India 2014–15

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

India 2014 & 2015

M A RT I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L

India 2014 & 2015 Sacred India

Dear traveller, It is my pleasure and privilege to introduce our third season of tours to India. These twelve original itineraries span the country from Shimla in the north to Madurai in the south and from Jodhpur in the west to Assam in the northeast and explore millennia of Indian history; ancient, modern, military; architecture and art.

Since our first tour departed just over a year ago, the India team has grown and we are now a dedicated team of four Indophiles diligently working to offer you the finest cultural tours to the Indian subcontinent, all equally suitable for the first-time visitor and the returning traveller.

Thanks to our clients’ and leaders’ constructive feedback, we have been improving and perfecting itineraries. We have also planned two new tours: Sacred India studies religious sites and buildings from Delhi to Mumbai, and their rediscovery in the last centuries while Assam By River offers a glimpse into a timeless India where the rural way of life along the Brahmaputra has remained unchanged for centuries. With these exciting tours, I am confident you will find India as compelling as we do.

With best wishes, Hubert Giraud, Operations Supervisor for India.

2–15 March 2015 (mb 250) Lecturer: Charles Allen.................................... 5

The Indian Mutiny 28 October–10 November 2014 (mb 185) Lecturer: Patrick Mercer mp............................ 7

Temples of Tamil Nadu 26 January–8 February 2015 (mb 232) Lecturer: Asoka Pugal.................................... 10

Painted Palaces of Rajasthan 24 November–7 December 2014 (mb 201) Lecturer: Dr Giles Tillotson........................... 12

Mughals & Nawabs 4–15 February 2015 (mb 236) Lecturer: Professor James Allan..................... 15

Kingdoms of the Deccan 6–19 February 2015 (mb 238) Lecturer: John M. Fritz.................................. 17

Indian Summer 30 March–11 April 2015 (mb 272) Lecturer: Raaja Bhasin................................... 20

Essential India 14–28 November 2014 (mb 198) Lecturer: Dr Anna-Maria Misra.................... 22 February–6 March 2015 (mb 245) Lecturer: Dr Giles Tillotson........................... 22

Karnataka: the Undiscovered South 10–24 January 2015 (mb 228) Lecturer: John M. Fritz.................................. 26

Assam by River 1–11 December 2014 (mb 207) Lecturer: Lesley Pullen................................... 28

Sailing the Ganges 3–16 November 2014 (mb 194) Lecturer: John Keay........................................ 31

Bengal by River at Christmas 14–27 December 2014 (mb 215) Lecturer: Dr Rosie Llewellyn-Jones............... 34 Booking form.............................................. 37 Making a booking, Booking Conditions....... 39 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 Australasia, 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

India 2014 & 2015

Martin Randall Travel – Britain’s leading provider of cultural tours to India 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 2014–15 we have planned twelve different itineraries, all either unique or the finest of their kind.

Founded in 1988, Martin Randall Travel 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 most 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 our India tours are steeped in the country’s history and culture and are thoroughly familiar with presentday 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.

Nearly all 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.

‘Despite the efforts of your competitors you continue to produce a product that far exceeds them on so many levels.’

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: ‘Return from a Hunt’, lithograph c. 1840.

Opposite page: ‘The Prince visits the Glory of India’ by Donald Maxwell (1877–1936). Above: architectural detail from a building in Varanasi, wood engraving c. 1880.

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India 2014 & 2015

More about the tours, and our policies Visas

Air, road and rail

British citizens and most other foreign nationals require a tourist visa. The current cost for UK nationals is around £90 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.

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.

Fitness requirements

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.

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Tailoring the package 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.

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.

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.

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. You may be on your feet for lengthy stretches of time. Uneven ground and irregular paving are standard. On many tours there are fairly steep ascents to hilltop forts and temples.

Unruly traffic and the busy streets of larger cities require some vigilance.

though many restaurants offer international menus as an alternative.

Weather and clothing

‘Down the village street’, engraving 1898.

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

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.

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, 4

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.

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

Small groups and congenial company 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 Martin Randall Travel 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.

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Sacred India Ancient religious art & architecture 2–15 March 2015 (mb 250) 14 days • £5,430 Lecturer: Charles Allen A journey through the heartland of India to see many of India’s most remarkable religious sites.

Varanasi, India’s most sacred city and Sarnath, where the Buddha preached his first sermon.

The Hindu temples of Khajuraho and the caves of Ajanta and Ellora.

Led by Charles Allen, acknowledged authority on ancient and colonial India.

‘The sacredness of India haunts me like a passion.’ So declared that great proconsul Lord Curzon just over a century ago. To this day the notion of India as a specially sanctified space continues to shape but perhaps also to distort our image of the subcontinent, thanks in part to the Beatles, the Guru Maharishi and the Swinging Sixties. But what really sets India apart from other exotic corners of the globe is not so much its religiosity as the sheer abundance and variety of religious expression to be found there, together with the remarkable art and architecture it has generated.

It is through the visual arts that the religious impulse finds its finest expression, and in India that expression extends over a period of some 3,500 years, moving from the snake- , tree- and fertility-goddess-worship of the original forest dwellers right through to the present. This span of time encompasses the advent of the Aryan pastoralists with their Vedic gods; the challenges to Brahmanical authority by the founders of Buddhism and Jainism; Emperor Ashoka’s unifying imperial dharma; the counter-reformation of devotional Hinduism and the cults of Shiva, Vishnu and Krishna; and the advance of Islam in both Sufic and militant form – to say nothing of Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, Christianity and even Judaism.

This ambitious and varied tour of India takes you on a journey through its very heartland which includes almost a dozen of India’s most remarkable religious sites, many of them on the World Heritage list. But it must be stressed that this is not a religious tour per se. Its object, quite simply, is to explore and, above all, enjoy India’s varied forms of religious experience in their proper context: not in museums and galleries but in those theatres where they have found their highest expression, both in terms of religious info@martinrandall.co.uk

Khajuraho, Façade of the Temple of Kali, wood engraving from India & its Native Princes, 1876.

practice and artistic activity, whether beside the bathing ghats at Kashi, the City of Light (otherwise known as Benares and Varanasi), the finely carved temples at Khajuraho with their Tantric erotic carvings (yet to be fully understood), the ancient and austere rockcut caves and temples at Ajanta, Ellora and Elephanta, or the sublime artistry of the great Buddhist stupa complex at Sanchi.

Itinerary Days 1 & 2: London to Delhi. Fly from London Heathrow at about noon and after a 5 ½ hour time change reach the hotel in New Delhi c.3.00am. Free morning, lunch in the hotel. In the afternoon, visit the towering minaret and mosque at Qutb Minar, site of the first Islamic city of Delhi, established in 1193 on the grounds of a defeated Rajput fort.

Overnight Delhi.

Day 3: Delhi to Varanasi. Fly to Varanasi (Benares) in the morning. Afternoon walk through the old city and a boat ride on the 5

holy Ganges at sunset to witness the Aarti ritual. This fire offering, dating back to the time of the Buddha himself and revived in the 19th century, is a daily blessing ceremony and a central element of the religious life of this sacred city. First of three nights in Varanasi.

Day 4: Sarnath, Varanasi. Sarnath is where the Buddha preached his first sermon and remains an active Buddhist centre. The Dhamek stupa in the Deer Park marks the spot where the Buddha sat to preach.

The Sarnath museum houses the Ashokan lion capital, the symbol of modern India since independence. Afternoon visit to the Bharat Kala Bhavan, the university museum.

Overnight Varanasi.

Day 5: Varanasi. An early morning boat ride to witness the morning prayers and ablutions of the devout is followed by a walk among the sacred temples and holy ponds of the south part of the city, near Assi Ghat. Breakfast on the ghats (stepped embankments). Some free time in the afternoon. Overnight Varanasi.

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India 2014 & 2015 Sacred India continued

Day 6: Varanasi to Khajuraho. Fly to Khajuraho. The spectacular group of temples built during the Chandela Rajput dynasty (9th–11th-cent.) is celebrated for the beautifully carved erotic scenes. The Kandariya Mahadev Temple is one of the finest examples of North Indian temple architecture and is richly embellished with sensuous sculptures depicting the gods’ heavenly abodes. The Jagadambi Temple excels for its carvings of Vishnu. First of two nights in Khajuraho.

Day 7: Khajuraho. In the morning, visit the eastern group of temples with the intricately carved Jain Temple. The Chaturbhuj Temple is unique in its absence of any erotic depictions.

The afternoon is at leisure with an optional return visit to the western group of temples.

Overnight Khajuraho.

Day 8: Khajuraho to Bhopal. Leaving at 8.00am, we drive to Jhansi and take an express train (3 ½ hours) to Bhopal in the afternoon.

Arrival at the hotel c. 6.00pm. First of two nights in Bhopal.

Day 9: Sanchi, Vidisha. Remotely located in open, hilly and sparsely populated countryside, Sanchi is one of the treasures of India and a unesco heritage site. On top of a hill with lovely views all around, the site was supposedly founded by the Great Ashoka. The 2nd-cent. ad stupa with stone railings and four magnificently elaborately carved gateways survives almost intact. Nearby Vidisha was an important Hindu centre under the Gupta dynasty as seen in the majestic carving of

Varaha, the boar incarnation of Vishnu.

Overnight Bhopal.

Day 10: Bhopal to Mumbai. In the morning, fly to Mumbai. The Dr Bhau Daji Lad City Museum (built 1885) was formerly known as the Victoria & Albert and is the oldest museum in Mumbai. A private visit led by the curator explores the city’s distinctive communities and their respective religious practices. Overnight Mumbai.

Day 11: Mumbai, Aurangabad. In the morning, take a privately chartered boat to Elephanta Island. The largest of the two groups is dedicated to Lord Shiva. The relief panels depict the god in various forms. The central Trimurti image, or three-headed Shiva, is said to represent the three aspects of the deity and considered a masterpiece of Gupta art. After lunch, fly to Aurangabad.

First of three nights in Aurangabad.

Day 12: Ajanta. Cut into the volcanic lava of the Deccan plateau, the Buddhist caves at Ajanta were first excavated around the 2nd cent. bc. A later group of caves was built during the Gupta era in the 5th-6th cent. ad before the site was abandoned in the 7th century in favour of Ellora. Celebrated for their fine statuary and the refined wall paintings, they are often considered one of the greatest achievements in Indian art.

Overnight Aurangabad.

Day 13: Ellora. With their uninterrupted sequence spanning four centuries, the caves and rock-cut temples at Ellora are both artistic masterpieces and technological achievements.

The various monasteries dedicated to Buddhism, Jainism and Brahmanism also attest to the religious tolerance which prevailed under the Rashtrakuta dynasty. The impressive rock-cut, monolithic Kailashanatha Temple marks the transition between rock-cut and structural architecture, which took place around the 8th century across the Deccan.

Overnight in Aurangabad.

Day 14: Mumbai. Fly early in the morning to Mumbai to connect with the BA flight to London, arriving at Heathrow c.6.00pm.

Lecturer Charles Allen. British writer and historian, he was born in India, where several generations of his family served under the British Raj. His work focuses on India and South Asia in general. Among his many books are Plain Tales from the Raj: Images of British India in the Twentieth Century (1975), Lives of the Indian Princes (1984), The Buddha and the Sahibs: the Men who Discovered India’s Lost Religion (2002) and Ashoka: The Search for India’s Lost Emperor (2012). In 2012 he filmed a documentary in India for the National Geographic entitled Unearthing the Bones of the Buddha.

Practicalities Price: £5,430 (deposit £500). This includes: flights (World Traveller) with British

Ellora (below and below right), mid-19th-century engravings by H. Gugeler.

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The Indian Mutiny Delhi, Meerut, Lucknow, Gwalior, Agra Airways: London–Delhi (Boeing 747–400), Mumbai–London (Boeing 747–400); with Jet Airways: Delhi–Varanasi (Boeing 737–800), Varanasi–Khajuraho (Boeing 737–800), Bhopal–Mumbai (Boeing 737–800) and return Mumbai–Aurangabad (ATR72); travel by private air-conditioned coach; one journey by train (best class available); accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 10 lunches (including 1 packed lunch) and 9 dinners with wine or beer, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; airport taxes; the service of the lecturer.

Single supplement £680. Price without international flights £4,890.

Hotels: Delhi (2 nights): the Taj Mahal, a modern and comfortable hotel catering for both business and leisure, ideally situated in the heart of Lutyens’s Delhi; attractive garden; swimming pool. Varanasi (3 nights): the Taj Gateway Ganges is a large, functional yet comfortable 4-star with contemporary touches to the recently renovated rooms; located close to the centre but removed from the bustle in 40 acres of garden, with a pool. Khajuraho (2 nights): the Lalit Temple is a modern hotel within walking distance of the main site, surrounded by a well-tended garden; rooms are spacious with large windows overlooking the pool or garden. Bhopal (2 nights): the Jehan Numa Palace is a former royal residence on the edge of the city with gardens, verandas and swimming pool. Bedrooms vary but all are comfortable and well equipped. Mumbai (1 night): the Taj Mahal Palace is an iconic landmark and a masterpiece of Indo-Saracenic architecture, comfortable, centrally located and with excellent service. Aurangabad (3 nights): the Taj Residency is a pleasant hotel set amid well-tended gardens. The rooms are comfortable, with private balconies.

How strenuous? A good level of fitness is essential. You need to be sure-footed to board the river boats. There are some fairly steep ascents to caves and temples and numerous steps in Ajanta and Ellora. There are 2 coach journeys over 2 hours and a 3-hour train journey during which facilities are limited and may be of poor quality. Average distance by coach per day: 38 miles. See page 4 for general fitness requirements for India tours, and age limit.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

info@martinrandall.co.uk

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

28 October–10 November 2014 (mb 185) 14 days • £4,830 Lecturer: Patrick Mercer mp 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 Patrick Mercer 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 7

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 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 through 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

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‘For me it was a trip of a lifetime.’

The Indian Mutiny continued

The Fort of Gwalior, steel engraving c. 1850.

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 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. 11.00am, and after a 5 ½-hour time change, reach the hotel in Old Delhi shortly before 3.00am.

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

Nothing is planned before a pre-lunch talk. In 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 M A RT I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L

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 8

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.

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‘Whetted the appetite for further travel to India.’

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 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.

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 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 info@martinrandall.co.uk

Practicalities

to Gwalior, a route we travel by train.

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 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.

Lecturer Patrick Mercer mp. Military historian and politician. He read History at Oxford and then spent 25 years in the army, achieving the rank of colonel, and subsequently worked for BBC Radio 4 as Defence Correspondent and as a freelance journalist. He is the author of two books on the Battle of Inkerman.

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Price: £4,830 (deposit £450). This includes: air travel (World Traveller) 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 £590. Price without international flights £4,190.

Hotels: Old Delhi (4 nights): dating to the early 1900s, the Maidens retains colonial charm and is ideally located in the heart of the old city. Attractive garden. Lucknow (3 nights): the Vivanta Gomti Nagar is 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, the Amar Mahal is the most basic of the hotels on this tour. Located very near the main sites; garden. Gwalior (2 nights): the charming Taj Usha Kiran Palace, set in 9 acres of land, was formerly a private palace. Rooms combine traditional decor with modern features and are large, light and bright. Agra (1 night): The Oberoi Trident is a comfortable, well-run, modern 4-star close to the main sites with a spacious garden. Delhi-Gurgaon (1 night): the Leela Palace is ideally located near the international airport, this modern 5-star hotel has comfortable rooms.

How strenuous? See page 4 for the general fitness requirements covering all our India tours, and age limit. There are several walks on uneven grounds; a 4-hour coach and a 5-hour train journeys where facilities are limited.

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 Essential India, 14–28 November 2014 (page 22).

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India 2014 & 2015

Temples of Tamil Nadu Architecture, sculpture & ancient rituals

Pondicherry, portico of a pagoda, wood engraving c. 1880.

26 January–8 February 2015 (mb 232) 14 days • £4,790 Lecturer: Asoka Pugal The art and architecture of Hinduism, and its chronological development, in the southernmost state of the Subcontinent.

Includes Mamallapuram, Thanjavur, Srirangam and Madurai.

The tour looks at other aspects of India in Pondicherry, the Chettinad region and elsewhere.

Lush tropical landscapes, rice paddies, sugar cane, coconut groves, neat colourful villages.

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Since its formative phase in the seventh century ad, the southern or Dravida tradition of Indian temple architecture has shown an extraordinary continuity up to the present day, reflecting the continuity of religious practices which it has framed. This tour traces the development of that tradition throughout its history, offering an experience of its whole range of expression, from sensuous intimacy to monumental grandeur.

Like the architectural tradition, the tour begins with the seventh-century temples of the Pallava dynasty at their seaport of Mamallapuram: rock-cut cave sanctuaries where mythological moments are presented in overwhelming relief carvings, and monolithic shrines conceived as palaces of the gods. The 10

famous shore temple belongs to the eighth century. By this time the Pallava rulers could aspire to the status of universal monarch, and Rajasimha, at his capital Kanchipuram, built the great Kailasanatha (Lord of Mount Kailasa), a ‘temple mountain’ that represents the entire cosmos, linking the human world with the heavens.

Smaller temples were the rule, however, erected in villages and at sacred sites as agriculture and Hindu society expanded across the region. The tour includes examples from the Chola period (ninth to thirteenth centuries) in the Cauvery basin, noted for their exquisite sculpture in granite. From this fertile heartland the cultural influence of the Chola realm spread across the seas to Southeast Asia.

In complete contrast to the human scale of local shrines, the imperial Chola temples of the eleventh and twelfth centuries are India’s most colossal religious monuments. With its 60m-high tower, the Brihadishvara temple at Thanjavur (Tanjore) uses forty times as much stone as the average Chola temple. Assigned to this establishment were no fewer than four hundred dancing girls.

The later Chola temples initiated the trend towards ever larger temple complexes, with concentric enclosures entered through towering gopurams (gateways). These ‘templecities’ reached their apogee under the Nayaka rulers (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries), enclosures and gopurams being added on an increasingly monumental scale, the precincts including water tanks and great pillared halls.

Temple complexes became powerful economic units, housing a multiplicity of functions – ritual, administrative, artistic, musical, educational and charitable.

The tour covers several of these later complexes, each of them still thronging with life as a thriving cult centre. To wander in the streets of temple towns such as Chidambaram and Srirangam reveals how the temple determines the nature of the whole settlement, both in its formal layout and in the ritual and processional activities that punctuate the religious calendar.

As well as the dazzling range of sculpture that forms an inseparable part of South Indian temple architecture, there are rare remnants of early Indian painting which developed in parallel. The tour enables participants to examine traces of painting from the Pallava period, the unique eighth-century murals in the Jain cave temple at Sittanavasal, and the wonderful Chola murals in the Brihadishvara, Thanjavur, as well as works of the Nayaka period and the later Tanjore school.

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‘The whole experience was very positive. I was delighted with every aspect of the tour. Congratulations to all!’

Other aspects of the tour complement the focus on temples. The courtyard houses of Chettinad were the homes of Chettiar merchants, a community whose patronage of temples in the colonial period helped to ensure the continuation of the Dravida tradition. The former French colony of Pondicherry contains interesting architectural examples of crosscultural interaction.

Itinerary Days 1 & 2: London to Chennai (Madras).

Fly from London Heathrow at c. 9.30am direct to Chennai, and after a 5 ½-hour time change reach the hotel at c. 2.30am. Nothing is planned before a pre-lunch talk. In the afternoon, visit the bronze collection of the Government Museum. Overnight Chennai.

Day 3: Chennai, Mamallapuram. Drive to Mamallapuram, in the morning. After lunch, visit the 7th-cent. cave temples with mythological relief panels, including the extraordinarily dynamic Mahishasuramardini (Durga slaying the buffalo demon) and the great Arjuna’s penance relief (‘Descent of the Ganges’). Overnight Mamallapuram.

Day 4: Mamallapuram. The elegant Shore Temple combines shrines to Shiva and Vishnu. The 7th-cent. monolithic shrines, including the so-called five rathas (chariots), are a veritable catalogue of the architectural possibilities inherent in the Dravida tradition at this early stage, which clearly evolved out of the early wooden architectural tradition.

Overnight Mamallapuram.

Day 5: Kanchipuram. Once the Pallava capital and still an important holy city, Kanchipuram is full of ancient temples. The Kailasanatha Temple, the cosmic mountain of Pallava ruler Rajasimha (c. 700-728) dedicated to Shiva, is within a walled compound and girdled with shrines. The rarely visited Vaikunta Perumal Temple has a sculptural programme depicting the origin and history of the Pallava kings. The Ekambareshvara Temple, with its towering gopurams of the Vijayanagara period (16th-cent.), gives a first taste of a large temple complex still very much in use. Overnight Mamallapuram.

Day 6: Pondicherry. Pondicherry (two hours by coach) is a former French enclave acquired in 1674 which retains much of its colonial charm. Two respective walks in the French Quarter and the Tamil Quarter highlights the dual cultural heritage of this pleasant seaside town. Overnight Pondicherry. info@martinrandall.co.uk

Day 7: Chidambaram, Gangaikondacholapuram. The temple town of Chidambaram is planned on the mandala principle around the 12th-cent. Nataraja Temple. Home to Shiva as the cosmic dancer, there is sculpture depicting classical dance and lively 17thcent. narrative ceiling paintings. Continue to Gangaikondacholapuram, the ‘City of the Chola who conquered the Ganges’: the Brihadishvara is a gigantic imperial Chola temple erected by Rajendra I (1012–44).

The composition of the tower is subtle and complex. First of two nights in Veppathur, near Kumbakonam.

Chettinad town of Kanadukathan. Visit a family mansion, a fine example of shared accommodation according to the Chettiar tradition. In the afternoon drive to Madurai, via Alagarkovil, a hilltop temple dedicated to Kallalagar, a form of Vishnu. First of two nights in Madurai.

Day 8: Kumbakonam, Darasuram, Swamimalai. Kumbakonam is a thriving town with numerous temples from the Chola period and later, including the Nageshvara which has some of the finest early Chola sculpture. The Mahamakam tank (17th-cent.) is said to unite the waters of all India’s sacred rivers. At Darasuram, the Airavateshvara temple (12th-cent.) is a late Chola masterpiece (1146-72), beguilingly sensuous and architecturally lucid. The Sthala Puranam Temple at Swamimalai, dedicated to Lord Murugan (son of Shiva), is on a hill with city views. Overnight Veppathur.

Day 9: Thanjavur. Drive to Thanjavur to visit the Brihadishvara, Rajaraja I’s colossal imperial temple (c. 1010). The compound is entered via the earliest of the truly monumental gopurams and also contains a variety of subsidiary shrines, including the finely chiselled Subrahmanya (17th-cent.).

The museum in the Nayaka palace houses a fine collection of Chola sculpture, including bronzes. Lunch is at a resort on the attractive banks of the Cauvery River. In the afternoon, drive to the Chettinad region for the first of two nights in Kanadukathan.

Day 10: Srirangam, Nattarmalai, Sittanavasal. Srirangam is a classic temple town dominated by the concentric enclosures of the huge Ranganatha temple complex (13th cent. onwards). Among the numerous structures is the Rangavilasa Mandapa with columns teeming with sculpture. The 9thcent. Vijayalaya-Cholishvara temple is set in a beautiful hilly landscape at Nattarmalai.

Continue through enchanting countryside to the Arivar Koil cave temple (8th-cent.) containing vibrant mural paintings evoking the abundance of nature. Overnight Kanadukathan, near Karaikudi.

Day 11: Alagarkovil, Madurai. A relaxing morning walk through the small 11

Day 12: Madurai. The vast Meenakshi Temple complex, mostly erected in the 17th cent. under the Nayaka rulers when Madurai was an independent kingdom, is the epitome of a South Indian ‘temple-city’.

Its towering gateways, swathed in coloured figures, rise up to 60m. The Pudu mandapa is an open hall with huge and exuberant sculpted piers with portrait sculptures of Nayaka kings and ministers. The grand pillared Celestial Pavilion is all that remains of the 17th-cent. Thirumalai Nayaka Palace.

Overnight Madurai.

Day 13: Thiruparankundram, Chennai.

The 8th-cent. Pandyan Temple at Thiruparankundram, cut into a granite hill, is considered one of the sacred abodes of Murugan. The shrine contains depictions of Durga and Ganesh and is approached by a series of mandapas (17th- and 18th-cents.).

Afternoon flight Madurai to Chennai; overnight Chennai.

Day 14. The only direct flight from Chennai leaves at 4.00am and arrives at London Heathrow at c. 9.30am.

Lecturer Asoka Pugal. Born in Tamil Nadu, he graduated in History from the University of Madras and pursued higher studies at the Madras Law College.

He has been working in the tourist industry for the past thirty years and has worked with Sir Edmund Hillary, and produced a television documentary on the Himalayas for German television. From 1987 to 1992, he was a reporter for ZDF in India and produced a documentary titled Temples, Palaces & Houses of India. In 2001, he was a nominated member on the Board of studies in Ancient History and Archaeology at the University of Madras.

Practicalities Price: £4,790 (deposit £450). This includes: flights (World Traveller) with British Airways: return London to Chennai (Boeing 777) 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

India 2014 & 2015 Temples of Tamil Nadu continued

and with SpiceJet: Madurai to Chennai (Boeing 737); 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 £660. Price without international flights £4,150.

Hotels. Chennai (1 night): the Taj Coromandel is a comfortable heritage hotel catering for both the business and leisure traveller. The Art Deco rooms are wellappointed and bathrooms have bathtubs and separate showers. Mamallapuram (3 nights): the Temple Bay is a seafront resort with direct access to the beach. Rooms are spacious and neat. There are several dining options on site.

Pondicherry (1 night): the Palais de Mahé is an attractively restored 18th-century mansion in the heart of the French Quarter. Each room is elegantly decorated with vintage furniture and all modern amenities. Veppathur, near Kumbakonam (2 nights): the Mantra Resort is set in a peaceful, rural location, immersed in a garden of coconut palms with a pool. The cottage rooms are simple but comfortable, traditional in style, with outside seating on a porch. Kanadukathan, near Karaikudi (2 nights): Visalam is an attractive and sensitively restored mid 20th-century Chettinad mansion in the heart of a small town. Rooms are large with period touches, and some open out on to the surrounding garden, where there is a pool.

Madurai (2 nights): set in 60 acres of lush garden on Pasumalai Hill, the Taj Gateway is very comfortable with well-equipped rooms furnished in colonial style. Chennai (1 night): the Trident Hotel is a well-run 4-star hotel conveniently located for access to the airport.

Painted Palaces of Rajasthan 24 November–7 December 2014 (mb 201) 14 days • £5,720 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.

Private visit of the painting gallery of Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur.

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 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

Jaipur, the Amber Palace (Sowaë Gate), wood engraving from India & its Native Princes, 1876.

How strenuous? See page 4 for the general fitness requirements covering all our India tours, and age limit. There are some fairly steep ascents to temples. There are two coach journeys over two hours 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. Average distance by coach per day: 45 miles.

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

Possible linking tour: combine this tour with Karnataka: the Undiscovered South, 10–24 January 2015 (page 26).

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‘I thought this was an absolutely wonderful tour, and am so grateful for the huge amount of care and planning.’

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 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 are covered with lively scenes drawn from religion, folklore and 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 in Delhi, India’s capital, where the Mughal and British monuments place the various phases of our Rajasthani odyssey in the larger imperial context; and ends in Jaipur, the celebrated capital of Rajasthan, built according to the Vastu Shastra, the architectural treatise from the Vedic age which enjoyed a revival under the Hindu rulers of Rajputana in the eighteenth century.

Itinerary Day 1: London to Delhi. Fly from London Heathrow to Delhi at c. 12 noon, and after a 5 ½-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.

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’ and built in 1459, it has some of the most imposing fortifications in the world. Private dinner in the garden. First of two nights in Jodhpur. info@martinrandall.co.uk

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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 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 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.

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.

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

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‘Theme and destination were strong determinants of my choice. I was especially pleased to be going off the main tourist routes.’

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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,

Day 12: Jaipur. The City Palace contains an unsurpassed collection of paintings and artefacts. The Jantar Mantar, the 1730s observatory is equipped with massive astronomical instruments that are astonishingly accurate. A walk takes in the many-windowed façade of the pink sandstone Hawa Mahal (Palace of Winds) and attractive havelis. Athwart a natural ridge, the magnificent yellow walls of the 18th-cent.

Amber Palace conceal fine craftsmanship – mirrored chambers, latticed windows, carved alabaster. Overnight Jaipur.

Jaipur, the Amber Palace, from Indian India, As Seen by a Guest in Rajasthan by C.W. Waddington, 1933.

or beer, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; airport taxes; the service of a lecturer. Single supplement £830. Price without international flights £5,070.

Hotels: New Delhi (2 nights): The Taj Mahal hotel is modern and comfortable. Ideally situated in the heart of Lutyens’s Delhi.

Attractive garden. Swimming pool. Jodhpur (2 nights): Hotel Raas, a boutique hotel located in the heart of the walled city beneath the Fort, combining modern and traditional design. Swimming pool. Nagaur (2 nights): Hotel Ranvas, the former zenana, women’s quarter inside the fort-palace, has been converted into this very comfortable hotel, with pool. Gajner (2 nights): Gajner Palace, a lake-side hunting lodge converted into a comfortable and quiet hotel. Mandawa (2 nights): Hotel Vivaana, this converted haveli combines the traditional painted decor of the region with modern furniture and amenities.

Swimming pool. Jaipur (2 nights): Jai Mahal Palace, an 18th-cent. palace in Indo-Islamic style, its former grandeur combining with contemporary touches. Extensive grounds and a pool. Delhi-Gurgaon (1 night): The Leela Palace, ideally located near the airport, this modern 4-star hotel has comfortable rooms.

How strenuous? See page 4 for the general fitness requirements covering all our India tours, and age limit. There are some fairly steep ascents to hilltop forts and temples.

There are three 3-hour coach journeys during which facilities are limited and may be of poor quality. Average distance by coach per day: 60 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Lecturer

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 11: Mandawa, Jaipur. The four-hour coach journey to Jaipur drives through the scenic Aravalli range. The dramatically located site of Galta outside Jaipur features temples, leisure pavilions, sacred water spring and tanks. Founded in the 18th cent. by the prominent Rajput ruler Sawai Jai Singh, the design of Jaipur demonstrates its creator’s obsession with mathematics and science. First of three nights in Jaipur.

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Day 13: Jaipur, Delhi. Fly to Delhi around lunchtime. Overnight near the airport.

Day 14: Delhi to London. The direct flight arrives at Heathrow in the early afternoon.

Practicalities Price: £5,720 (deposit £500). This includes: flights (World Traveller) with British Airways: return London–Delhi (Boeing 747–400); with Jet Airways: Delhi–Jodhpur (Boeing 737) and Jaipur–Delhi (Boeing 737); travel by private air-conditioned coach; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 9 lunches and 9 dinners with wine 14

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.

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Mughals & Nawabs Art & architecture of three imperial capitals Delhi, the Qutb Minar (Gate of Alladeen), wood engraving c. 1880.

4–15 February 2015 (mb 236) 12 days • £4,840 Lecturer: Professor James Allan 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 Professor James Allan, expert on Islamic art and 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.

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 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 creation of a remarkably harmonious and consistent architectural style. info@martinrandall.co.uk

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. 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 15

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 ½-hour time change reach the hotel in New Delhi c. 3.00am. First of four nights in Delhi.

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India 2014 & 2015 Mughals & Nawabs continued

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.

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: Sikandra. In the morning, drive to Agra. Akbar’s mausoleum (1613) at Sikandra on the outskirt of the town, far surpasses that of his father, Humayun, in size and elaboration, being set in a traditional charbagh nearly 1 km 2 and encrusted with domed marble kiosks. It has no central dome unlike other Mughal mausolea. 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, the exquisite tomb of Itimad ud Daula (1628) is a pioneer of intricate marble inlay work.

Overnight Agra.

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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 8: Lucknow. Travel for 4 hours by express train to Lucknow. Capital of Awadh and seat of power of the Nawabs, Lucknow flourished as cultural capital of north India in the 18th19th centuries. While the Mughals were Sunni, the Nawabs of Awadh were Shia, and this led to the development of new types of building such as the imambara alongside the familiar mosques and palaces. First of three nights in Lucknow.

Day 9: Lucknow. The small red sandstone 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. The scarred ruins of the Residency complex are silent reminders of the mutiny of 1857, which led to the demise of the Nawabs. 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.

Overnight Lucknow.

Day 11: Lucknow, Delhi. The morning is at leisure before the afternoon flight to Delhi.

Overnight Gurgaon (near Delhi).

Day 12: Delhi to London. Fly from Delhi in the morning, arriving in London Heathrow early afternoon.

Lecturer Professor James Allan.

Expert in Islamic art and architecture and MiddleEastern archaeology. He read Arabic at Oxford, where he also completed his doctorate and has worked for the Ashmolean and as a field archaeologist in Jerusalem and at Siraf.

President of the British Institute of Persian Studies, 2002–6 and now lectures for the faculty of Oriental Studies at Oxford.

Practicalities Price: £4,840 (deposit £450). This includes: air travel (economy class) on flights with British Airways: return London to Delhi (Boeing 747–400) and with IndiGo (Airbus A320): Lucknow to Delhi; travel by private air-conditioned coach; one train journey in the best class available; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 8 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 a lecturer. Single supplement £780. Price without international flights £4,190.

Hotels: Delhi (4 nights): The Taj Mahal Hotel, a modern and comfortable hotel catering for both the business and leisure traveller, ideally situated in the heart of Lutyens’s Delhi. Attractive garden and swimming pool. Agra (3 nights): The ITC Mughal is a comfortable, well-run, modern 5-star hotel close to the main sites, sprawled around a lush garden. Lucknow (3 nights): the Vivanta Gomti Nagar is a very comfortable 4-star with spacious public areas and rooms with all modern amenities, surrounded by extensive garden. Gurgaon, Delhi-Gurgaon (1 night): the Leela Kempinsky is ideally located near the international airport, this modern 5-star hotel has comfortable rooms.

All hotels have swimming pools.

How strenuous? See page 4 for the general fitness requirements for all our India tours, and age limit. There are two 4-hour journeys, by train and by coach, during which facilities are limited and may be of poor quality.

Average travel by coach per day: 31 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tour: combine this tour with Essential India, 20 February–6 March 2015 (page 22).

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Kingdoms of the Deccan Art & architecture sixth to eighteenth centuries Hampi, Dutch wood engraving 1871.

6–19 February 2015 (mb 238) 14 days • £5,520 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, codirector for research at Hampi.

info@martinrandall.co.uk

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, 17

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.

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, 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 5 ½ hour time change reach the hotel at c. 6.00am. The time till

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‘Thrillingly varied and comprehensive.’

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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 and the Mecca Masjid. 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 the royal necropolis has grand tombs, with bulbous domes and elaborate stucco. 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 visit to the Salar Jung Museum. Overnight Hyderabad.

Hyderabad, the Char Minar, photograph from Across India at the Dawn of the 20th Century by Lucy E. Guinness, 1898.

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 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 three-hour drive to Bijapur, arriving in time to walk along the city walls and visit the Ibrahim Rauza tomb complex, which consists of two intricately carved twin buildings finished in 1626, the tomb of Ibrahim Adil Shah II and the mosque.

Overnight Bijapur.

Day 7: Bijapur, Badami. In the morning visit the Gol Gumbaz, the monumental domed tomb of Mohammed Adil Shah before a walk through the old town to see the many historic buildings. In the afternoon we leave the Islamic region and drive south 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.

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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.

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.

How strenuous? See page 4 for the general fitness requirements covering all our India tours, and age limit. There are two moderately steep ascents to hilltops and four coach journeys over three hours during which facilities are limited and may be of poor quality. Average distance by coach per day: 56 miles.

with SpiceJet: Hubli to Mumbai (ATR42/ ATR72); travel by private air-conditioned coach; accommodation as described below, breakfasts, 12 lunches (including 1 packed lunch) and 12 dinners with wine, 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 £540. Price without international flights: £4,900.

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

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 Taj Krishna is modern if a

Possible linking tour: combine this tour with Essential India, 20 February–3 March 2015 (page 22).

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. In the morning, visit the forgotten temple in Lakkundi. Continue to Hubli airport and fly to Mumbai (Bombay). Overnight Mumbai.

Day 14: Mumbai. The direct flight from Mumbai to Heathrow is scheduled for c. 13.30 to c. 18.00.

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 co-directed 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.

Practicalities Price: £5,520 (deposit £500). This includes: air travel (economy class) on flights with British Airways: London to Hyderabad (Boeing 777) and Mumbai to London (Boeing 747), info@martinrandall.co.uk

Bidar, the Royal Tombs, steel engraving c. 1850 from Gazetteer of the World Vol.I.

little dated. Gulbarga (1 night): Aditya Hotel is a fairly simple hotel though the best in town; clean and not uncomfortable, rooms are spacious and have en suite facilities. Bijapur (1 night): Madhuvan International, basic but friendly hotel, similar to Gulbarga. Badami (3 nights): Badami Court is a pleasant hotel with willing service, set around a garden with a small pool. Hospet (3 nights): the newest and best in town, the Royal Orchid is a comfortable 4-star hotel with a swimming pool. Mumbai (1 night): the Leela Kempinsky is a conveniently located 5-star hotel with all modern amenities.

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‘Excellent. It was a very thorough exploration of the area and I like the variety: both Islamic and Hindu sites, secular and sacred.’

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Indian Summer Delhi, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Shimla

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

30 March–11 April 2015 (mb 272) 13 days • £5,320 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 ebb and flow of the Raj in two imperial capitals, this tour covers architecture, M A RT I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L

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 was ruled from its heights for the better part of every year. The architecture is 20

practically a gazetteer of western styles, but often with a twist, a nod to the 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 amidst 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 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 5 ½-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 Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

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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 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 info@martinrandall.co.uk

Shimla, steel engraving 1845.

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

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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.

Lecturer Raaja Bhasin. Author, historian and freelance journalist, he has published seven critically acclaimed books on the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh and its capital, Shimla, and is a recognised authority on both. He has handled assignments for television, including the BBC, and for

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Essential India Hindu temples, Rajput palaces & Mughal tombs

the Indian Institute of Advanced Study and various departments of the Indian Government. He writes regularly for magazines and papers in India and elsewhere.

He is the state Co-convenor of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage.

Practicalities Price: £5,320 (deposit £500). 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 and restaurant staff, airport taxes; the services of a lecturer. Single supplement £760. Price without international flights: £4,610.

Hotels: New Delhi (4 nights and 1 night): the Taj Mahal, a modern and comfortable hotel catering for both the business and leisure traveller, ideally situated in the heart of Lutyens’s Delhi; attractive garden and swimming pool. Amritsar (2 nights): Ranjit Svaasa is an attractive colonial mansion converted into a characterful boutique hotel down a narrow alley off the main road.

Chandigarh (2 nights and 1 night): Taj Chandigarh is a modern hotel with elegantly furnished and well-appointed rooms. Shimla (3 nights): The Oberoi Cecil is a landmark 19th-cent. heritage hotel converted into a luxury hotel in the 1930s.

How strenuous? See page 4 for the general fitness requirements covering all our India tours, and age limit. There is a 5-hour train journey during which facilities are limited and may be of poor quality. Average distance by coach per day: 33 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

The Fort at Agra, interior, from Across India at the Dawn of the 20th Century by Lucy E. Guinness, 1898.

14–28 November 2014 (mb 198) 15 days • £5,670 Lecturer: Dr Anna-Maria Misra 20 February–6 March 2015 (mb 245) 15 days • £5,670 Lecturer: Dr Giles Tillotson 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.

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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 Kashi, the Luminous, during the life of the Buddha who visited on several occasions on his way to Sarnath nearby Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

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‘...some amazing sites, never to be forgotten...’

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 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.

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.

the Ganges ends with the evening prayer ceremony (Aarti), a ritual going back to the Vedic Age. First of three nights in Varanasi.

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

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 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. Afternoon visit to the Bharat Kala Bhavan, the university museum.

Overnight Varanasi.

Day 6: Varanasi. 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). Some free time in the afternoon. Overnight Varanasi.

Day 7: Varanasi to Khajuraho. Fly to Khajuraho in the morning. After lunch, visit the spectacular western group of temples built during the Chandela 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

Delhi, gateway to the Jami Masjid, aquatint by William Daniell, 1812.

Itinerary Days 1 & 2: London to Delhi. Fly from London Heathrow at about noon and after a 5 ½ hour time change reach the hotel in New Delhi c. 3.00am. Free morning, lunch in the hotel. The severely beautiful 15th-century tombs of the Sayyid and Lodi dynasties are located in the serene Lodi Gardens, close to info@martinrandall.co.uk

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India 2014 & 2015 Essential India continued

with sensuous sculptures depicting the god’s heavenly abodes. Nearby, the Jagadambi Temple contains excellent carvings of Vishnu.

First of two nights in Khajuraho.

Day 8: Khajuraho. In the morning, visit the eastern group of temples with the intricately carved Jain Temple. The Chaturbhuj Temple is unique in its absence of any erotic depictions.

The afternoon is at leisure with an optional

return visit to the western group of temples.

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. Overnight Orchha.

Day 10: Orchha. A walk in the old town includes a visit to the high-ceilinged Chaturbhuj Temple; the cross plan represents the four-armed Vishnu. The Lakshmi Temple incorporates fortress elements and its 19th-cent. frescoes depict scenes of the 1857 Mutiny. Afternoon journey from Jhansi to Gwalior by train. First of two nights in Gwalior.

Day 11: Gwalior. Athwart a steep-sided hill, the formidable Gwalior Fort is lavishly embellished with cupolas and blue tiles; inside are superb 9th- and 11th-cent. temples. The afternoon is at leisure with the option of a visit to a nearby palace. Overnight Gwalior.

Day 12: Gwalior, Agra. Drive to Agra and in the afternoon visit the Itimad ud Daula (c. 1628), an exquisite garden tomb and the first Mughal building clad in white marble inlaid with pietra dura inlay. A stroll in Mehtab Bagh, a former Mughal garden by the Yamuna river, is rewarded with a view of the Taj Mahal; any anxiety about it failing to live up to it reputation for sublime beauty is misplaced. Overnight Agra.

Day 13: Agra, Fatehpur Sikri. Rise early to visit the Taj Mahal in the first light of day. It was commissioned by Shah Jahan in memory of his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal, and completed 1648. Breakfast at the hotel.

The magnificent Red Fort was built by Akbar and is the best preserved of the palaces built during his reign. Drive out to Fatehpur Sikri, a new capital built by Akbar (1570) but abandoned after a mere 15 years. The palace complex consists of a series of courtyards and beautifully wrought red sandstone pavilions.

Overnight Agra.

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 early afternoon.

Khajuraho, Kandariya Mahadev Temple, wood engraving from India & its Native Princes, 1876.

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‘The trip was as good and as memorable as usual. We will return yet again.’

Lecturers Dr Anna-Maria Misra (November 2014) 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 on many aspects of India’s history and culture, including Vishnu’s Crowded Temple: India since the Great Rebellion.

She wrote and presented the Channel 4 series An Indian Affair and is a regular writer and broadcaster. She is currently writing a book on global cross-currents in art and architecture.

Dr Giles Tillotson (February–March 2015) is a 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.

centre but removed from the bustle in its 40 acres of garden, with a pool. Khajuraho (2 nights): the Lalit Temple is a modern hotel within walking distance of the main site, surrounded by a well-tended garden; rooms are spacious with large windows overlooking the pool or garden. Orchha (1 night): Amar Mahal is 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. Gwalior (2 nights): the charming Taj Usha Kiran Palace, set in 9 acres, was formerly a private palace; rooms combine traditional decor with modern features and are large, light and bright.

Agra (2 nights): the Oberoi Trident is a comfortable, well-run, modern 4-star close to the main sites with a spacious internal garden

with pool. Delhi–Gurgaon (1 night): the modern 5-star Leela Palace is conveniently located near the international airport.

How strenuous? See page 4 for the general fitness requirements covering all our India tours, and age limit. There are a few fairly steep ascents to temples. There is a 3-hour and a 4-hour coach journeys during which facilities are limited and may be of poor quality. Average distance by coach per day: 45 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours: combine the November departure with Assam By River, 1–11 December 2014 (page 28) or the February departure with Kingdoms of the Deccan, 6–19 February 2015 (page 17).

Varanasi, Mosque of Aurangzeb, from Across India at the Dawn of the 20th Century, 1898.

Practicalities Price: £5,670 (deposit £500). 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 and one journey by train (in the best class available); accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 11 lunches and 9 dinners with wine or beer, water and coffee; admissions to museums and sites; tips for drivers, restaurant staff, and local guides; airport taxes; the service of the lecturer. Single supplement £840. Price without international flights £5,000.

Hotels: Delhi (3 nights): the Taj Mahal, a modern and comfortable hotel catering for both the business and leisure traveller, ideally situated in the heart of Lutyens’s Delhi; attractive garden and swimming pool.

Varanasi (3 nights): the Taj Gateway Ganges is a large, functional yet comfortable 4-star hotel with contemporary touches to the recently renovated rooms; located close to the info@martinrandall.co.uk

China 2015 Tours to include:

The Three Emperors Ceramics in China & Taiwan The Northern Route: Silk Road Cities 25

Buddhist China The Emperor’s River: the Grand Canal Full details available in July 2014.

Contact us to register your interest. 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

India 2014 & 2015

Karnataka: the Undiscovered South

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

10–24 January 2015 (mb 228) 14 days • £4,960 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, with a visit to Srirangapatnam, site of Wellesley’s victory over Tipu Sultan and in the friendly port of Mangalore.

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 M A RT I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L

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 dusty plains of the Deccan Plateau in the north to the lush mountains and the fertile coastal area in the south.

A sequence of temple-building by several consecutive ruling dynasties spans several centuries and follows the development of Jainism in the region, beginning with the 26

Bastis at Sravanabelagola which exemplify the severe style patronised in the ninth-tenth century by the Gangas to the fifteenthcentury Chandranatha Basti at Mudabidri with its finely carved pillars. This Jain austerity contrasts with the twelfth to thirteenthcentury Hoysala temples at Belur, Halebid, and Somnathpur, with their intricately carved wall friezes and bracket figures.

The narrow coastal strip, known as Kanara is culturally distinct from the rest of the state, separated by the Western Ghats. This is particularly evident in the local temple architectural tradition, a variation of the Kerala style with angled tiled roofs and some finely carved wooden struts, which developed from the fifteenth century onward, as seen at the religious centres of Mudabidri and Udupi.

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Princely palaces, Temples & sculptures reflects its cosmopolitan population through the centuries: Yemeni and Persian traders were trading rice and pepper with local Hindu and Jain merchants as recorded by Ibn Battuta in 1342. After becoming the main port of the Vijayanagara Empire and the later Nayakas, a series of Portuguese raids in the seventeenth century led to a European presence before becoming the naval headquarters of Haidar Ali of Mysore in 1763.

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 Srirangapatnam. 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 Indo-Saracenic palace of the Wadiyar maharajas, with its castiron columns and stained glass ceilings, is a particularly fine example of a later synthesis.

Itinerary Days 1 & 2: London to Bangalore. Fly from London Heathrow to Bangalore at c. 2.00pm.

After a 5 ½ hours time change reach the hotel in Bangalore at c. 6.00am. Nothing is planned before a pre-lunch talk. The bright red NeoClassical State Archaeological Museum (1876) has some fine 12th-cent. south Indian sculptures. Overnight Bangalore.

Day 3: Melukote, Mysore. 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 Wodeyars in the 19th century. Chamundi Hill, where the goddess who protected the rulers resides, has commanding views of the city. First of three nights in Mysore.

Day 4: Mysore. The Wodeyars, 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, built in 1900 for the marriage celebrations of Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV, is now a picture gallery.

Day 5: Somnathpur, Srirangapatnam. 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 info@martinrandall.co.uk

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.

Sravanabelagola. Nearby, Udupi was the birthplace of Madhava, a 12th-cent. Hindu teacher who supposedly founded the Krishna Temple, the main focus on Temple Square.

First of three nights in Mangalore.

Day 6: Sravanabelagola. The sacred Jain pilgrimage complex of Sravanabelagola was established in the ninth-tenth century and is located on two granite hills. The monolithic Bahubali colossus, dedicated in 981, is a superb example of early sculpture and the largest free standing sculpture in Southern India. On the adjacent Chandragiri Hill across town, Jain temples, or Bastis are clustered within a single compound.

Overnight Hassan.

Day 7: Belur, Chikmagalur. The Hoysala dynasty ruled southern Karnataka between the 11th and 14th centuries. 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 step-well and two damaged temples.

The main temple commemorates a royal victory in 1117. 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 8: Halebid. 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. Overnight Chikmagalur.

Day 9: Chikmagalur to Manipal. The coach journey today is around 100 miles through lush forests of mahogany, sandalwood and rosewood trees. The Matha at Sringeri was founded by Shankara, a Hindu teacher, in the ninth century. The sixteenth-cent. temple is influenced by early Hoysala architecture.

Overnight Manipal.

Day 10: Karkala, Udupi, Mangalore.

Karkala became a centre of Jainism under the Bhairavasa rulers in the 14th century.

Meaning ‘four-faced’, the Chaturmukha Basti has a perfectly symmetrical plan, with projecting porches, overlooking a granite outcrop crowned by a smaller, and later copy of the Gomateshvara Monolith at 27

Day 11: Mangalore. The Manjunatha temple on Kadri hill houses three Buddhist bronze statues which were probably cast in nearby Tamil Nadu. The three-faced, six-armed Lokeshvara is dated 968. St Aloysius Chapel (built 1882) possesses some extensive frescoes and ceiling paintings by the Jesuit painter Antonio Moscheni in a rather excessive manner. The 1422 Mosque of Zeenath Baksh was entirely rebuilt under Tipu Sultan in the indigenous style with intricate wooden columns and brackets, the finest in southern India. Overnight Mangalore.

Day 12: Mudabidri. The religious significance of Mudabidri as a centre of Jainism is visible in the numerous Bastis and Mathas spread along Temple Street. The Chandranatha Basti is the largest and most elaborate. Built in 1429, the finely carved columns of the hall are traditionally distinct from each other.

On the outskirt of town, the Samadhis, or funerary memorials, are pyramidal structures with diminishing tiers, built in laterite to commemorate the cremation spot of the deceased. Overnight Mangalore.

Day 13: Mangalore, Bangalore. A late morning flight to Bangalore allows a leisurely afternoon and evening before the early morning flight to London.

Day 14: Bangalore to London. The only direct flight to London Heathrow is scheduled to arrive c. 1.30pm.

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 co-directed 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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India 2014 & 2015 Karnataka: the Undiscovered South continued

Assam by River Tribal India along the Brahmaputra

Practicalities Price: £4,960 (deposit £450). This includes: air travel (economy class) with British Airways, London–Bangalore–London (Boeing 747–400), and with Jet Konnect, Mangalore to Bangalore (ATR 72); travel by modern air-conditioned coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 10 lunches (including 2 packed lunches) and 9 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 £560. Price without international flights £4,320.

Hotels: Bangalore (2 nights and 1 night): Taj West End is a 5-star heritage hotel set in 22 acres of lush garden, with all modern amenities. Mysore (3 nights): centrally located, the Royal Orchid Metropole is a heritage hotel built in 1920. Rooms are well-appointed with all modern amenities.

Hassan (1 night): spacious, comfortable rooms designed to reflect rural living, the Hoysala Village hotel set in an extensive garden with a swimming pool. Chikmagalur (2 nights): located high in the coffee-producing hills, the Taj Gateway has a tranquil location with spectacular valley views. Rooms are well equipped with all modern amenities.

Well-tended grounds with swimming pool.

Manipal (1 night): Fortune Inn Valley View is a convenient and comfortable hotel with clean and well-appointed rooms. Mangalore (3 nights): Taj Gateway is the best hotel in town, a comfortable 4-star hotel with well-appointed rooms and a swimming pool.

How strenuous? See page 4 for the general fitness requirements covering all our India tours, and age limit. There is a fairly steep ascent to hilltop temples, of about 600 steps.

There are three coach journeys over 3 hours during which facilities are limited and may be of poor quality. Average distance by coach per day: 61 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours: combine this tour with Temples of Tamil Nadu, 26 January–8 February 2015 (page 10).

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1–11 December 2014 (mb 207) 11 days • £4,370 Lecturer: Lesley Pullen Remote, unspoilt, largely pre-modern, this is an India seen by very few tourists.

Cruise on the Brahmaputra in a privately chartered, locally built vessel.

Authentic villages scarcely touched by modern life with a variety of tribes and traditions.

Spectacular wildlife, including rhinos, elephants, buffalo, Gangetic dolphins and a wonderful variety of birds.

Led by Lesley Pullen, an expert on northeastern tribal India.

The word ‘unique’ sounds platitudinous, but when compared to other MRT tours, other river cruises and other experiences of India, unique this tour undeniably is. The pursuit of ‘high culture’ is not its primary purpose, even though some good buildings and temple sculpture do feature. Instead the focuses are village life which has scarcely changed for centuries, magnificent mammals and brilliant birds, and some strikingly beautiful landscapes. This is immersion in a premodern world, precious, fragile and steadily disappearing; for three days in the middle of the tour you may see no more than a dozen cars and no other westerners.

The bulk of the tour is a seven-night cruise on the mighty Brahmaputra, one of the great rivers of the world. Coursing through the heart of Assam, it cuts a swathe which is sometimes a mile or more wide with its shifting shores, sandbanks and beaches.

Residence on board RV Charaidew as it sails upstream, negotiating channels and shallows, affords sight intermittently of villages and fields under the shade of teak, ficus, flame and palm trees, and occasionally of herders and fishermen. But largely the scene is bewitchingly empty, a changing pattern of sand bars and crumbling banks bordered by a line of trees fading into the haze. Tranquility is perhaps the defining feature of this tour.

Mooring periodically, there are walks through extraordinarily attractive villages which in form and, to a large extent, materials and way of life have scarcely changed for hundreds of years – an entirely authentic experience, not staged for the titillation of tourists (of whom the numbers are negligible).

Many tribes in rural areas retain their identity and their traditions. The Mishing people, for example, immigrated from the foothills of the 28

Himalayas in the thirteenth century, but their building traditions – houses on stilts – and woven fabric patterns remain distinct.

Wildlife is the other major theme, with sightings in Kaziranga National Park of rhinoceros, wild buffalo, elephant and other big mammals virtually guaranteed, as well as the ornithological riches already alluded to.

The cruise is accompanied by a naturalist. Tea production is also addressed, plantations being a striking feature of the Assamese landscape.

Over the centuries peoples of different races, religions and cultures have migrated to this fertile landscape from India, Southeast Asia, the Himalayas and China. By an accident of British colonial history, Assam was ceded to the East India Company in 1826 at the end of the first Anglo-Burmese war. The province retains into the twenty-first century a unique culture which refuses to conform to any recognizable Indian or Southeast Asian narrative, has been little researched by India scholars, and remains poorly comprehended by international academics.

Built in Guwahati, our small ship with its boxy profile feels entirely appropriate in these waters, yet provides sufficient comfort (though not luxury) and plenty of character.

Itinerary Day 1: London to Delhi. Fly from Heathrow to Delhi at about 12 noon (8 ¼ hours, 5 ½ -hour time change). Reach the hotel near the airport around 2.00am.

Day 2: Delhi to Guwahati. Free morning (with late breakfast), lunch in the hotel, fly to Guwahati (2 ½ hours), Assam’s capital. One night here.

Day 3: Guwahati, Silghat. Visit the Assam State Museum, then at noon start the drive to Silghat where the ship is moored (4 to 4 ½ hours). This passes through fascinating stretches of the Assamese scene, largely rural – rice fields, tea plantations, magnificent trees, bamboo-built villages and roadside markets.

Spend the first of seven nights on board RV Charaidew.

Day 4: Kaziranga. Among the wildlife in Kaziranga National Park (850 km 2) are the majority of the world’s one-horned Asian rhinoceros population, elephants wild and domestic, wild buffalo, various deer, and, though they rarely reveal themselves, tigers, as well as 550 species of bird. Rise early for an elephant ride through the park, bringing you within yards of rhinos. After breakfast at a lodge spend another 2 ½ hours watching

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Banyan and Boabob trees, steel engraving c. 1850.

wildlife from a 4x4. Lunch on board, sail all afternoon.

Days 5, 6 & 7: tribal villages. Much of the daytime is spent sailing, enforced inactivity, with the opportunity to spot Gangetic dolphins and a range of water birds. There are also talks on the history and ethnography of northeast India. On each of the three days there is a visit on foot to a traditional village.

Remarkable survivals, the buildings are largely wood and bamboo (villages of the Mishing tribe are built on stilts). In the shade of a variety of fine trees, villagers work their little fenced smallholdings, women weave cloth to age-old patterns and farmyard animals and colourful fowl range freely. (The choice of villages visited varies.)

Day 8: Majuli Island, Shivsagar. Majuli is reputedly the largest river island in the world. It is the centre of a Neo-Vaishnava sect, a Hindu reform movement dating to the 15th century whose unique style of worship includes dance, drama, music and poetry.

Visit two of the island’s many monasteries, hear highly sophisticated chanting and attend an authentic dance and drum ritual. A town info@martinrandall.co.uk

on the mainland, Shivsagar was the capital of the Ahom kingdom in the 18th century.

Monuments from this era include the Shiva Dol, the finest of such Assamese temples, the impressive remains of a royal palace and a beautifully proportioned pavilion for watching sporting spectacles.

Day 9: Deopahar, Jorhat. Located in a tranquil setting on the summit of a wooded hill (200 steps) at Deopahar, the ruins of an 11th-century temple are outstanding for the profusion of elaborate decorative and figurative sculpture. Lunch is at the lovely home of the proprietors of a tea estate which has been in the family since 1905, surrounded by glistening green tea plants under diaphanous shade trees. Last night on board RV Charaidew, moored at Neamati Ghat.

Day 10: Dibrugarh to Delhi. After breakfast, disembark and drive to Dibrugarh Airport, thence to Delhi (3-hour flight). Return to the hotel near the airport.

Day 11: Delhi to London. Fly late morning to arrive at Heathrow c. 2.30pm.

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Lecturer Lesley Pullen. Art Historian, and lecturer at SOAS, University of London, where she tutors on the Southeast Asian Art module of the SOAS Postgraduate Diploma in Asian Art programme since 2009. Lesley was born in Sumatra, and has lived in Asia with her husband and family for 25 years, including latterly three years in India. She completed both her Postgraduate Diploma in Asian Art and Masters at SOAS and worked at Asia House in London for two years. She is currently pursuing her PhD at SOAS researching the ‘Representation of Textiles on Indonesian Sculpture: 9th to 14th century’.

Practicalities Price: £4,370 (deposit £400). This includes: air travel (World Traveller) on flights with British Airways: return London to Delhi (Boeing 747–400) and with Jet Airways:

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India 2014 & 2015 Assam by River continued

Delhi to Guwahati (Boeing 738), Dibrugarh to Delhi (Boeing 738); travel by minibuses and 4x4 (mainly Maruti Gypsy) in Assam; accommodation in the hotels and aboard the river cruiser as described below; breakfasts, 8 lunches and 9 dinners with wine or beer and tea or coffee; bottled water throughout; all admissions to museums and sites and special visits; all tips for drivers, restaurant staff, crew and guides; all taxes; the service of a lecturer.

Single supplement £1,160 (double room for single occupancy). Price without international flights £3,750.

Hotels: Delhi-Gurgaon (1 night, 1 night): Leela Palace, a modern and very comfortable 5-star hotel with excellent facilities, good restaurants, swimming pool. Guwahati (1 night): the Dynasty is a modern but charming hotel, unpretentious but comfortable with spacious rooms, equivalent perhaps to a good European 3-star.

Engraving by Andrea Bernieri (1826–1842).

River cruiser: RV Charaidew (7 nights) is a 38-metre, twin-engine, steel-hulled passenger boat originally built in 1973 in Assam and rebuilt in 2003. By the standards of vessels on European rivers it is not luxurious, but it is comfortable and has charm and character.

The décor is simple, floors and walls being of wood (largely teak and bamboo). Cabins are of moderate size and have twin or double beds and bathrooms with showers. There is a dining room and a saloon-cum-bar and a top deck which is half covered and has wickerwork chairs and loungers. The public rooms have full-length windows which can open (though in winter neither this facility nor the air-conditioning are likely to be used). An attached ‘country boat’ (tender) is sometimes used to reach the shore. The plentiful crew are willing and efficient if unsophisticated, and the food – Assamese and Indian – is excellent.

Changes to the itinerary. 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 to devise a satisfactory alternative.

How strenuous? Although more leisurely than other MRT tours, a good level of fitness remains essential. Sure-footedness is required to get on and off the ship and for the uneven ground on all excursions. There is a 4-hour coach journey. Outside hotels, ship and tea plantation, toilet facilities are abominable.

Small group: the tour will operate with between 10 and 18 participants.

Possible linking tour: combine this tour with Essential India, 14–28 November 2014 (page 22), and Bengal By River at Christmas, 14–27 December 2014 (page 34).

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

Sasaram, tomb of Sher Shar Suri, steel engraving 1858 after Samuel Prout.

3–16 November 2014 (mb 194) 14 days • £5,740 Lecturer: John Keay Little-visited places on or close to the Ganges from an exclusively chartered river vessel.

Time in Varanasi 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 known kingdoms and republics took shape info@martinrandall.co.uk

here, among them one based in 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 emperor Akbar followed in the sixteenth century, launching from Akbarnagar, 31

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 there in 1830 Sir Alexander Cunningham launched his fifty-year career as ‘the father of Indian archaeology’ with a painstaking

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India 2014 & 2015 Sailing the Ganges continued

Varanasi, steel engraving 1833 by G. Hollis, after a drawing by William Daniells.

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 Varanasi’s principle museum, Bharat Kala Bhavan, on the Benares Hindu University campus. Overnight Varanasi.

Day 5: Varanasi, Sasaram, Bodhgaya. In the morning, there is a 150-mile coach journey along the Great Trunk Road, India’s oldest highway, built by the Great Ashoka.

Stop en route at Sasaram to see the tomb of the Mughal emperor Sher Shar Suri, an impressive domed mausoleum set on a manmade lake. The Mahabodhi temple complex at Bodhgaya has fragments from the 3rd cent. bc and a richly elaborate 55-metre-high temple of the 6th cent. ad, a rare survival. The site of Buddha’s enlightenment, it is of great religious significance and attracts pilgrims from around the world. Overnight Bodhgaya.

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 new (built in Calcutta in 2013), 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.

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

Fly from Heathrow in the morning and after a 5 ½-hour time change reach the hotel in Delhi at c. 2.30am. 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. The morning is free.

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

Day 6: Bodhgaya to Patna. In the morning, drive 70 miles to Patna, the capital of Bihar.

Patna 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.

Board the ship, RV Rajmahal, at c. 4.00pm and sail towards Kumhar Ghat. First of six nights on board the RV Rajmahal.

Day 7: Vaishali. Remote and beautiful, Vaishali was once a great city and site of important episodes in the Buddha’s life.

The Ashokan Pillar, an 18-metre polished sandstone monolith topped by a magnificently carved lion, rises above a brick stupa.

Afternoon sailing to Barh. Overnight RV Rajmahal.

Day 8: 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 Rajmahal.

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‘What distinguishes Martin Randall from other tour operators is the participants it attracts; always congenial, well-educated, more eager to learn than indulge.’

Day 9: 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 Rajmahal.

Day 10: 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 9th-cent. Hindu carvings.

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

Day 11: 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. Visit Jama-i-Masjid (also known as the Hadafe Mosque), built in 1592 during the brief eight-year period that Rajmahal was the capital of Bengal. Sail down the Ganges to the great Farakka Barrage.

Overnight RV Rajmahal.

Day 12: Calcutta. At Farakka disembark in the morning and travel by train to Calcutta (c.

4 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.

Lecturer John Keay has been visiting India for over forty years as a journalist, author and lecturer. His India: A History and The Honourable Company: A History of the East India Company are considered standard texts; The Great Arc 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 and other Asian regions, and he co-edited The Collins Encyclopaedia of Scotland and Macmillan’s London Encyclopaedia (third edition).

Practicalities Price: £5,740 (deposit £500). This includes: air travel (economy class) on flights with British Airways: London to Delhi, Mumbai to London (Boeing 747–400) and with Jet Airways: Delhi to Varanasi, Calcutta to Mumbai (Boeing 737–800); travel by private air-conditioned coach; hotel accommodation as described below; river cruiser accommodation for 6 nights; breakfasts, 10 lunches (including 3 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 Calcutta, St Paul’s Cathedral, drawing by Desmond Doig c. 1960.

Day 13: 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.

Hotels: New Delhi (1 night): Leela Kempinski Gurgaon, ideally located near the international airport, a modern 4-star hotel with comfortable rooms. Bathrooms have showers only. Varanasi (3 nights): The Gateway Hotel Ganges, 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. Bohdgaya (1 night): Hotel Royal Residency, modern and adequately comfortable, this is the simplest of the hotels on this tour. Calcutta (2 nights): The Oberoi Grand, 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 Rajmahal (6 nights): built in 2013 and recently launched, it is not luxurious but it is comfortable and has great charm. The decor is simple, floors are teak and furniture is made of wood or wicker.

Cabins are spacious and well-appointed with full-length windows and excellent showers.

There is a spacious dining room, a saloon with a bar and an open deck half covered with a tarpaulin and well stocked with wickerwork chairs and loungers. There is a small gift shop and 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.

How strenuous? See page 4 for the general fitness requirements covering all our India tours, and age limit. Sure-footedness is required to get on and off the ship and for the uneven ground on all walks and excursions.

There are two 3-hour coach journeys during which toilet facilities are abominable and a 4-hour train journey.

Small group: between 12 and 24 participants.

Day 14: Calcutta to London, via Mumbai.

Fly from Calcutta to Mumbai, and then on to London after a five-hour stopover, the flight arrives Heathrow c. 6.00pm.

info@martinrandall.co.uk

supplement £910 (double room for single occupancy). Price without international flights £5,130.

Possible linking tours: combine this tour with Painted Palaces of Rajasthan, 24 November–8 December 2014 (page 12).

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Bengal by River at Christmas Calcutta and a week’s cruise along the Hooghly

The Great Mosque, on the Hooghly near Calcutta, from India & its Native Princes 1876.

14–27 December 2014 (mb 215) 14 days • £5,220 Lecturer: Dr Rosie Llewellyn-Jones 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.

Led by Dr Rosie Llewellyn-Jones, an authority on colonial India.

When George V announced in 1911 that the capital of British India was to be transferred from Calcutta to Delhi, there was disbelief M A RT I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L

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, Portuguese, Dutch, Danish and French all 34

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

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‘A fascinating blend of colonial history, Indian heritage and glimpses of rural life. And, of course, the excitement and chaos of Kolkata. Full of variety and well-balanced.’ the destroyer who lives in cremation grounds 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 cruiser chartered for this tour is new (built in Calcutta in 2013), but on board it feels closer to the India of the Raj than 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.

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.

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. 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.

Day 6: Barrackpore, Serampore. Board the RV Rajmahal in Calcutta. Sail to the former 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 Rajmahal.

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 Rajmahal.

Day 8: Kalna, Nabadwip, Mayapur. At Kalna, visit the series of fine 18th-cent. terracotta temples and the unique Shiva temple with concentric rings comprising 108 double-vaulted shrines. Sail to the pilgrimage centre of Nabadwip, where the river ghats are Calcutta, the South Park Street Cemetery, drawing by Desmond Doig c. 1960.

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 5 ½ 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. 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. info@martinrandall.co.uk

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lined with active temples for a leisurely walk in the bazaar. The skyline of Mayapur on the opposite bank is dominated by a vast new temple. Overnight RV Rajmahal.

Map of Bengal

by Thomas Kitchin c. 1800.

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 Rajmahal 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 Rajmahal.

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 Rajmahal 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 Rajmahal.

Day 13: Disembark Farakka. Calcutta. At Farakka, disembark the RV Rajmahal in the morning and transfer to the station to board a train for Calcutta (a journey of c. 4 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.

Lecturer Dr Rosie LlewellynJones is 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.

Practicalities Price: £5,220 (deposit £500). This includes: air travel (economy class) on flights with Emirates: return London to 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 as described below, breakfasts, 11 lunches (including 1 packed lunch) and 12 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 £890. Price without international flights £4,590.

Hotels: Calcutta (4 nights, 1 night): the Oberoi Grand is a long-established luxury hotel conveniently located in the city centre.

An oasis of colonial charm, defined by

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impeccable service. There is a pool in the central courtyard garden.

River cruiser: RV Rajmahal (7 nights): built in 2013, 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? See page 4 for the general fitness requirements covering all our India tours, and age limit. Sure-footedness is essential to get on and off the ship; the riverbanks may be slippery. Uneven ground and irregular paving are standard. There is a 4-hour train journey during which facilities are limited and may be of poor quality.

Small group: between 10 and 24 participants.

Possible linking tour: combine this tour with Assam By River, 1–11 December 2014 (page 28).

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India 2014 & 2015

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India 2014 & 2015

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3. Our confirmation

UK citizens about obtaining visas. Nationals of other countries should ascertain procedures for obtaining visas in their case.

accept that in those circumstances the alternative ATOL holder will perform those obligations and you agree to pay any money outstanding to be paid by you under your contract to that alternative ATOL holder. However, you also agree that in some cases it will not be possible to appoint an alternative ATOL holder, in which case you will be entitled to make a claim under the ATOL scheme (or your credit card issuer where applicable). If we, or the suppliers identified on your ATOL certificate, are unable to provide the services listed (or a suitable alternative, through an alternative ATOL holder or otherwise) for reasons of insolvency, the Trustees of the Air Travel Trust may make a payment to (or confer a benefit on) you under the ATOL scheme. You agree that in return for such a payment or benefit you assign absolutely to those Trustees any claims which you have or may have arising out of or relating to the non-provision of the services, including any claim against us (or your credit card issuer where applicable). You also agree that any such claims maybe re-assigned to another body, if that other body has paid sums you have claimed under the ATOL scheme.

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 4 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.

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

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.

Seatbelts. In India the law concerning seatbelts differs to the UK. They are not always available, but when they are they must be worn.

Financial protection.

We provide full financial protection for our package holidays, by way of our Air Travel Organiser’s Licence number 3622. When you buy an ATOL protected flight inclusive holiday from us you receive an ATOL Certificate. This lists what is financially protected, where you can get information on what this means for you and who to contact if things go wrong. We will provide you with the services listed on the ATOL Certificate (or a suitable alternative). In some cases, where we aren’t able do so for reasons of insolvency, an alternative ATOL holder may provide you with the services you have bought or a suitable alternative (at no extra cost to you). You agree to

We provide full financial protection for our package holidays that do not include a flight, by way of a bond held by ABTA The Trade Association.

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.

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 Australasia, 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

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