The Honolulu Advertiser from Honolulu, Hawaii • 59

Travel guide TRAVEL' Next week: Faberge Buffet Vegas! Cruising The Honolulu Advertiser Travel Editor Ed Kennedy, 525-8023 Sunday, March 24,1996 Some of the best hotels in Delhi i (39 I 0 rrr: i i T4 V' Li, HnvhN' 'V'; '-I 4 i Clf Hyatt International Corp. The Hyatt Regency Delhi: One of the most comfortable hotels for Americans in New Delhi Bruce Asato The Advertiser Robin Haeffner-Matos with one of her charges at the Flamingo Hilton Penguins at the Flamingo By Ed Kennedy Advertiser Travel Editor The next time you're passing through the newly landscaped gardens in the courtyard of the Flamingo Hilton on the Strip in Las Vegas, stop by and say hello to Robin Haeffner-Matos. Robin is the wildlife manager for the extensive Hilton menagerie which includes Chilean flamingos, ducks, swans, cockatoos, turtles and 11 African penguins from the Honolulu Zoo. Robin moved to the Flamingo from Honolulu. Before she began work at the Flamingo Hilton last year, she spent eight years in Honolulu caring for birds, first at Paradise Park, then at the Hilton Hawaiian Village.

When the Flamingo created its wildlife Habitat in its redesigned courtyard See Penguins, Page 6 Doing ilil nil PPil A good room can be hard to find By Ed Kennedy Advertiser Travel Editor By Ed Kennedy Advertiser Travel Editor For a city its size, New Delhi has surprisingly few really first-rate hotels. Less than 10, if you're judging by international standards. And their rates are fast approaching top hotel rates around the world. But don't despair. Book a Delhi package tour through some reputable U.S.

travel agent who deals with these hotels, and you'll most likely be paying a group rate of less than $100 for the best hotels. And in Delhi, it's worth it to stay in the best. Or, if you're unwilling to go with a group, get a copy of the "Delhi Diary" when ou get there and do your homework. The Diary's Delhi phone number is 4615361. Here's a list of my favorite five-stars hotels: Le Meridien New Delhi -Part of the Meridien chain out of France.

A big, black, shiny, well-designed place with an open, atrium-style design rising all the way to the top floor where their disco hangs suspended out over the atrium. Also, one of the best luncheon buffets in town at Le Belvedere for about $10. If you don't stay there, at least try to eat there. 355 rooms. It's located at Windsor Place on Janpath near the Parliament, which is a good, central location away from the hustle and bustle but within spitting distance of all the downtown action.

Published Rates: $250 for a single; $275, double. Phone: 3710101. Taj Mahal Hotel, New Delhi Arguably Delhi's premiere hotel. A first-rate, five-star hotel that understands quality product and real service. More "Indian" than the Meridian.

Their standard rooms are large and well-appointed, with luxurious bathrooms. Everything you'd expect from a first-class operation. 300 rooms. Another very convenient address at Number One Mansingh Road. Published rates: $245, single; $280, double.

Phone: 3016162. Hyatt Regency Delhi A lot of my well-traveled friends swear by this place as a five-star, comfortable home away from home. I agree. For Americans, it probably has the most "familiar" feel of any hotel in Delhi. Great tennis courts, swimming pool, spa and dining.

A big place with 525 rooms. Its only real drawback is that it's way the heck out from downtown, towards the airport at Bhikaiji Cama Place on the Ring Road. Published rates: $235 for a single or double. Phone: 6881234. Maurya Sheraton Hotel Towers It's a Sheraton.

So it's what you can always expect from a Sheraton: familiar, reliable service and rooms. An interesting lobby full of folk-art; paintings on the ceiling (when you walk in, don't forget to look up). Standard Sheraton coffee shop and restaurants. Fairly central location in the Diplomatic Enclave. Its Sheraton Towers rooms are comparable to any business floor rooms around the United States.

500 rooms. Published rates: Single or double, $210. Phone: 3010101. New Delhi Hilton With probably the most convenient location for Delhi tourists (except for the Imperial Hotel), the New Delhi Hilton is a big, well-run place right next to, Connaught Place, the center of the tourist action in Delhi. The Hilton International chain recently took over this hotel from Holiday Inn.

It does a lot of corporate business, but tourists will find a comfortable, safe place to stay here, too. For you night owls, one of the best discos in town, called Annabelles. Good lunch and dinner buffets, too. Published rates are $270 for single rooms and $290 for doubles. 445 rooms.

Located on Barakhamba Avenue, Connaught Place. Phone: 3320101. Bonus choice i Hotel; Imperial Although it's not quite a five-star hotel, I can't help but recommend the old Hotel Imperial in the heart of the tourist district off Connaught Place on Janpath Road. Built in 1933 during the time of the British Raj, the Imperial is a true oasis of quiet in Delhi's hectic, honking, downtown district It's older (although they do have 132 new rooms now). But its lobby and shops are so colonially British, the Imperial has become as much a tourist attraction as a tourist hotel.

Be sure and have tea at the Verandah. Plenty of quality and service for anyone "doing India. And the price is much, much better. I've happily watched the service and standards come up quite a bit over the past few years. Probably the best buy for your money.

202 rooms. Published rates: Sintrle or double, $125. Phone: 25332. 1 3 1 1 1 i i lit Mji uH' rooms there were, in the second- and third-tier for way," way too much. So what was going on? "You're shocked at room rates? Where have you been?" laughed Tom Brister one evening over tea at the Lodhi Hotel, a government-run hotel in South Dellii which was asking $70 to $80 for terrifically mediocre rooms (peeling paint, no hot water, indifferent service, etc.) where I'd ended up staying because of a favor from a travel agent friend (and felt lucky I could get it).

Two years ago their rates were less than $40. A former Honolulu resident, Brister is in New Delhi working on a doctoral dissertation in comparative politics with the University of -Virginia. He was here to study India's new policy of "globalization." "This hotel situation began developing about five years ago when Rao came to power," he said. He was referring to P.V, Narasimha Rao, the prime minister of India since his election in 1991. Brister said that for the last 40 years, India has been following a form of modified socialism: state planning, close control of the economy.

But what was happening was that by the late 1980s, the old socialist policies of closely controlled prices and manufacturing quotas, coupled with almost no competition from the outside, left little incentive for the nation's manufacturers to produce See Hotels, Page 2 3. rTT hey call it the Delhi Shuffle. 1 1 Here's how it goes: 1 1 "I'm so sorry, sir," the Li well-oiled clerk in pinstripes and very proper Oxford accent is saying. "We have no rooms." I'm standing at the front desk of one of the best hotels in New Delhi, India. I've spent a steaming March morning shuffling in a three-wheeler through the grizzly Delhi traffic from hotel to hotel, looking for a decent place to stay.

There are no places to stay. And room rates when they will quote you rates are out of sight. "I don't understand." I tell the latest pinstriped minion in front of me. His shiny gold name badge glistens on his lapel. "This is a very big city.

What's happened to all the hotel rooms?" "I really couldn't say, sir," he says in that oh-so-cultured voice behind a noncommittal smile. And then he lowers his eyes and studies his hands. "Would you have need for me to call you a taxi?" Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. I've been passing through New Delhi for years on my wanderings through Asia and have never had any trouble finding a decent hotel room. In years past, I remembered, they were almost giving them away.

You could always get a decent room for less than $30. Maybe not a great room by Western standards. But at least 4 1 a Vegas next week! OK, folks, our next Las Vegas special section is coming up in next week's 1 Sunday Travel Section. You'll learn all you ever wanted to know about Vegas buffets and hear about bingo. So look for next week's Sunday Travel Section exclusively on Sirr City.

New Delhi Hilton The New Delhi Hilton something with clean sheets and hot water. Even the five-stars at the very top of the list were welcoming guests a couple of years ago, when I was last there, for $100 to $150. Now, all these hotels were booked solid. And what India's capital offers tourists much ancient capital cities, all at one time magnificent statements of military and political power of the ancient world. New Delhi, as the "New" in its name indicates, is only the latest this series of historic Delhis that lie clustered around the banks of the Jumna River in India's far north.

It was built in the early 1900s by the British Raj, who, ever loyal to the tradition of Delhi as the seat of power, moved the capital there from Calcutta in 1931. Although the books tend to separate New Delhi from its older neighbor, known as Old Delhi, Tve never been able to tell any difference between the two. They blend into one vast city with a population of more than 6 million (India's second largest city behind Bombay). For all practical purposes, there is no real difference. Downtown New Delhi (where all the tourists hang out) is a sprawling area with surprisingly few high-rises (the British built Connaught Place, its center, in a series of low-rise rings).

In fact, if you're a first-time visitor, you'll probably be surprised at how low-rise the capital city of India actually is. Except for the impressive government buildings and their adjacent grounds, Delhi is just one huge conglomeration of people and animals and traffic; and it can be an overwhelming experience for first-time visitors. But the city has much to offer in the way of history and culture, and the sheer exuberance of the daily human drama if you're lucky enough to find a good hotel where you can retreat from the din after a hard day of touristing. E3 Kennedy New Delhi lies at the heart of India. At least, it lies at one of its hearts, for India has several.

Just as Bombay is the seat of the country's wealth and Varanasi is its soul, Delhi, to Indians, represents power. There is an old saying in India that he who rules Delhi rules the world. This has been so for more than 1,000 years, since the first great Persian and Afghan invaders began moving down through the Hindu Kush through the rich farmland of the Punjab. As each succeeding invader, hungry for the vast riches the great sub-continent had to offer, managed to overpower the previous one, almost inevitably the first official act of the new rulers was to declare themselves lords of the known world and to establish their seat of power in Delhi. Delhi is a town built over and around the ruins of many 1 4 tv.

if i4 Ed KanndyTh Advertiter Delhi's Red Fort, one of its most famous attractions 1i iM.