Never been to India? This is how to experience its 24-karat heart in eight days - Telegraph.co.uk

Posted: 15 Aug 2017 12:00 AM PDT

I hadn't set foot in India in donkeys' years, so as we boarded our coach on the first morning in Delhi I was relieved to find that though the city might be on the verge of introducing driverless metro trains in the wake of the country's 70th anniversary independence celebrations (August 15), elsewhere the approach to staff numbers hadn't changed a whit.

Half-a-dozen bellboys whirled and swooped round the main door of the hotel, concierges genuflected, managers decorously inclined their heads. Safely aboard, our tourism eightsome (Brits, Aussies and a solitary Kiwi) had time to take stock of our quartet of minders, consisting of Mahesh the driver, Madan the tour guide, Lalit (tour manager) and Pawan the "conductor", who lumbered suitcases, handed out bottles of chilled water on a tray, uttered eldritch cries when we reversed, effected the grubbier sort of repairs, and got an earful from Mahesh if he happened to nod off en route. Only a phalanx of trumpeters was lacking as we motored past the bevy of security guards at the gate on the first leg of our mini Indian odyssey.

Other parts of the world have adopted the "Golden Triangle" moniker, but Delhi-Agra-Jaipur is the 24-karat version. History seeps from each city, not only at the main sights, but in the very streets. We were headed off on Luxury Gold's Essence of India tour, with the additional fillip of the tiger country of Ranthambore supplying an extra dimension to the triangle.

Of course, we were all keenly anticipating one of the main highlights, somewhere so familiar that even first-timers feel they have visited before. Like just about everybody who checks into their room-with-a-view hotel in Agra, I tipped the bellboy at the door, glanced out of the window, registered the Taj Mahal a few hundred metres away, turned away to look at the rest of the room, didn't so much do a double-take as a pirouette, and then groped for my camera without taking my eyes off the horizon.

If the first sight of – and nobody has come up with a better tagline – "the world's greatest monument to love" was jaw-dropping, up close and personal at dawn the next day was little short of incredible. Built on the orders of Shah Jehan to commemorate the memory of his beloved wife Mumtaz in the mid 17th-century, its sheer beauty is by no means diminished by its status as an icon. Even at sunrise, there are hordes of visitors, but step to either side of the main drag and there's barely a soul along the leafy pathways of the gardens, which are laid out according to a traditional conception of Paradise. It's also a chance to take some snaps that differ from the classic "Princess Di" shot, and – away from the brouhaha – to reflect on the true meaning of the mausoleum.

What made each stop on our tour so fascinating was not simply the magnificent architecture or the tales, legends and myths that were woven into the very bricks and mortar, but the throng of Indian visitors who were plainly revelling in their country's landmarks. Crocodiles of bright-eyed school children wound their way in and out of the ruins beneath 72.5-metre Qutub Minar, the tallest minaret in India, 800 years old and a gorgeous exemplar of Indo-Islamic-Afghan architecture, as well as a miracle of engineering. Garrulous families 20 strong rubbed shoulders on the spectators' benches as a fabulous son-et-lumière washed over 16th-century Amber Fort beneath a velvet sky. At the Jantar Mantar, the 18th-century observatory in Jaipur that looks like an astrologer's adventure playground, Indian visitors ignored their smartphones to consult Samrat Yantra, the 27-metre-high marble and stone sundial whose shadow can tell the time with startling perfection. And the serene gardens surrounding a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi in Delhi suddenly erupted as if the doors of an aviary had burst open when a procession of out-of-towners, clad in their Sunday best, hove into view, at once thrilled and proud and amazed and just a tad overawed – and giving voice to their every feeling.

Jantar Mantar, the 18th-century observatory in Jaipur looks like an astrologer's adventure playground Credit: Artie

Our group was especially fortunate to have drawn Madan in the great tour guide lottery. Properly Dr Madan G Vishwakarma, Gold Badge Member of the International Association of Tour Managers, (though he was too modest to mention the fact) he combined his role of good shepherd, private tutor, indulgent uncle, occasional comedian and Google-on-legs with more than a little dexterity, spicing his commentary with facts, figures and anecdotes, and remaining supremely patient as the more wayward group members drifted away from his lecturettes, their gaze fixed on yet another imperative Kodak moment.

After each monumental – to go for the obvious pun – day, the evening brought welcome relief in the shape of five-star bed and board. Whether a deliciously renovated palace, or a shiny new skyscraper that simply called itself a palace, each could boast distinct attributes.

Another treat – and it wasn't mentioned anywhere on the itinerary – was the courteous, idiosyncratic, vaguely Jeeves-like brand of English deployed by almost everyone we came across.

"May I enquire what is your precise height?" ventured the receptionist, whose head, even if she had stood on tiptoe, would barely have reached my ribcage.

"I'm six-foot-two," I replied.

"I might have guessed as much."

When a dinner companion started to get het up as I teased him about the relative merits of national cricket teams, his neighbour nudged him none too gently in the ribs: "I rather think Edward is pulling your leg, old fellow."

And then there was the delicious circumlocution heard on a daily basis, when tour manager having bidden us good morning and outlined what we'd be doing that day handed us over to tour guide: "Dr Madan, would you do the needful?"

It still takes roughly five hours to drive from Delhi to Agra

India's highways are better than they used to be, but it still takes roughly five hours to drive from Delhi to Agra. While some stretches seem to alternate between yawning potholes and lengthy traffic jams, there was always something of a Bollywood movie going on outside. Tollgates were preceded by an enormous hoarding listing reams of "Exempted Dignitaries". Few towns lacked a vast dusty stretch of wasteland which doubled as a venue for a score of scratch games of cricket, each marked with a wicket cheerily constructed from bricks. Wayside markets bulged with a gallimaufry of fruit and vegetables, from the familiar to the exotic, sold by sari-clad women to citizens who bore their purchases away on antique sit-up-and-beg boneshakers.

Our first sighting of a camel in Rajasthan nearly capsized the bus, as everybody rushed to focus and fill up a memory card. Towards the end of the trip, even itinerant elephants rated little more than a brief professional glance, rather as a Crufts' judge passing a pet shop might afford a glimpse inside the window. When we ground to a halt with a puncture in the middle of nowhere (Pawan the Conductor leapt to the fore with jack and tyre iron) a clutch of children appeared from the fields to stare, a farmer reined in his horse-drawn cart, buses and private cars slowed, and it wasn't long before we had become India's newest tourist attraction.

One night above all sticks in my memory. Shortly after sunset, a cavalcade of elephants, camels, lancers and musicians greeted us at the City Palace in Jaipur, and a carriage pulled by two thoroughbred stallions bore us thrice round the palace courtyard. A long sloping passage zigzagged up to a roof terrace looking out over the entire city, where a troupe of tribal dancers kicked up their heels and cavorted with a vitality and brio that would have made Dervishes look catatonic. Dinner – royal cuisine, though just about every meal we had could have matched this description – in the palace itself was served at a gilded table surrounded by framed photos of political, showbiz and pukka royalty who had tucked in there previously. But what was really striking was the way our hosts behaved throughout the evening with perfect aplomb, staging the spectacle with such assurance it almost seemed casual.

Nobody travelling in India can fail to be slightly gob-smacked by the natural and gracious hospitality and service that meet their apogee in the country's five-star hotels, rendering hospitality training programmes obsolete. Feeling just a tad queasy before lunch at a hotel in Jaipur, I was instantly offered a suite to lie down in, and the choice of a Western or Ayurvedic doctor. One evening, my bookmark from the hotel where I'd stayed the previous night was delicately set aside for the in-house - and, reading between the lines, rather superior - version. The same unseen hand also polished my sunglasses, placing a new cleaning cloth next to the case without a smidgen of reproof. And on my last night in India, when the concierge caught sight of a graze on my arm, his arched eyebrow and mouthing the word "tetanus?" were the soul of discretion. Most enticingly, all this comes over as perfectly effortless.

Ranthambore National Park, once the personal hunting ground of the Maharajahs of Jaipur Credit: CHRISTER FREDRIKSSON

If the trip had a wild highlight, it was the excursion to Ranthambore National Park – once the personal hunting ground of the Maharajahs of Jaipur – thundering down from Bharatpur aboard a train. Sallying out from our hotel at dawn, we saw boar, monkey and a sizeable herd of spotted deer, but not a single tiger, though being shown a set of pug marks was perhaps close enough. That the park spreads across 392 square kilometres, and contains a 1,000-year-old fort, is a telling indication of the size and history of this corner of the sub-continent.

Throughout the Golden Triangle and beyond, there is an enormous amount to charm visitors, be it palatial accommodation, astonishing historic sites, or – to plunge into the vernacular – "sumptuous drinking and fooding". For me, the most distinct pleasure is not so much finding yourself nattering about a maharaja nicknamed "Bubbles" with a bicycle polo aficionado who used to play for the national team, as realising it is not really an especially unusual conversation – simply part of the warp and weft of everyday life on tour in India.

The essentials

Luxury Gold (0808 301 2503; luxurygoldvacations.com) offers the eight-day Essence of India with Ranthambore tour from £2,195 per person including door-to-door UK airport transfers, local transport, accommodation, some meals, sightseeing and experiences such as a rickshaw ride in Old Delhi and a sunset village walk with afternoon tea in the shadow of the Taj Mahal.

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