Architecture, cities, sites of interest,
tourism
The best of India is its architecture. To describe the deep impression Indian architecture may effect your appreciation of other famous architectural wonders of the world, I recall how was I surprised in a negative way when I saw the pyramids of Egypt and the Acropolis of Athens on our first Holiday, travelling back home. Both these otherwise really nice and famous monuments seemed simply negligible in comparison with India's Taj, Agra Fort, Fatehpur Sikri, Ellora & Ajanta. It is not the fault of the pyramids and Acropolis, but of the much greater impression one gets seeing the Indian monuments.
If you read and understand Hungarian, I recommend you to use Ervin Baktay's wonderful book "India Művészete - Arts of India", which is a work of a scientist, written in enjoyable language, comprehensive, dense, dealing with small details if those have any value. You cannot put the book aside.
Then go through the following sites:
www.templenet.com - a wonderful account of Indian temples, more than you may ever think of
visiting,
www.indianmonumentsportal.com - Global Indian Village - 100 cities,
www.123India.com/regional/cities/ - 87 cities!
www.greatbuildings.com/places/india.html
- good
photoes, short descriptions and bibliography
In case you intend to make a tour in India, study the below indicated sites:
www.indiatravelog.com
www.indianvisit.com
www.diatravel.com ,
Check also this site:
www.Photo-India.com.
A short selection of good regional sites or ways you may save time in searching for cities, concrete sites of interest:
Udaipur:
www.udaipur-hotels.com
Ajanta & Ellora:
www.witcombe.sbc.edu/ARTHLinks3.html
(arthistory) - "The Ajanta Site Seminar" - Amanda Guyton,
www.citr.ece.uvic.ca/icpwc97/caves.html
www.harbrace.co/art/gardner/NonEuro.html#India
www.travel.indiamart.com/places/cities/ajanta
Bhuj (the city of closed gates):
http://www.indiantravelportal.com/gujarat/bhuj/
Chennai (Madras), Tamil Nadu:
www.chennaionline.com - excellent!
www.tn.gov.in - similar "state sites" must exist for other states of India too
Kerala:
www.keralatourism.org
Some more sites worth to draw your attention to:
LycosTravel have an Indian page
Yahoo!India is quite new
We do not share with you our impressions here about towns and places worth-while to visit or better to say that we have seen. Our method is the following: we write about our years spent in India in Hungarian, making short detours in English describing places of tourist interest. These detours will be marked with Union Jack in the Hungarian text and you will also be able to find these spots in a list of places visited by us. Have some patience, it will take a few weeks to complete this task.
(I am sorry, I am afraid
now - 23.11.04 -, that I will not be able to make English versions
even of parts of my Hungarian reminescenses.)