overriding aim is to ensure that every client is satisfied with our services.

All we ask of you

We ask that you read the information we send to you.

Specific terms

Our contract with you. From the time we receive your signed booking form and initial payment, a contract exists between you and Martin Randall Travel Ltd.

Eligibility. We reserve the right to refuse to accept a booking without necessarily giving a reason. You need to have a level of fitness which would not spoil other participants’ enjoyment of the holiday by slowing them down – see the ‘How strenuous?’ guidance at the end of every tour description and the entry on page 32 of this brochure. With this in mind, we do not accept bookings from anyone who would be aged 81 or over at the time of the tour.

Insurance. It is a requirement of booking that you have adequate holiday insurance. Cover for medical treatment, repatriation, loss of property and cancellation charges must be included. Insurance can be obtained from most insurance companies, banks, travel agencies and (in the UK) many retail outlets including post offices.

If you cancel. If you have to cancel your participation on a tour, there would be a charge which varies according to the period of notice you give. Up to 57 days before the tour the deposit only is forfeited. Thereafter a percentage of the total cost of the tour will be due:

between 56 and 29 days: between 28 and 15 days: between 14 days and 3 days: within 48 hours:

40% 60% 80% 100%

We take as the day of cancellation that on which we receive written confirmation of cancellation.

If we cancel the tour. We might decide to cancel a tour if at any time up to eight weeks before there were insufficient bookings for it to be viable. We would refund everything you had paid to us. We might also cancel a tour if hostilities, civil unrest, natural disaster or other circumstances amounting to force majeure affect the region to which the tour was due to go.

Safety and security. If the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office advises against travel to places visited on a tour, we would cancel the tour or adjust the itinerary to avoid the risky area. In the event of cancellation before the tour commenced we would give you a full refund. We would also treat sympathetically a wish to withdraw from a tour to a troubled region even if the FCO does not advise against travel there.

Consumer protection.

ATOL. All the flights and flight-inclusive holidays in this brochure are financially protected by the ATOL scheme. When you make your first payment you will be supplied

ABTOT. As a member of the Association of Bonded Travel Organisers Trust Limited (ABTOT), Martin Randall Travel has provided a bond to meet the requirements of the Package Travel, Package Holidays and Package Tours Regulations 1992.

In the event of our insolvency, protection is provided for non-flight packages commencing in and returning to the UK and other nonflight packages excluding pre-arranged travel to and from your destination.

In the above circumstances, if you have not yet travelled you may claim a refund, or if you have already travelled, you may claim repatriation to the starting point of your nonflight package.

The limits of our liabilities. As principal, we accept responsibility for all ingredients of a tour, except those in which the principle of force majeure prevails. Our obligations and responsibilities are also limited where international conventions apply in respect of air, sea or rail carriers, including the Warsaw Convention and its various updates.

If we make changes. Circumstances might arise which prevent us from operating a tour exactly as advertised. We would try to devise a satisfactory alternative, but if the change represents a significant loss to the tour we would offer compensation. If you decide to cancel because the alternative we offer is not acceptable we would give a full refund.

English Law. These conditions form part of your contract with Martin Randall Travel Ltd and are governed by English law. All proceedings shall be within the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

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M A RT I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L A R T • A R C H I T E C T U R E • G A S T R O N O M Y • A R C H A E O L O G Y • H I S T O R Y • M U S I C • L I T E R AT U R E

Voysey House, Barley Mow Passage, London, United Kingdom W4 4GF Telephone 020 8742 3355 Fax 020 8742 7766 info@martinrandall.co.uk Australia: Martin Randall Marketing, PO Box 537, Toowong, Queensland 4066 Telephone 1300 55 95 95 Fax 07 3377 0142 anz@martinrandall.com.au New Zealand: Telephone 0800 877 622 Canada: Telephone 647 382 1644 Fax 416 925 2670 canada@martinrandall.ca USA: Telephone 1 800 988 6168

www.martinrandall.com

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