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Review

Royal Delights at Narendra Bhawan

We had entered Bikaner a few minutes earlier and after negotiating a few intricate twists and turns, reached Narendra Bhawan, a palace turned into a hotel. The driver, dressed in ethnic outfit was quite a pro and took about 5 hours from Jaipur to Bikaner including a lunch and a tea break.

Narendra Bhawan, palace, Royalty, Bikaner , Rajasthan
Narendra Bhawan Palace Hotel View from outside. See the coloured glasses, which is in keeping with the traditional design.

Marhaba, Air Arabia

Air Arabia, the low-cost airline from Sharjah, has been around for a decade or so. The objective was to provide affordable flights, for the frequent visitors and people working here from over 100 cities of 34 African, Asian and also European countries. There are flights from 14 cities in India! The entire fleet of 30+ aircrafts are A320-200s and the insides are quite cheerful and comfortable.

Air Arabia, the Middle East and North Africa's first and largest Low Cost Carrier (LCC)
Close View of A320 Air Arabia

A basic return flight from Mumbai to Sharjah currently costs

A five star inn in Jaipur City Centre

It was the boxing-day and we could see that Christmas mood was still there at the Holiday Inn Jaipur. There was a 10 foot Christmas tree at the main door itself announcing proudly that it was still Christmas season. On entering we found an atrium as high as the building itself, all of seven storeys and from the top was a bunch of green string-lights arranged in a conical form giving a feeling of a 100-foot Christmas tree and below were several reindeer pulling their cart containing one of the biggest gingerbread house we had seen.

Holiday Inn 22 Godam Circle City Centre Jaipur
Holiday Inn Atrium and Reindeers pulling the Gingerbread house

Located around 5km from both railway station and the old Jaipur city, Holiday inn

The Crowne Plaza Jaipur, the Crowning Jewel

Salman, the hotel representative, was waiting for us at the arrival area. Smartly dressed in his suit, he patiently holds up the placard high for all to see. He wanted to make sure his guests don’t miss him. After brief introductions, he took charge of our luggage and called the vehicle to ferry us to the hotel, the Crowne Plaza Jaipur.

outside view of Crowne Plaza Jaipur
Early Morning view of Crowne Plaza Tonk Road Jaipur

Crowne Plaza is striving to be the crowning glory in Jaipur, in its own category. Some 30 minutes and 20KM later we are at the triangular hotel, short in height but sprawling and quite modern looking. This was in the industrial district and quite close to a large convention centre.

Club Mahindra Property in Cloud 9

I should probably say properties, since there are two. Club Mahindra, Binsar Valley and Binsar Villa.

We started our journey towards Binsar in the morning from Jim Corbett, which was our pit stop for the previous night after a long drive from Delhi. The sumptuous and scrumptious Kababs that we had wolfed down for dinner the previous night were properly digested and duly forgotten.

A view of the hillside town of Binsar
A view of the hillside town of Binsar

Flying business class with Singapore Airlines

It was not the first time I was flying business class. It was not my first time with Singapore Airlines either. But the combination was. And I was looking forward to it. 🙂

As long as I remember, the first time I flew Singapore Airlines was sixteen years back in the year 2000 from Sydney to Mumbai via Singapore. Since then I have been a great fan of them. There are more memories to that journey to be told later; here I will tell you how this reunion was with the airlines.

singapore airlines boarding pass @www.lemonicks.com

Mumbai – Singapore sector … it wasn’t a very long flight like 10-12 hours but I got a chance to experience the business class of the airlines.