Luxury Travel Advisor - September 2007 - (Page 9) AT MAHUA KOTHI, guests can smoke a hookah pipe (far left) or relax in the comfort of their authentically decorated accommodations (left). BAGHVAN bedrooms (below) are accented with jewel-tone touches. ing kutiyas, or jungle huts, which are constructed in an ecologically sustainable local style by families from neighboring communities. Each hut has its own private entrance with shaded seating and traditional swings, wooden shutters and hand-made clay roof tiles. Tip: The rooms that overlook the small grassy plains offer the best views. Among our favorite personal touches, every guest gets a basket of yoga amenities, natural products from Jiva Spa, Rose and Verbena sherbets with pitchers of ice water to mix them in and traditional Indian games. To further the pampering, General Manager Harpreet Gill (harpreet. singh@tajhotels.com; 91-942541-2877) and his staff catered to our every whim, from running a bubble bath to delivering a fresh lime soda or kettle of boiling water for morning tea. Gill can also assist with any extra-special dining requests; otherwise, the chef cooks up scrumptious modern Indian dinners that are served by candlelight outside under the stars every evening. During early-morning and afternoon safaris guided by CC Africa-trained naturalists, we drove through dense bamboo thickets and flower-filled valleys surrounded by majestic cliffs in custom, open-air, all-wheel-drive vehicles while searching for chital (spotted deer), nilgai (blue bull), wild boar, parakeets, peacocks and eagles. In the middle of the drive, your clients will no doubt hear the distress call of a chital or the chattering of Langur monkeys, which means, of course, that a tiger is just around the corner. The CC Africa naturalists will also take your clients on personalized bike tours through local villages, or a hike to a 2,000year-old fort to pay homage to a 10th-century statue of Lord Vishnu. A guide will bring lunch We planned our Indian safari through Delhi-based India Safaris and Tours (www. indiasafaris.com); Suhail Gupta (suhhail.gupta@indiasafaris. com; 91-11-2680-7750), the company’s CEO, personally arranges luxury transfers by car and air and enlightened us with his knowledge about wildlife and Indian culture. Our first stop was at Taj/CC Africa’s intimate Mahua Kothi lodge (www.tajsafaris. com, www.ccafrica.com), which opened in November 2006 in the nearly 111,000-acre Bandhavgarh National Park, a former royal hunting reserve where the first white tiger in the wild was ever found (Bandhavgarh has among the highest densities of tigers in India). Mahua Kothi, which is named after the Indian Mahua tree, features 12 enchant- September 2007 | LUXURY TRAVEL ADVISOR 9 http://www.indiasafaris.com http://www.indiasafaris.com http://www.tajsafaris.com http://www.tajsafaris.com http://www.ccafrica.com
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