Nagaur

Waking up late.

I guess the last days have finally caught up with me: The show in Paris; the midnight drive to Calais; swapping cars; the tunnel; the drive from Ashford back to home; the frantic pack; the dash to LHR T5; the flight to Delhi ... etc. ... all meant, it was quite pleasant to stay in this royal Indian suite and sleep, until the morning slid into the afternoon and I slid out of bed onto the sandstone floor.

This place is amazing; Ranvas Hotel; a renovated section of the 17th Century palace inside the walls of Nagaur Fort or Achatragurh. This area, called the Havelas, is where the the queens used to reside in their self contained apartments, eight of them surrounding a large stone quadrangle and garden. It's all owned by the MoJ (another in his private collection of palaces). This is a very fine place to stay indeed.

Achatragurh (roughly translates as: fort on the hill where the elephant accidentally trod on a chicken which squawked as the sun rose in serenity ...)

Making our way through a maze of rooms stairways and passages, trying to remember the way we came last night to dinner. Through a dark room where a pair of palanquins stand in attendance for a princess who'll never come, then through another doorway and out into the light...Into a great lime floored square, three acres of formal stone garden, with dry fountain pools and pavillions. Great kites climbing the thermal off this hot flatness, and pigeons calling from broken stone lattice windows stories above.

You get the feeling that you're standing in the resonating echo of some spectacular happening, like the leftover empty space two hundred years after the mother of all parties. Actually, I think this is the place where Elizabeth Hurley got married to Arun Nayar.

I guess you'll have to see some pics to really get it.

iWwhooosh s