WinterTravel

We are flying into/out of Mumbai in December. We'd like to get a feel for different places in southern India (both historical sites and modern life). As always, it is a balance between trying to experience different places and not overdoing the place-to-place logistics such that the trip is not relaxing. The latest draft of our itinerary is:

Day 1: Arrive in India; 1/2 day in Mumbai
Day 2: 1/2 day in Mumbai; Fly to Hyderabad
Day 3: Hyderabad
Day 4: 1/2 day in Hyderabad; Fly to Bangalore
Day 5: Bangalore
Day 6: Daytrip to Mysore from Bangalore
Day 7: Fly to Kochi; rest of day Kochi
Day 8: Kochi
Day 9: Drive to Periyar area
Day 10: Periyar area
Day 11: Drive to Kollam for houseboat trip
Day 12: Alleppey 1/2 day; drive to Kochi and fly to Mumbai
Day 13: Rest in Mumbai (late night flight home)

We are debating whether or not we should go to the Periyar area at all (wildlife is not our priority). If not, we might reorient our trip to go to Pondicherry or elsewhere in Tamil Nadu en route to Kerala from Bangalore. We are not "beach people" -- our goal is to get a feel for the tremendously varied areas/people of southern India.

Any thoughts would be most welcome, and especially on the drive times/nature of the roads in the areas that we will be driving rather than flying (and whether it is worth it to do one over the other in particular routes). Thanks so much!!

thursdaysd

Busy would seem to be an understatement! I think you're short changing both Mysore and Kochi. I haven't been to Hyderabad, so can't comment on that, but I picked Mysore over Bangalore and wasn't sorry. In Mysore I spent one long day on a sightseeing tour, one day visiting temples in the area and one day for the palace and general wandering. Details at www.wilhelmswords.com/asia2001.

Jen108

Wow -- you are going to be just zooming! If you haven't been to India before, you may find it a bit overwhelming and travel to anywhere always takes longer than you expect. Mysore is so beautiful -- i wish I had spent more time there. There is a lovely palace that they light up at night and it is incredible. I visited the Tibetan settlement near by. The entire experience was just amazing.

k44skov

I am also curious if this is your first trip to India, travelling in India can not really be compared to travel anywhere else. Are you going to arrange your own ground transport? you must allow time for things not working out as you plan. It would also be nice to have some “free” days, so you are able to extend your stay in places you really like.
I have answered regarding Hyderabad in another tread, we have just spent a week there and enjoyed it, but we have been to India several times, would not go there on a first trip.
In stead you could combine Bangalore / Mysore with Belur, Halebid and Sravanabelagola, all 3 very close and very different experiences

Cicerone

8 places in 13 days is way too much in any place, IMO, even a place like Europe which has much better public transport and actual dual carriage highways, which India has very few of.

You need to cut a good bit out. In 13 days you should AT MOST be "doing" 4 places or it will all be a blur and not relaxing at all. Also, as others have noted, this is India, where a day trip of 6 hours on Indian roads to Mysore is not really going to be that enjoyable an experience, esp doing part of it in the dark as will be necessary most likely. Otherwise, you can take a train which would be preferable to 6 hours on the road, but that will be more than 3 hours each way, unless you take the fast Shatabdi Express which takes 2 hours and would be the most comfortable, but that only goes in the afternoon, so you have to do an overnight in Mysore.

To go all that way for only 1 night on the houseboat seems like a huge waste of time and effort and not at all relaxing.

I like Pondicherry a lot as it is a mix of colonial and India. It is not about lying on the beaches it is just the beautiful coast line and the history. It is also one of the better, if not the best, highway in India, IMO. You could easily fly from Mumbai to Chennai and then drive down the coast, and then over the Mysore, or even go to Madurai instead and then on to Kochi. You can then drive down to Cochin and fly out of there back to Mumbai.

If you decide to include Hyderabad, I would spend more time there. You could easily fly from Hyderabad to Chennai. (You don’t need to spend any time in Chennai if you want to do Hyderabad, just land and head down the coast.)

I personally would cut out Mumbai, I just don't know what a tourist does there, esp with 1/2 day at each time; you will spend most if not all of that 1/2 day sitting in traffic trying to get to a sight, or trying to get from the airport to your hotel. (From airport to Marine Drive area takes about 2 hours on a good day, 3 on a bad, about 1.5 after 11 pm at night).

WinterTravel

We are so grateful for the candor -- our gut feeling was that we were trying to do to much and you have all confirmed it. Now we just need to figure out how to reorient our trip. Do keep your ideas coming -- we are grateful!

To answer the question -- this is not our first trip to India. We spent two weeks in India last December (focused on Rajasthan and Delhi). We really enjoyed this trip and decided that we'd go back to a different part of India this year. We made all of our own arrangements last year and it worked out well -- we used Compass Travel in Delhi to arrange car/driver/guide, but did our own itinerary, hotels, flights, etc... We like travel this way.

Our challenge is that we really like to see modern life and not just historial sites. Our favorite days on our last India trip were those on which we stopped in villages along the route between cities and a day we spent (in traffic, but part of the experience) driving to get a sense of the different parts of Delhi. We like to see how people live today and we like to get a feel for the different areas of a place by walking and/or driving around.

Our original idea was to visit Tamil Nadu and Kerala, but in reading about Hyderabad we became quite interested and felt that seeing Hyderabad and Bangalore might give us a sense of the IT side of India that is always in the news. Our desire to go to both is driven by wanting to have a sense of what that part of modern India is truly like. While we enjoy visiting temples and forts, we did not want the focus of this trip to be that.

Cicerone - you mentioned Pondicherry, which we had included on our original itinerary when we were thinking of Tamil Nadu. We'd love your thoughts on whether it would be worth trying to include a visit there (if we were not going elsewhere in Tamil Nadu). Would you suggest cutting short Bangalore (perhaps not going to Mysore on this trip) and going to Pondicherry instead? Would you suggest spending more time in Kochi/backwaters and not going up to Periyar? Given that Jet Airways (which we really liked on our trip last year) flies around the South, we assumed we'd fly rather than drive much of the itinerary -- do you suggest otherwise? We'd be really grateful for your additional thoughts. Thanks all!

Cicerone

Well, my thoughts are that with 2 weeks you cannot do BOTH Bangalore and Hyderabad and then fit in all the other stuff you want to see. You need to pick one.

Of the two, I personally would pick Hyderabad because there is a lot of cultural and historical significance, plus you can then go to Secunderabad to “see” the high tech area. (I don’t know what you are expecting to “see” of the IT boom other than some glass-fronted office buildings, I don’t believe you can tour any of the campuses. It may be possible to tour a part of the Infosys campus in Bangalore, but honestly I would not go all the way to Bangalore to see a bunch of workstations and people writing software, go to San Jose...it’s just a corporate park after all. If you want to see corporate parks, you can go to Noida or Gurgaon outside Delhi. There is also a high-tech corridor coming up outside Kolkata, that may be for your next trip, as a lot of it is still under construction.)

However, skipping Mysore is hard as well, so it’s a tough decision. I would consider Mysore the principal purpose for a trip to this area, I would not consider it an “add on” to seeing Bangalore. Also, I personally would not go all the way to Bangalore just to see the city, so perhaps there are areas between it and Mysore you can concentrate on and that would justify spending a day or so in Bangalore. I don’t know the area very well, but I know that there is a classical Indian dance academy outside Bangalore that is on my list of places to visit on my next trip, it is called Nrityagram, take a look at http://www.nrityagram.org/village/sponsors/sponsors.htm. There is also a holistic spa outside the city that is supposed to be good, it is called Soukya go to http://soukya.com/. One thing you may not know about Bangalore is how expensive hotels are, its actually more expensive than Mumbai or Delhi because there are fewer hotels and more business people going there. A friend of mine who works for Intel and goes to Bangalore very often was just laughing with me yesterday about hotels in Bangalore where, as my friend says “you would not let your dog stay” that charge US$250 a night. Good hotels like the Leela get US$600 and up a night, and the Oberoi and Sheraton start at about US$375 (not including tax on either). That may or may not be a factor to you. Hyderabad is a bit less expensive, albeit there are lots of business travellers there too. The Marriott gets about US$200 and the Sheraton about US$250.

From a flying standpoint, going to Hyderabad makes a bit more sense to be able to do the rest of your itinerary, because you won’t have to back track back to Bangalore or take a longish train journey from Mysore to get to other places.

I really like the Pondicherry area but then I have a thing for that period in colonial architecture and the French influence there. (My favourite things about Macau are colonial architecture, the Portuguese-speaking Chinese and the mix of foods, I never go to the casinos.) I am not a beach person either in that I don’t like to lie on them, but the coastal drive is so pretty and there are just hundreds of small fishing villages and other towns along the way. There are also temples and other sights and then you get to Madurai which will just amaze you. The coastal drive is very untouristed, especially compared to north India, and very relaxing. This should be done over several days, so you can take your time and see as much as you can before getting to the main temple area.

As for the houseboat, I could spend a week, but I would say at least 2 nights, I think 3 is better. You need some time to get away from the main areas where you pick up the boats and really explore back canals, that is where there are also lots of villages where you can stop off and meet people. The houseboats are not luxurious by any means (at least none that I saw), but are comfortable and very relaxing. I don’t know Periyar at all so can’t comment, you might look into how long the drive is from Kochi, it may be doable as a day or half day trip.

An itinerary that I think would work and would involve the least backtracking would be:

Mumbai – Hyderabad by air
Hyderabad – Kochi by air
Kochi – Chennai by air
Chennai to Madurai by the great coast and then inland drive
Madurai –Mumbai by air for return international flight

If you wanted to go to Bangalore, you can fly from Madurai to Bangalore, so you could do Bangalore rather than Hyderabad, but would need to revise the order of places a bit.

In addition to Jet Airways, please also look at Kingfisher which is just as good and their business class is much better, it is in fact the best business class I have ever flown in 25 years of flying and that includes Singapore Air and Emirates. The ground service is just a hoot, the ratio of staff to passengers is like 3:1, they take your hand luggage and carry it through security for you and to the waiting area and then take it out to the plane and to your seat. Really, the service was amazing and planes are new and quite nice. Even in economy I am sure it is good as they are new planes, pleasant staff and seem to run on time, much like Jet. They fly to many places in south India.

http://www.flykingfisher.com/
Website for cochin airport is http://www.cochin-airport.com/html/0300fram.htm
Flights from Madurai are at http://www.maduraidirectory.com/travel/flight.php

There is no air service from Mysore, which means you either have to back to Bangalore for a flight, or take a longish drive or train to your next destination. Check the India Rail website for some train ideas.

WinterTravel

Cicerone - wow! We simply cannot thank you enough for taking the time to send such a helpful, thorough and thoughtful reply. Are there particular hotels that you'd recommend we try to book in any of the places mentioned? Did you book your houseboat through a particular firm that you would recommend?

Cicerone

Without knowing your price range its hard to recco, but in Bangalore the Leela, the Oberoi, the Taj Residency or the Taj West End (I don’t know the other two one is actually outside of town) and the Sheraton are all good. In Hyderabad, the Sheraton, the three Tajs and the Marriott are all good, the Taj Krishna has I think the best location of the three Tajs.

A hotel guidebook I have come to just love is Alistair Sawday's book called Special Places to Stay India. This has literally hundreds of very interesting places to stay, many in the range of less than US$60 a night and several in the range of less than US$30 a night. They also have a website at http://sawdays.co.uk/, click on the book for India. The vast majority of these hotels are not in the luxury range and some are in the very low budget range, but all look interesting. This would be helpful for the Madurai and Kerala area and would be interesting for the cities too; there is one in Bangalore which intrigues me called Villa Pottipatti.

In Pondicherry there is a hotel in a restored colonial building that has opened since I was last there and I would like to try it myself, it is called Hotel de L’Orient. It is run by the Neemrana group which operate several other interesting hotels in India, go to www.neemranahotels.com/. They also have a hotel called Bungalow on the Beach in Tharangambadi which is which is a former Danish colonial outpost further south of Pondicherry.

The Taj group has a hotel in Madurai that is quite nice, but there may be some new or more interesting hotels which have been opened since I was there, try the Sawday sight.

In general otherwise, try the Taj and Oberoi sites, you know these from your previous trip.

It has been more than 8 years since I rented a houseboat in Kerala so I don’t have any reccos, you might post a question here. I did look in my Lonely Planet and they recco using one of the operators listed by the tourist board in Kollam, called the KTPC Information Centre, go to dtpckollam.com. If you Google houseboats Kerala a lot of info will come up...I did find a reference to a 2004 Conde Nast article that recommend an operator, they charged US$190 a day, that includes all meals, you might contact them for current prices. The article is at http://www.concierge.com/cntraveler/...articleId=1084. The group which runs these boats also operates the Brunton Boatyard, which is a good hotel in the area, and some other hotels as well.

We hired our boat out of Alleppey which is another town in the area. I think we paid like US$80 a day, but that was some years ago and it was not a luxurious boat (but certainly fine). My recco would be that you pick an operator that has a few boats and then go and look them over, as they can vary in the quality and size. We did a little inspection and choose the one we liked best.

WinterTravel

Cicerone - Can't thank you enough for all of your terrific advice. We've spent several days trying to get hotel reservations/Kettuvalam reservations with no luck (we were late in planning this year due to circumstances beyond our control). It looks like we will be putting your advice to use in doing early planning for a 2007 trip now (and that our December trip will have to be elsewhere). A thousand thanks again for your help!