Destinations

Letter from Delhi | Justine Hardy | India, Uttar Pradesh, Agra

Those of us who went to catch the sunrise through the dust haze, picking out the swoops and swirls of Shah Jahan’s brilliant vision, got to pay $20 for the privilege

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New Seven Wonders of The World | Adrian Mourby | India, Uttar Pradesh, Agra

We pushed against the prevailing tide of local tourists to squeeze into the garden in which the Taj sits in all its majesty. My wife took one look and burst into tears

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Varanasi, City of Light | Isabella Tree | India, Uttar Pradesh, Varanasi

It's a contradiction that's not easy for the first time visitor to swallow: that one of the most patently polluted places on earth is a place where people come to be purified

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The Boy from the Ghats | Justine Hardy | India, Uttar Pradesh, Varanasi

The ghats in the evenings are a huge dhal pot of sound and smell simmering with all the scents and echoes of my life; the bells and the drums, the cymbals and pipes of the puja

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The Boy from the Ghats II | Justine Hardy | India, Uttar Pradesh, Varanasi

If you scan the hyperbole written about Varanasi it’s enough to put you off Divine River toe-dipping for life

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Banks of the Ganges | Philip Sen | India, Uttar Pradesh, Varanasi

Murmuring their prayers at shrines and alcoves set into Sanskrit-inscribed walls, they bathe effigies of the sacred cow and the phallic lingam that symbolises Shiva

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In the Kingdom of Avadh | William Dalrymple | India, Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow

On the eve of the Indian Mutiny of 1857, Lucknow, the capital of the Kingdom of Avadh, was indisputably the largest, most prosperous and most civilised pre-colonial city in India

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The Song of the Spiti Valley | Justine Hardy | India, Uttar Pradesh, Spiti

You can cross the Himalayas to reach the Spiti Valley, hidden beyond some of the most ragged peaks of this high-altitude reach. What you find is a cupping bowl of Buddhist life and learning that has survived intact

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Battling for the Buddha | William Dalrymple | India, Uttar Pradesh, Ayodhya

Religious disputes were to India in the Nineties what strikes were to Britain in the Seventies: more than annoying irritations, they define the sickness of a nation and an age

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