India Stories and Tips

Quote: Landour began in the early 1800s as a convalescence centre for British soldiers. Among those who played a major part in looking after the recuperating military men were nuns: the ‘sisters’. Landour has long since stopped being a place to recover and recuperate, and the…

Quote: When I mentioned to a friend (who had just returned from a trip to Mussoorie) that I was headed there the following weekend, she insisted on lending me a book she’d bought during her trip. This was Mussoorie & Landour: Days of Wine & Roses,…

Quote: Nearly every Indian town that ever was occupied by the British (including Delhi itself) has a Mall. Mussoorie, too, is home to a Mall. In fact, the Mall is Mussoorie—at least touristy Mussoorie.The Mall is a long stretch that goes all the way from what…

Quote: Mussoorie—named for a local plant, called mansur (Cororiana nepalensis)—was originally two settlements. On the east was Landour, established in 1827 as a convalescence centre for British soldiers. On the west, at a lower altitude, was Mussoorie itself, where the first huts had been built in…

Quote: The Chinese fishing nets at Fort Kochi in the Kerala city of Kochi (aka Cochin) are one of the tourist attractions that draw visitors in their hundreds, cameras at the ready, to observe what's now a rather lame performance. Whilst they were once a major…

Quote: In the early 14th century, the Delhi Sultan Alauddin Khalji constructed a walled city that he named Siri. Siri’s fortifications (some of which can still be seen, and lend their name to the area known as Siri Fort) were built mainly to keep out Timur…

Quote: While we were eating at the Ahdoo’s Restaurant in Srinagar, we happened to overhear a conversation at a neighbouring table. A family of tourists—almost certainly from somewhere in North India—were trying to make guesses about what a wazwaan was. Someone suggested it was a Kashmiri…

Quote: While Lutyens, Baker and their retinue of architects, town planners, contractors and builders were creating the area that was to house the governmental structures of New Delhi, they also had to keep in mind the fact that a large number of British (and Westernised Indian)…

Quote: S is for SpicesKerala is the spice state of India, benefiting from lots of sun and rain and a superb climate for things to grow. We visited a spice garden near Munnar and even small towns have spice shops, with the larger cities groaning under…

Quote: H is for Hill StationsThroughout India when the weather gets hot, those who can afford to head for the hills. With altitude comes respite from the heat and for Kerala the most famous of the Hill Stations is Munnar though Wikipedia lists 16 different Kerala…