India | Sri Lanka | Bangladesh | Queen

After a one-hour flight south from New Delhi, it's time to take a white-knuckle, six-hour car ride from Khajuraho, the nearest village with an airport and home to one of India's most stunning sets of preserved temples (and not much else), across Madhya Pradesh. As my sarcastic cosafarist and I enter through the gates at Mahua Kothi, we are relieved by the 180-degree turn in the landscape. The madness that is India's streets and highways gives way to 12 tranquil clay bungalows, called kutiyas, swathed in a forest of bamboo.

Inside, katni stone floors and sol-wood-beamed ceilings bookend a cozy retreat full of indigenous arts and crafts from Fabindia, one of India's most tasteful home-furnishings stores - and there's an inviting king-size bed that begs for anything but safaris. It's the kind of place where you could sleep forever.

Before you go on safari in India, you'll need to get a handy primer. DK publishes a definitive one, A Field Guide to Indian Mammals, but here's our take on some of the stranger action we saw. Chital This spotted deer commonly inhabits wooded regions of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and India - way too commonly. Indian Roller The prettiest of 18 species of birds we saw, this cerulean-winged beauty queen looks like she received some touch-ups from Picasso's brush. Sambar It's the Indian version of the Asian deer, and if it weren't for the tigers, sambars would probably eat chital for breakfast. Good riddance.