The Oberoi Rajgarh Palace successfully combines history with luxury

I am sure you have heard of Khajuraho.

And I am as sure that most of you have never been there. On the other hand at least you could go there if you wanted to. For centuries not only did nobody go to Khajuraho but most people did not even know that it existed.

 

We know that the temples were built by the Chandela dynasty whose kingdom was located in what is now Madhya Pradesh. Originally, 85 temples were built between (roughly) 850 and 1050 in a complex that ranged over 25 square kilometres. Most were Hindu temples but several were Jain suggesting that the two religions happily co-existed.

 

   We have very little in the way of Indian historical records to go by but the temples are mentioned by many visitors including Xuanzang and later, Al Baruni who accompanied Mahmud of Ghazni who, fortunately enough, did not get to destroy and plunder the complex.

 

   Then, from around 1500, we don’t hear much about the temples. Historians believe that, over the centuries, the 85 temples were reduced to 25 either because of the passage of time or destruction by robbers and the Muslim dynasties that succeeded the Chandelas.

 

   But this is all surmise because nearly everyone seems to have forgotten about Khajuraho for over 300 years. The complex was lost, over run by vegetation and even if visitors wanted to go, the temples were hard to find and almost impossible to reach.

 

   In1832, a British engineer called Captain TS Burt re-discovered them while mapping the region. He was astonished by the beauty and magnificence of what he found and published a paper about his discovery. This led to a complete clean up of the area and the revelation that there were more temples than Burt had realised.

 

   Unfortunately-at least in retrospect-the Brits focused on the erotic sculptures which constituted under ten percent of the carvings and many prim Victorians were shocked by what they saw as evidence of Hindu debauchery and perversion.

 

   Since then, Khajuraho remained famous only for its erotic statues and the splendour and beauty of the temples were ignored.

 

  And because, in the public imagination, these temples were notable only for medieval pornography, visitors to Khajuraho got a ‘nudge nudge wink wink’ response from their friends. People stopped going there for family holidays because they believed that the carvings would shock the children. And Khajuraho never became the international tourist destination it deserved to be.

 

   That’s probably why most of you have never been there. And it did not help that connectivity remained poor. Flights were started and then discontinued. Both the Taj and the Oberois managed hotels there and then gave them up because the destination never lived up to its potential.

 

"The Rajgarh palace was built around 35O years ago making it the oldest palace to be converted to a hotel and the Oberois have had to substantially restore the main structure."

   Two years ago, ashamed by my failure to visit such a notable site which was (if you could find a flight) only an hour away from Delhi I resolved to visit the temples. That’s when I heard that the Oberois were returning to Khajuraho and building a new hotel there and decided that it might be worth waiting.

 

   Six months ago the Oberoi Rajgarh Palace opened and while I had expected it to be as good as the Vilas properties always are, I was startled by the response of the international press who hailed it as one of the world’s greatest new hotels.

 

   Last week I combined my curiosity about the hotel with my longstanding desire to go to Khajuraho and took the only Indigo flight from Delhi to Khajurao. The hotel is half an hour from the airport and everything you might want to see (including the temples and the Panna National Park) is also under 30 minutes from the Rajgarh Palace.

 

   Though most people don’t realise this the Oberois invented palace tourism in the 1960s with the Oberoi Palace in Srinagar and were originally supposed to manage the Rambagh in Jaipur. But, in recent years, they have been best known for their Vilas properties which they built from scratch. At the first HT Luxury Conference Biki Oberoi said he would never include the word Palace in the name of a hotel unless it had once been a real palace. And with the Rajgarh Palace the Oberoi group finally has a real palace of its own again.

 

   The Rajgarh palace was built around 35O years ago making it the oldest palace to be converted to a hotel (with the exception of Udaipur’s Lake Palace) and the Oberois have had to substantially restore the main structure.

 

   But it has been worth it. The hotel is spectacularly beautiful and successfully combines history with luxury. It is convenient for the Khajuraho temples and also for the nearby Panna National Park where I saw four tigers on a single safari. (Panna has 80 tigers so you would have to be unlucky not to see at least one; 90 per cent of safaris lead to at least one sighting.)

 

   But many guests will go for the hotel alone. It is run to Vilas standards and will take your breath away. I often found myself stopping just to stare at the lake views and each time I drove away from the hotel I kept looking back at the majesty of the palace on top of its own hill. (It was once a fort in an early incarnation.)

 

   The Oberois have tried to keep as much of the original palace structure as is possible, so you will find pillars that are centuries old in the restaurants and the grand old Durbar hall is now a banquet room.

 

   The heritage is reflected in the food. Over the last decade or so the Oberoi’s have quietly upped their game when it comes to Indian food and the Rajgarh Palace wisely does not restrict itself to the food of the region. Instead it serves dishes from royal kitchens all over India ranging from a Gaikwad version of undhiya (God-fearing Gujaratis should note that it is non vegetarian) to the Maharaja of Sailana’s mutton dahi vada. The real surprise for me was the simple food. I ate the mash Ki Dal three times in a row and the South Indian food was outstanding; they even managed to serve hot benne dosas in room service.

 

   No luxury resort is cheap but at present the Rajgarh Palace costs less than most Vilas properties and the more established Rajasthan palace hotels. Judging by the ecstatic response it has received in the global media these rates will not hold. Once it starts appearing on lists of the world’s best hotels demand will vastly exceed supply (it has only 65 rooms) and rates will spiral upwards so if you do want to go, it makes sense to make plans now.

 

   Who would have dreamt that poor neglected Khajuraho, forgotten for centuries and then avoided by puritanical visitors because of misconceptions about the extent of eroticism in the temples, would, one day, be the site of one of the world’s most acclaimed new hotels?

 

   It’s taken too long for this to happen. But thank God it has!