Northern India Tour: Vibrant Cultures, Iconic Temples & Scenic Wildlife (14 Days Tour)

Opening Up

Arrive in the capital city of India, Delhi, where the history and the culture, food and temples combine into a collection of splendor. You are met at the airport and taken to your hotel by a private transfer. The colors of the city are inherent in the clothing as the sweet and spiced scent of frothy chai surrounds you. Once at your hotel the day is yours to explore Delhi’s streets and the inherent beauty that comes from the almost inescapable culture.

Jama Masjid is the largest mosque in India, built in the 17th century and surrounded by multiple entrances that all lead to the apex of the main worshiping deck. The sandstone red brings a sunset color to the sky while bulbous domes accompany the thin minarets. The ambience is energetic and humble all at once, while the colors of the city continue to shimmer in the afternoon light, from the clothing to the architecture, the food to the sky.

What’s Included: transfer, accommodation. 

A Day In Pink

Revel in the early morning scent of fresh chai, a combination of a sweet taste balanced with nutmeg, cinnamon, and fennel. Like Delhi, the energy of Jaipur is apparent immediately, from sunup to after sundown, ripe with the vibrancy that glows from the flowing saris and towering palaces. When you picture the city you come to the image of Hawa Mahal, the grand palace that almost looks like a large pink model of organ pipes, also giving the façade the name “Palace of Winds.” The marvelous color comes from the sandstone that lends the pink and red hues to the walls depending on the angle of the sun, and also gives Jaipur the name of its particular coloration.

Built just before the 19th century in a style meant to imitate the crown of Krishna, the honeycomb texture houses 953 small latticed windows that were meant to allow cool air flow and, more importantly for the time, let women of the royal household view the street processions without being seen and risking their virtue.  Traveling along the walls of the interior takes you to a wild world, one that seems so different but always close at hand, viewed in the romance of movies and books that have captured the imagination of millions worldwide.

The courtyard carries the same hue as the façade, where a large square is sunken, perforated by a protruding platform surrounded by water. You can stand at the center of the palace, look out over the courtyard and even in the eternal bustle of the city, feel the peaceful nature for which the yard was originally constructed.

What’s Included: breakfast, tour, accommodation.

Tigers and Crocodiles

The morning calls of monkeys slip through the trees and out of the park bringing you to excited anticipation knowing that soon you will be gliding through Ranthambhore National Park witnessing the majestic wilds that have traipsed through the continent since beginning of legends.

The air is warm beneath the canopy as your vehicle trundles over rocky, unpaved terrain. Within the canopy you can see monkeys sprinting across the branches, some screaming, others following, their tails lifted and curled. Your guide points out the shores of Lake Mansarovar, where crocodiles bask in the sun, their mouths open in a display of power and defense.

When the trees become silent, absent of birds and monkeys, your guide stops the vehicle and scans the horizon in search of what made the trees quiet. He points into the close distance, at the side of the road ahead just beneath the tall, swaying grass. You spot the golden coloration of the coat, streaked with black stripes and a white face that almost blends into the plain. You’re witnessing a tiger in its natural habitat, the grace and nonchalance of its nature as it parades through, keenly aware of your presence but indifferent, as it strolls across the road and disappears back into the brush.

What’s Included: breakfast, tour, accommodation.

Imperial Ghosts

The morning is lively with tweets and chirps rising with the sun, agreeing with the old adage, “the early bird gets the worm.” You will soon rise with them to the luscious scent of breakfast before watching the marshes shift from grasslands to the ruins of the imperial “Ghost City,” known as Fatehpur Sikri.

Founded in the 16th century as the capital of the Mughal Empire, the sandstone buildings offer shimmering red beneath the crescent blue sky, where both mirror the other’s emptiness. Each building, from the palace to the mosque was constructed with Persian principles but with Indian aggrandizements. The grandeur of the abandoned city is both beautiful and peculiar, with great cupolas and intricate pillars, and continuous manicured gardens within the palace.

The over 162 feet high entrance gate is as welcoming as it is imposing, with a Moorish arch and domes making the red and off-white color stand out like clouds at sunset.

In the late afternoon you will arrive in Agra, a city known for its industry but famous for its architecture. As the sun begins to set you will come to one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Taj Mahal. The radiant white marble of the structure captures the colors of the sun that spread across the sky turning the lavish pearl into an ever-changing rainbow. Constructed in the 17th century as a mausoleum for Mughal emperor Shah Jahan’s third wife, it has become one of the most well-known and treasured buildings in the world.

Within the strident colors you can see the detailed inscriptions that line the exterior and interior, beneath the domes and within the minarets. The garden affront the structure is lined with scented bushes and fountains that guide the way to the open tomb. In the glint of sunset that soon becomes filled with the wild moon, to call the moment breathtaking would not be an overstatement.

What’s Included: breakfast, tour, transfer, accommodation.

Within the Eager Temples

Khajuraho is a small town surrounded with the majesty of history, drawing in locals and visitors from near and far interested in the vibrant and spiraling past found within the collection of monuments. The combination of Indian philosophy and aesthetics created a series of temples in the 9th and 10th centuries set along the open space surrounded by forests.

The excited atmosphere surrounds the temples that are separated into four groupings based upon their direction in a clockwise formation. Surrounding the temples is exquisite stonework that shows a storyboard of life displaying gods, warriors, and mythological animals from ages long ago.

The carvings of Varaha shows Vishnu’s boar incarnation in an over four-foot high sandstone boar. The rising, detailed chedis of the temples are only half of the reverence for which the ruins are known, while the Kama Sutra carvings tout a legacy of artistry, ancient intrigue, and account for 10 percent of the overall artwork along the monuments wrapping around the outer and inner temple walls.  

In the later markings of the day you will leave the Chandela architecture behind and enjoy the evening in Bandhavgarh, home to Bandhavgarh National Park.

What’s Included: breakfast, tour, accommodation.

Into the Jungle (Book)

The road to Kanha is vast, brimming with villages and people that give way to pockets of emptiness that show how beautifully desolate the landscape can be. Arrive in Kanha in the later afternoon and you will be ready to venture into the National Park that gave birth to Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book. Your journey takes you deep into the bamboo forest where the scent and firm texture of the unbreakable wood is pristine within the sprouting greenery.

You can see deer and the odd guar, an Indian bison, rummaging through the meadows.

What’s Included: breakfast, tour, transfer, accommodation.

City Streets and Monuments

The wild scents of bamboo and savanna lend themselves to the famous orange citrus of Nagpur, stretched along the magnificent buildings and mansions that date back to the principality’s Raj. You will find yourself at the airport and soon returning to the city where it all began, Delhi. The wide, bustling streets are exactly as you remember them, bringing you from the diverse natural landscape of the nature reserves to the diverse monuments of the cityscape.

The far-reaching aromas of wild greenery have been replaced by the familiar and intoxicating scent of butter chicken.  You make yourself comfortable in your lavish accommodations and allow yourself to relax within the shades of your room as the tiger had within the shade of the canopy.

What’s Included: breakfast, transfer, accommodation.