Tayls Posted July 15, 2012 Share Posted July 15, 2012 Just wondering if anyone has travelled to India and if they had any recommendations to make? I'm looking at going for about 2/3 weeks within a year or so with my gf and would like to see as much as possible. I am looking at actually travelling it, ie, using public transport to get from one place to another rather than taking an organised tour. Both are options, it depends on money and ease I guess but any help/advice would be much appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NurembergVillan Posted July 15, 2012 Moderator Share Posted July 15, 2012 My Mrs backpacked round parts of India twice and loved it. I'll ask her for some tips and get back to you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted July 16, 2012 Share Posted July 16, 2012 I did India myself but avoided using public transport and prebooked journeys with a local tour agency .. I once travelled 9 hours on a bus from Kathmandu to Pokhara (Nepal not India but same sort of scenario) and swore I'd never go native again ... non stop Dandiya music blaring out , roads full of overturned lorries and buses ... yeah it was an adventure but it's not an adventure I'm in a hurry to relive :-) If you are not in any rush in India you can book a taxi at one hotel to take you onto the next town , but with it being India you'll have to haggle (You : How much to go to X .. Taxi Driver : how much do you want to pay ...You : 50 rupee ... Driver : that is not enough .. You : well how much do you want ? .. Driver : How much do you want to pay ..... repeat for 25 minutes until you agree a fee ... of course when you then arrive he will double the price you agreed and you have to haggle all over again ) so i pre booked all my transport and then didn't have to worry about the haggling side of things I went to Calcutta, Darjeeling, Delhi ,Amritsar , Khajuraho , Orchha , Jhansi , Gwailior , Agra , Ranthambore ,Jaipur ,Udaipar , Mumbai & Pune Highlights for me were Amritsar , Darjeeling (have to take the toy train it's just amazing ) and getting to see a tiger in the wild in Ranthambore If you go to Amritsar then check out the border ceremony at sunset (it's at Wagah but close by) .. sadly I only found out about it after the event but it sounds like a bit of fun and worth popping along to PM me an email address if you like and I'll send you a little travel doc I knocked up at the time with the towns we went to and a few pictures (it's about 6mb in size due to the photos included but i can remove those if 6mb is too large ) .... your may have different ideas in mind but it it might give you a few ideas ( by the way , Kathmandu is easily accessible from Delhi or Calcutta .. worth a small detour to go see Mt Everest , they do flights around it every morning .. for short stays Nepal does visa on arrival ( least it was when I last went) ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tayls Posted July 17, 2012 Author Share Posted July 17, 2012 Cheers, any advice is really helpful. Tonyh29, how long ago did you head out there? Sounds like you covered A hell of a lot not sure I could squeeze that into my timescale ... I definitely need to check out the obvious attractions, the Taj being one of them and I know there are various locations where you can stay next to the Gamgees. My gf wants to see elephants and tigers - perhaps not at the same time - and do all that stuff. That's her contribution to my plans haha. I was looking more at the south but what I can gather that is perhaps to geared up for tourism? It would be great if we could include Everist too somehow. How exactly did you make that work? What is there to do and see in the locations you visited? Got ya in regards to the taxis, I kinda expected that to pretty much be the case. Will definitely bear that in mind when organising. Where, what and how did you pre-arrange your travel? Cheers for the info, much appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted July 17, 2012 Share Posted July 17, 2012 I did all that in around 20 days :-) I don't hang about on my trips so with Agra for example we drove down in the morning from Delhi saw the red fort and had a tour then went over to the Taj for a tour and saw it at sunset ....next morning we went back to the Taj for sunrise at 6am ( the marble reflects differently at sunset and sunrise) and then was in the car and on the way to Rathambore before breakfast .. We even stopped off somewhere on the way for another tour (Fatehpur Sikri ) They had stopped them when I went but until a few months before it was possible to do the tiger safari on elephant back at Rathambore so it's worth checking the website to see.... We rode an elephant upto a fort in Jhansi , not quite in the wild but it you will def see them somewhere along the way When we stayed at Khajuraho other people in our hotel had been out on tiger safari that day (and seen them) so it's another place to check out on google for your safari I always put my trips together myself and then email it to a local agency for pricing and any amendments they would suggest (can't beat local knowledge )... For India I used a company called India Invites , if you email them and tell them your budget and what you want from them and they will soon let you know what they can do ... I sorted flights myself so mainly they sorted train tickets and hotels on this trip but also got a driver for us when we neded it... They even got us tickets for India v England in the cricket one day match at Delhi :-) Use skyscanner.com ( or alternativeairlines)and you'll get an idea of flights to/ from Kathmandu and a price.. I went Delhi to Kathmandu met my mate there ( he flew in from Bangkok) had a couple of drunken nights and an everest flight there (id done the trekking lark before , it was his 40th so the everest flight detour seemed a good way to celebrate it ) and then we both flew Kathmandu to Calcutta with cosmic air to start the Indian leg Trains were pretty decent and punctual , internal flights were cheap so you'll be able to cover more ground than you think Varanashi is where the recently divorced women from the Uk all go to wear beads and find their inner self after the husband left them for a younger model ... I gave it a wide berth but it will give you your proper Gangees fix if you want it ( there is also a direct flight there from Kathmandu )... Tbh once you've seen the state of the Ganges the last thing you'll want to do is stick your feet in it Work out a rough idea of what you want to see and then drop India invites a line ... In fact as I checked the website to see if they still existed I even found the trip they put together for me on their web page :-) it looks tiring just reading it ,but reminded me of one thing .. The roads are somewhat poor so whilst town A to town B may be 100 miles it may well take 5 hours or more to travel it ... If you want to be thrilled / scared shitless then do a car journey at night time :-) http://www.indiainvites.com/tour_packages.php?mod=det&tid=104&i=1&cid=5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tayls Posted July 23, 2012 Author Share Posted July 23, 2012 Thanks again Tony I enjoy reading about peoples travels an look to capture some bits so that I can slot it onto my own plans. Have checked out the website and looked at the itinerary, looks really interesting so will have a proper look tonight when I get home and some more into the various towns/cities etc. I will no doubt have more questions for ya so of I could keep firing them at you as and when that would be cool Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAuthority Posted September 29, 2017 VT Supporter Share Posted September 29, 2017 Anyone had any recent experience of trips to India? I'm thinking of 2/3 weeks before going to Bhutan. Very preliminary thoughts but would love to see a mix of old India and the British Colonial. @tonyh29 The website you mention above is no longer in existence. I'd be interested to see your itinerary though if it's not too tough to find Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted September 29, 2017 Share Posted September 29, 2017 11 hours ago, TheAuthority said: Anyone had any recent experience of trips to India? I'm thinking of 2/3 weeks before going to Bhutan. Very preliminary thoughts but would love to see a mix of old India and the British Colonial. @tonyh29 The website you mention above is no longer in existence. I'd be interested to see your itinerary though if it's not too tough to find was 2006 when I went to India but I found my excel planner ,so it will offer some ideas ... if you want more detail on the places then feel free to ask or just google the towns and you'll get an idea .. some Facebook pics here if you're interested Darjeeling was a highlight for me , the toy train was rather a long journey but you can shorten it and just run the final loop and Jaipur was very interesting ..oh Amritsar is a must , we did it by train in one day but I'd over night it if I did it again and try and view the border ceremony I regret not spending a bit more time in Calcutta , the Victoria memorial etc were interesting and needed a bit more time Khajuraho was a bit meh if I'm honest .. think we went there mainly out of convenience for the next phase as I always say though , you don't need to spend too long in some of these places ... Agra doesn't have a huge amount apart from the Taj and the fort so don't plan on spending 4 days there unless you like sitting by the swimming pool Bhutan I went to in in 2013 , I can give you advice on that if you need it ... I may have already written about it but basically you get escorted most of the time , your guide is responsible for you during your entire stay , alas being Buddhist your guides aren't a bundle of fun for nightlife and the bars he took us to were crap but we did manage to drag him to a bar where women would sing and dance for you , clothed and tasteful , but waaaay out of his comfort zone ... he dropped us back at the hotel and we sneaked out like a couple of schoolboys on a field trip and found a nightclub open until 3am ... someone grassed us up , so when he came to pick us up at the agreed 6am the next morning , he made us hike the biggest bloody mountain he could find as a kind of punishment and enjoyed our suffering ... all fun I should add nothing malicious about it , we were all laughing about it , even the monk at the temple ont he summit gave us some sweets and joked they were hangover cure sweets ..... it's just if anything happens to you they get it in the neck ... tbf on our last night in Paro he took us to a Karaoke bar with a nightclub attached and said have fun we will come and pick you up at 4 (my flight was leaving at 7:30 for Kathmandu ) .... got some great videos of us doing Karaoke with the locals who were friendly , but the red panda beer is 8% so you do have to keep your wits about you as some of them can't handle it 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAuthority Posted September 29, 2017 VT Supporter Share Posted September 29, 2017 2 hours ago, tonyh29 said: he dropped us back at the hotel and we sneaked out like a couple of schoolboys on a field trip and found a nightclub open until 3am ... someone grassed us up , so when he came to pick us up at the agreed 6am the next morning , he made us hike the biggest bloody mountain he could find as a kind of punishment and enjoyed our suffering Thanks Tony - all great info - probably 9 months to a year away but always good to get your insight before diving into Tripadvisor! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
choffer Posted October 10, 2017 VT Supporter Share Posted October 10, 2017 On 29/09/2017 at 01:12, TheAuthority said: Anyone had any recent experience of trips to India? I'm thinking of 2/3 weeks before going to Bhutan. Very preliminary thoughts but would love to see a mix of old India and the British Colonial. @tonyh29 The website you mention above is no longer in existence. I'd be interested to see your itinerary though if it's not too tough to find I loved the place, mostly. Was there about 5 or 6 years ago. We did 6 days in Goa (which was OK, if you like beaches) and then 6 days in Kolkata, which was amazing. Didn't see much else as I was only really there for a wedding but I'd love to go visit again someday. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chicovilla Posted October 17, 2017 Share Posted October 17, 2017 I've been to India 3 times and loved it more each visit. Will defo go back again. My first trip was 3 weeks in North India in 2012. Staying in Delhi, Varanasi, Agra, Jaipur, Jodhour, Jaisalmer and Shimla. Travelling about by train is a great way to mix with locals, sleeping in Sleeper Class. Varanasi was the highlight, one of the most spiritual places i've ever been to. If you are into photography or People watching it's a dream. 2nd trip was in 2013, another 3 weeker, staying in Mumbai and travelling down the west coast by train to Goa and Kerala. Another brilliant trip - highlights staying on a on a Houseboat through the Kerala Backwaters. 3rd trip was last year. I travelled to Amritsar in the Punjab staying there for 4 nights, then took Sleeper class train to Uttarakhand, staying at Haridwar and Rickishesh at the foothills of the Himilayas. All 3 places were stunning and well worth staying. There's still so many more places I want to visit. I'm into photography, here are some of my photos from those 3 trips. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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