Having spent six nights in Mewar as the guests of HH Maharana of Udaipur – Sriji - at two of his hotels, one a palace and heritage therefore it was a real pleasure to write about the history of this region of Rajasthan steeped in history of nobility and chivalry.  

We spent seven weeks in India this year starting by flying into Chennai on 16^th January.  We spent a pleasant couple of days on arrival at the Radisson Blu airport hotel where we were made very welcome.  I recommend it as a quick efficient transfer if one visits Chennai.  Then we spent a short but delightful time at the ITC Grand Chola.  This huge hotel we first encountered in 2013 so it was great to see how it had matured…the various restaurants are of a very high calibre and we had three superb meals, Indian, Pan Asian and then Fusion. 

I had long wanted to visit the Samode properties in Rajasthan and then someone distinguished raved about their newish safari lodge at Bandhavgarh.  That was the stimulus I needed and we arrived in mid February to stay at Samode Haveli in Jaipur.  We travelled by Shatabdhi train from Delhi where we had stayed with pleasure yet again at The Imperial.  The train journey is fast and efficient and one arrived in good time for lunch.

Jaipur – the pink city to which I returned in February has seen huge progress with the pink restoration much in evidence and huge new roads and a new international airport - though we arrived from Delhi on the Shatabdhi train which was both efficient and inexpensive.