Making short work of India: An itinerary

By Scott Kraft

April 29, 2007 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

We used two travel agents to arrange our flights, drivers and tours:

Protravel Interantional, 9171 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 428, Beverly Hills, CA 90210; (800) 301-3993 or (310) 271-9566, vwww.protravelinc.com.

Sadhana Travel Services, 301 Skipper Corner, 88 Nehru Place, New Delhi 110019; 011-91-11-4161-8278, vwww.sadhanatravels.com.

Our itinerary:

Day 1: Leave L.A.

LAX to O’Hare (Chicago) to New Delhi on American Airlines, www.aa.com.

Midnight: Check in to Imperial Hotel, Janpath, New Delhi; 011-91-11-2334-1234, www.theimperialindia.com. Doubles from $425.

Drinks at the Imperial Hotel’s 1911 Bar

Day 2: Delhi
Tour of Old Delhi.

Jama Masjid: 17th century mosque in Old Delhi, commissioned by Mogul emperor Shah Jahan, who also built the Taj Mahal.

Red Fort: 17th century palace of Shah Jahan, when the emperor moved his capital from Agra to Delhi.

Spice Market: wholesale spice market on Khari Baoli Road, Delhi.

India Gate: designed by Edwin Lutyens and built to commemorate the 70,000 Indian soldiers who died fighting for the British in World War I.

Gandhi Smriti: 5 Tees January Marg, New Delhi-110011; 011-91-11-2301-2843, vgandhismriti.gov.in. House where M.K. Mahatma Gandhi lived until his assassination Jan. 30, 1948.

Indira Gandhi Memorial Museum: 1 Safdarjung Road; 011-91-11-2301-0094. Home of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi when she was shot by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984.

Qutub Minar: A 73-meter-high tower built in 1193 by Qutab-ud-din Aibak.

Have dinner at Veda, H-27 Outer Circle, Connaught Place; 011- 91-11-4151-3940. Modern Indian cuisine.

Day 3: Delhi

Humayun’s Tomb: built in 1565 after the death of the 16th century Mogul Emperor Humayun

Lunch at Chor Bizarre, Hotel Broadway, 4/15A, Asaf Ali Road, New Delhi 110 002; 011-91-11-2327-3821, www.chorbizarrerestaurant.com. Kashmiri cuisine.

Tea in the Imperial’s Atrium

Dinner at Bukhara, Hotel Maurya Sheraton & Towers, Diplomatic Enclave, New Delhi; 011-91-11-2611-2233.

Day 4: Jaipur

City Palace: a complex of courtyards, palaces and pavilions built by Maharajah Sawai Jai Singh II in the early 1700s.

Amer Fort and Palace: a Rajput hilltop fortress started in the late 1500s by Raja Man Singh.

Jantar Mantar: an astronomical observatory created in 1726 by Maharajah Sawai Jai Singh II.

Check into Oberoi Rajvilas, Oberoi Rajvilas, Goner Road, Jaipur, Rajasthan; 011-91-14-1268-0101, www.oberoirajvilas.com. Doubles from $600

Day 5: Agra

Fatehpur Sikri: capital of the Mogul Empire of Akbar the Great, who ruled from 1556 to 1605.

Agra Fort: a fortified palace built by Akbar the Great on the banks of the Yamuna River.

Taj Mahal: mausoleum built by Shah Jahan after the death of his wife Mumtaz Mahal in the mid-17th century.

Check into Oberoi Amarvilas, Taj East Gate Road, Agra 282001; 011-91-56-2223-1515, www.oberoihotels.com. Doubles from $600.

Day 6: Delhi

Last-minute shopping at Connaught Place: former commercial district during the British Raj.

Dinner at Masala Art: Sardar Patel Marg, Diplomatic Enclave, New Delhi; 011-91-11-2611-0202, www.tajhotels.com. Contemporary Indian cuisine.

Drinks at Imperial’s 1911 Bar

New Delhi to LAX.

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Scott Kraft

Scott Kraft is editor at large for enterprise journalism and special projects at the Los Angeles Times, where he oversees the Investigations department, standards and practices, polling and survey research projects, and newsroom-wide reporting initiatives. He works closely with departments across the newsroom to elevate series and is leading an initiative to actively develop books that are an outgrowth of Times’ expertise and original reporting, in partnership with commercial book publishers. During nearly four decades at The Times, Kraft has been managing editor, deputy managing editor/news and national editor, as well as a foreign and national correspondent. As an editor, he has directed work that won nine Pulitzer Prizes. As a reporter, he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in feature writing while a New York-based national correspondent for the Associated Press before joining The Times in its Chicago bureau. He spent a decade abroad as The Times’ bureau chief in Nairobi, Johannesburg and Paris. He covered the release of Nelson Mandela and the end of apartheid as well as the ill-fated U.S. military mission in Somalia, among other major stories. His story for the Los Angeles Times magazine on the AIDS epidemic in Africa won the SPJ Distinguished Service Award for Foreign Correspondence. He has served as both a juror and chair of the Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting. He also was a Pulitzer Prize juror in international reporting in 2014 and subsequently chaired five Pulitzer juries – Public Service in 2015, International Reporting in 2020, Explanatory Reporting in 2021, Illustrated Reporting and Commentary in 2022 and Editorial Writing in 2023. He is currently president of the Overseas Press Club of America. Kraft was born in Kansas City, Mo., and has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Kansas State University.

Making short work of India: An itinerary

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