Feedback on our C&K India itinerary
 

Hi everyone,


Thanks to all who have helped us with our India trip planning so far! I have been spending many hours reading trip reports for inspiration :)

We have approached castle and king for a 3 week itinerary, which we wanted to include bandhavgarh and kanga national parks. Unfortunately they are opening later this year, which means we will miss them. We are really disappointed but going to go to ranthambore national park instead.

This is the itinerary C&K have given us - and I was hoping for some feedback. Specifically, is this enough time in each place? Also, he has added Rawla Jojawer and Luni. I haven't read much about either place, has anyone who has been there let us know what they are like?

Day 1: arrive Delhi 8pm
Day 2: sightseeing Delhi, 8pm overnight train to udaipur
Day 3: sightseeing Udaipur
Day 4: sightseeing Udaipur
Day 5: drive to Jolawer (4hours)
Day 6: 3 hour drive to Luni, village safari
Day 7: drive 1 hour to Jodhpur, sightseeing
Day 8: drive to Jaipur (5 hours)
Day 9: Jaipur
Day 10: drive to ranthambore (3 hours)
Day 11: Safari in ranthambore
Day 12: Safari in ranthambore
Day 13: drive to Agra via fatehpur Sikri
Day 14: Taj Mahal, train to Khajuraho
Day 15: fly to Varanasi
Day 16: Varanasi
Day 17: Varanasi, fly back to Delhi

Now you'll notice that this isn't 3 weeks worth of days! There seems to have been confusion with C&K when we couldn't visit the 2 national parks, they cut our trip down! We will have another 3 full days of sightseeing.

What would you change/add/leave out?

More time in Jodhpur, there is SO much to see there, it was one of our favorite places. Where are you staying? You might want to ask for an itinerary from Legends and Palaces to compare with what C&K are doing. It never hurts to get more than one quote. And don't hesitate to ask for less expensive options in each city so you have some choices (although do splurge if you can once in a while) When (time of year) is your trip?

I would spend two full days/3 nights in Delhi and two full days/3 nights Jaipur, especially if you are staying at a nice property. We only had one full day and part of the next which was a little rushed. Wished we had had more time as we skipped some places and found others we would have liked more time.

Read my trip report for a day by day report of our trip in April 2013.
www.springmix3013.blogspot.com
go to the bottom of the page that opens and click on April 12, we arrive in Delhi late at night. We only visit Delhi, Agra and Jaipur...a very short trip, we do a couple of sort of off the tourist track things...and fell in love with India much to my DH surprise! We are going back next year.

The itinerary looks okay. But, one day is not enough for Delhi sightseeing. There are many things to see and do in Old Delhi and New Delhi. Makes sure to visit Chandichawk Bazar in Old Delhi if you are fond of photography. I would like to say the same about your one day stay in Jaipur. Make sure to spend 2 days in Jaipur. Don't miss a visit to Amer Fort and Palace.

Thank you all for your advice - I will go back and ask for more time in Delhi and Jaipur!

The one thing I am not sure about is going from udaipur to Jaipur via Jolawer, Luni and Jodhpur... Wouldn't it be better to train between these two places instead? Seems like a lot of driving to see very little...

Uh oh: we are staying in 3* hotels, but may choose to stay in some 4* if budget allows! We leave at the end of September... As you can probably tell, we like to leave things til the last minute :) are legends and palace seasonably priced? I'll contact them too.

We went with India by Car and Driver. I did send my trip plan to C&K and L&P also, but India by C&D had the best price and was very easy to work with...replied to my emails promptly etc.

All the details are in my blog as far as how having a driver for 6 days went. We loved it. But we did not use any trains or go far a field either. Having a driver and driving from place to place was one of the highlights of our trip as we could travel at our own pace plus we found the country side fascinating!

Yes, they are nicely priced. Between Jodphur and Udaipur, we stopped at Chanoud Garh, which was one of the most wonderful places we visited. It also allows you to stop to see the Jain Temple at Ranakpur. You are at a fairly short notice now, but it isn't the super busy travel season (which seems to be November - March) so it may not be an issue. If you've not seen my trip report, it is here: http://www.fodors.com/community/asia...r-in-india.cfm

I would add 1 day to delhi, 1 day to agra and 1 day to jodhpur... I think I might cut 1 day from ranthambore and add it to jaipur

Jessie--

As I recall (I think), you are the person who is looking for a moderately priced trip with a mix of activities. Other than the nights at Jolawar and Luni, yours is pretty much exactly the standard Golden Triangle/Varanasi itinerary. If that is what you want to do, it is up to you. But, we managed to find so many other interesting places to visit on our two trips, that I would re-think the plan a bit. And, I noticed you did not include one of our big favorites Jaisalmer (and yes, it is a bit out of the way and a pain to get to).

You aren't able to visit the national parks you were interested in, and Ranthambore has been substituted. In your shoes, I'd do lots and lots of reading about experiences at this park before signing on. And, research extensively about what type of experience you can expect in the September season. I assume you want to see a tiger in the wild. Tiger spotting is a matter of luck at any time of the year but becomes much more difficult when things are fresh and green with many more shrubs and grasses for tigers to hide in. On our first trip we vacillated a lot about visiting one of India's parks and finally decided to visit one of the ones we had heard was the best--Corbett. We were sorely disappointed in the entire experience and realized that what we think of as a national park experience here in the US is very different from what Indians think of as a national park experience.

On both of our trips we used Nikhil at TGS Travel. He'll arrange as much or as little for you as you want, and he has excellent knowledge about many of the lesser visited locales. When we were in their offices this spring, they told us that during the slack season they make site visits to the different estates and locales so they have first hand knowledge of each place and its pluses and minuses. They get a great recommendation from me (a moderate budget traveler who wanted to do many things on my own and who wanted good advice and help with hiring a car and driver). By the way, he'll also tell you when it is a better idea to take a train than go by car.

p.s. If you are interested in wildlife, read my old trip report and the one I am currently posting. Both times we visited Castle Bera, had a fabulous time with wildlife spotting and enjoyed the place itself immensely. It is only a couple hours west from Udaipur and could be done on the way to Jodphur (I think).

I just read that portion of Julies report on Castle Bera, and it may be a better option for you than Ranthambore. We DID see tigers at R, but the "safari" experience leaves a lot to be desired. The park is gorgeous, but you need to make the driver stop the jeep once in a while so you can enjoy it, otherwise you will just tear around from place to place. They seem intent that you get to see a tiger, but it was hit-or-miss even in February when we were there. Only about half the parties staying at Khem Villas (where we were) were successful. It was a very international crowd and we probably enjoyed people watching as much as the wildlife, plus the food and spa facilities (something I really wasn't looking for but enjoyed) were wonderful.

uhoh_busted

That was exactly the same type of experience we had at Corbett. It was dusty trails full of jeeps racing around trying to do nothing but see tigers. There was no time to just enjoy the park itself. And, to top it all off, midway through the safari there is a stop at the central location where there was a snack bar. Indian tourists didn't think anything of this and perhaps expected this. We thought it was weird and not at all what we were interested in. We had a somewhat similar experience when we did an afternoon of "whitewater" (LOL) rafting out of Rikikesh. Set up along side of the river was a place where vendors came in during rafting trips to cook and sell snacks. Once again not a part of what we expect when we take what we think will be more wilderness trips.

On our first trip before our Corbett experience, we'd stayed in a small establishment outside of Corbett where we had a marvelous nature guide who was from Nepal. He told us if we made a future trip to go to Chitwan in Nepal instead because it is a much better park. We took his advice on this trip, and he was right. And, even though tiger sightings there are very rare, and we went for the entire park experience itself (so different from the jeeps racing around looking for tigers in Corbett), we did have a half hour sighting of a tiger.

I think your advice to try Castle Bera instead of Ranthombore is right on. Jessie, if you do this, ask if Winku will be there during your stay. We booked directly with him. In fact, other than one or two places I had TGS book for us, I made all of my bookings myself, and we just paid when we were there rather than giving a huge hunk of money up front to an agency that was collecting an everything included fee.

Thanks everyone - we are rethinking our itinerary! DH really has his heart set on at least trying to see tigers in Ranthombore, so it'll have to stay. Last year we did a big trip to East Africa where we did several safari drives in Kenya/Tanzania/Uganda, so he's particularly keen on seeing a different landscape and animals. But thank you for the heads up - we are going in with an open mind :)

I'm going to take your advice Julie and try and do most of the bookings myself, and use the travel agent for train bookings/car where ever needed.

For our itinerary, we're going to add extra time in Delhi, Udaipur, Jaipur and Jodphur.
We're going to add Jaisalmer and see if there are any extra days to squeeze in some smaller villages. Julie - is there anywhere you recommend we visit that's in the areas we'll be visiting?

I've been working with C&K over the past couple of weeks to develop a 2+ week itinerary. I've found Arvind very helpful and after he got a sense of our travel needs and style, he made some good suggestions. His prices are also good, I checked them vs hotel websites. Plus you have the benefit of having someone to call if there is a problem or issue while traveling. So if the prices are close for hotels, you might want to reconsider having an agent book for you.

Jessie--

Look at Fort Bhadrajun, Fort Dhamli and Chanoud Ghar. They all provide very different takes on the rural village idea and they, I think, are all somewhat in areas that should fit your itinerary. I cover the first two in my first trip report and the last one in the trip report I currently have going. I know you are trying to do this on a fairly moderate budget, and Chanoud Ghar is definitely the most pricey of the three options (as I recall just under $200 per night). Castle Bera is also only a couple hours southwest from Udaipur, and you'll see rural India while visiting the out-in-the-boonies countryside there, but learning about village/small town life is not the focus of the visit the way it is in the other places. You can use Google maps to get a good idea of the locations and distances between these various places, but keep in mind when using their travel time function that you probably need to add about 30% to the time listed.

Two more things: First, most (not all) people who post here tend to stay in very upper end lodging and spend a lot more than I spend nightly, so you need to take that into account when making your choices based on some of their recommendations. My first trip report I included lodging prices at the start, so you can see what we paid per night at each place. Check out the lodgings we stayed in in the locales you plan to visit. They were all reasonably priced and I'd stay at all of them again. Secondly, I think it is going to be really hot when you are traveling, so I'd try to take that into account and see if the trip could be arranged so that the hottest places might be at the end of the trip in hopes that they'll start cooling down.

BTW, you don't need a TA to make train reservations. Very easy to do it yourself using cleartrip.com If you are doing a lot of trains it might be worth getting an Indrail pass (if you're in the US you can buy it from the UK agent). See http://www.seat61.com/India.htm for more.

We stayed in several Taj Mahal hotels which were offering a reasonable price and which offered the third night free. This chain is not the top of the line, but they were all nice.

Your itinerary sounds much better without the parks. I would not be concerned with staying in small villages as you will see them all throughout your car ride. If you do want someplace less touristy, you may consider driving or taking the train to Gwalior which we found delightful. The palace and fortress area there were very different than those you will see elsewhere. There is a Sikh temple as well as other interesting temples within the fortress. Additionally, there was a terrific museum, the jai villas, which is actually part of the home of the maharajas. Half of the home is set up as a museum to pay the maharajas expenses. Along the fort's walls leading up to the palace are fabulous Buddha reliefs. There was no begging in Gwalior and this town, surprisingly, was one of our highlights. You can have your driver drop you off at the train and go to khaduraho from there. We drove, but it was a long day. If you lick on my name and pull up my India report, there is more detailed info including the stops in between.

I think Jessie need to decide if she wants to "see" what rural village life looks like or if she wants to have rural villages and the lives of the villagers/small town folk explained to her. Yes, while driving one sees a lot of rural India, but several of the small heritage estates focus on offering walking tours that help the tourist to understand how life is lived in these places.

By the way, we too made all of our own train (and plane) bookings on Cleartrip. OTOH, it is my understanding (maybe incorrectly) that if an agent has made train bookings and a change to the ticket needs to be made last minute, the agent, through his connections, has a much better chance of finding some seats for you on another already fully booked train.

Now that Indian train reservations are computerized "connections" are less likely to work. What may work are the tourist quota and the tatkal quota.

We had castle & king purchase our tickets in advance. They were delivered directly to our hotel.

Sometimes an agent is just worth it! A trip to India is one of those times. We found that most of the time that doing it our self was not cheaper and not any easier.

Hi everyone - thanks again for your wonderful feedback!

Julie - at the moment we only have room for one 'village experience', near Luni. I think you and I have the same budget in terms of accomodation, so I'm researching the hotels you mentioned in your first TR :)

dgunbug - After reading your TR I did look into the Taj hotels, but the 2 nights, get the 3rd free ends just days before we arrive! Without the deal they weren't quite as economical...

This is the itinerary - version 5 or 6! Any feedback welcomed!
Is there anything in any of these places that we should make sure to visit? Do you think the amount of days in each place is suitable?

Day 1: Arrive Delhi, 8pm
Day 2: Full day sightseeing of Delhi: Old Delhi plus New Delhi
Day 3: Fly to Varanasi, sightseeing, evening Aarti Ceremony
Day 4: Varanasi - early morning boat ride on the Ganges, excursion to Sarnath, overnight train to Khajuraho
Day 5: Sightseeing in Khajuraho
Day 6: Visit Orchha, train to Agra
Day 7: Taj Mahal at sunrise, Agra fort, Itmadullah's Tomb
Day 8: Drive to Ranthambore via Fatehpur Sikri
Day 9: Ranthambore
Day 10: Ranthambore
Day 11: Morning safari in Ranthambore, drive to Jaipur
Day 12: Jaipur: Amber Fort by elephant ride, City Palace, Jantar Mantar, Hawa Mahal
Day 13: Day of sightseeing in Jaipur, overnight train to Jaisalmer
Day 14: Jaisalmer sightseeing
Day 15: Jaisalmer Fort, visit Desert Village - overnight stay in tents
Day 16: Drive to Jodpur, afternoon sightseeing tour
Day 17: Drive to Luni, village safari and staying in heritage hotel
Day 18: Drive Luni to Udaipur via Kumbhalgarh Fort, evening cruise on Lake Pickhola
Day 19: Udaipur sightseeing: City palace, Jagdish temple and Jag Mandir Palace
Day 20: Full day in Udaipur, overnight train to Delhi
Day 21: Sightseeing in Delhi
Day 22: Fly home at 11am

Would you consider doing the trip in the reverse order? We flew directly from Delhi to udiapur which is a much easier introduction to india than Varanasi.

Oops...wasn't finished. We spent three days in Varanasi and considered it one of the highlights of our trip. If you love photography, you won't get tired of wandering the small alleys, riverside and streets. I'm not sure you have enough time. Additionally, if the monsoon rains are late and heavy, the ghats (steps) could still be quite flooded. A couple of weeks difference could make your visit there more enjoyable. We met people who had been in Varanasi two weeks before us, who did not enjoy their experience as everything was wet still.

We too loved Varanasi, and it is so much more than just the sightseeing aspects of it so I too wonder if you have enough time. We spent tons of time just walking and wandering observing all of the life events that take place out along the river for all to observe, and we did two dawn boat trips on the river in addition to the evening one. Khajuraho, despite being a world heritage site with very intricately carved temples, did not do a lot for us (and we are normally fans of art and architecture). OTOH, we really enjoyed Orchha and wished we'd been able to fit in a second night there. This, like Varanasi, is a nice place to just walk and wander on your own without thinking "I need to sightsee". Honestly, to us, the essence of India is the people and observing their way of life. That is what we remember the most and what is most interesting about the country. Tourist sites are nice, but, to me, the entire immersion experience is what makes India such a rich place to visit.

By the way, we took the train from Jaisalmer to Jodphur, and I'm sure it is a whole lot cheaper than having a driver take you there. I think it is about 6 hours by train.

I have to concur about khajuraho. While the temples are stunning, we saw many other stunning temples along the way and felt that the effort to get there was not quite worth it. We spent time in orchha, which was interesting to walk around, but enjoyed even more, the less traveled to city of Gwalior, which we felt offered a tremendous number of sites without the begging of other more touristy destinations. In orchha we had children were particularly relentless in their begging.

dgunbug - we never even considered the possibility of late monsoon rains! We're working with C&K now to do the trip in reverse order. Varanasi is a must do for us, so I'd rather leave it until last to avoid any potential flooding. Thanks for the tip!

C&K did say if we missed Khajuraho it would bring the cost down $200, and I have heard mixed reviews about it. It may be worth skipping and spending the extra time in Agra. We're also trying to train in and out of Jaisalmer, but at the moment we are waitlisted for the train.

We're trying to bring the cost of the trip down as much as possible - hard when there is so much we want to see and do! Any advice on how we could cut costs?

I do not think you will miss much by skipping khajuraho and it will give you more time in Varanasi. We did not use C & K's guides - only their driver. If you do some preliminary reading, a guide will not be necessary and this will save you money. The audio guides which are available in many of the palaces are excellent and I suggest using them rather than a guide as they are sometimes clearer and easier to understand than the Indians with a strong accent. We used tuk tuks locally for transportation (sometimes even when we had a driver available to us.). After our driver drove all day, we preferred to give him some time off once arriving at our destination. The tuk tuks were very inexpensive. In udiapur, we hired a local driver through the hotel and were very satisfied. Drivers were very inexpensive. We ate mostly in our hotels, but the prices were reasonable. It's too bad that you will miss the taj chain discount by only a few days. It was a great savings. We were happy with all our hotels which were not high end, with the exception of the one in Delhi.

Okay, let me take a stab at helping you to reduce costs. We've now taken two six-week trips, and we never would have been able to do that if we had signed on for the full package deal with an agency.

We used our agency to arrange a driver when we wanted one for quite a few days in a row, in other words for a week or so when we wanted to do a lot of moving around from one destination to another. If you just need transportation within a city or area, your place of lodging always has someone they can link you up with. And, there are local taxis or tuk tuks. Any hotel you book at always has a pick up service at the train station or airport, so you don't need a full service agency to do this for you. Arrange this yourself when you book.

Many places if you choose a central lodging, you can just walk. We walked in Jaisalmer, Jodphur, Varanasi and Udaipur. Delhi is another story though. In Delhi our B & B arranged a driver for pickup at the airport for about $10. We also hired the same guy to drive us around the city for very reasonable prices, much less than it would have been to have a dedicated driver.

Lodging has a wide range of prices, and we found anything in the $40 + range to be acceptable if you are not super fussy. Unlike many people who post here, we don't take the 5* route. As I said earlier, making your own reservations for lodging is easy. However, reservations on your own can sometimes be problematic in smaller places if they want a bank transfer as a deposit; this can be very pricey. In a situation like that, having an agency book for you is a better idea.

We did not hire guides through the agency and usually did not have a guide at all, preferring to do things on our own. When we wanted one at a particular site or monument they were readily available. And, your hotel can always arrange a local one for you. So, eliminate all of the things you see on your itinerary where is says something like afternoon tour of the city.

It looks to me as though in your entire trip you'll only be one place--Luni--where you will be forced to eat all of your meals there because there are no other options. Eating out in India is very cheap, and we never ate street food. Alcohol is expensive if you want that.

I am guessing that your Ranthambore portion of the trip is the most expensive because of all the fees that are charged tourists to visit the parks and go on safaris. Make absolutely certain that you want to do this before committing to all of that money.

What are your waitlist numbers for the train? There are a gazillion postings over on TA about calculating whether or not your waitlist number will be confirmed. My guess is that as far out as your trip is, you'll be confirmed. Another thing that I did when I was concerned about waitlists was to get bookings in two different categories like 1AC and 2AC and then took the one that first came up confirmed and cancelled the other. In fact, you may find right now that another category of seating might have seats available right now. We traveled 1AC and 2AC on overnights and added in 3AC for day trips.

Get some good guidebooks, and you can do it on your own. We particularly liked Footprint, Rough Guide and LP Rajasthan because of their level of detail. If you are careful and watch out for the fairly obvious contrived reviews, TA is a good source for narrowing down lodging choices in many different price ranges.

Also, get pricing from a different agency to compare ideas and costs.

Note that out of 3 1/2 weeks we only had a driver for 8 days. Train travel and short flights will definitely save time and money. We enjoy the wandering on our own as it gives us an opportunity to interact more with the local people. The hotels are all accommodating and can find you a local driver.

Thank you both!

I have just gone back to C&K and said we won't use a driver in Jaipur, Jaisalmer, Udaipur or Varanasi. I think this will give us some more independence, which is good! We will still use the driver to Ranthambore, Jodphur, Agra and when we first arrive in Delhi. AND we have asked for the trip in reverse - so thanks again for that tip June!

We will also be training in and out of Jaisalmer - 12&13 on wait list so fingers crossed!

Next up,we will look at our hotels and see if they are centrally located or if we can get something cheaper.

Now I have to ask - originally we had an elephant safari booked in Jaipur. Has anyone else done this before? How do you feel the elephants were treated? To be honest, the idea makes me afeel a little uneasy, having read the way they train elephants in other parts of the world - but thought I would ask for other opinions before making a decision...

I don't know about an ele safari, but if you're considering the ride up to amber fort by ele, my experience was unpleasant. The mahout used a hook, our poor beast had opened wounds, if I'd known in advance about the treatment of the animal I would have taken a jeep.

We took the jeep up and didn't think it detracted from the experience. The fort was amazing.

We rode an elephant up to Amber Fort. According to our guide, they have recently tightened regulations about it -- our Mahout did not use a hook (could be in regs now) and in looking through my photos of the others, I don't see any. The elephants can individually only make (I want to say 2 but it could be 3) round trips each day, and must be done by noon. It wasn't particularly comfy, I must say, but we enjoyed it as in - how many times in your life will you ride an elephant, and the view from up there was stunning.

Later, when we visited Chanoudgarh, the owner showed us the platform his great great grandparents had built at the front entrance for arrivals via elephants (mainly, he said, for ceremonial purposes, as most of the guests would arrive in horse carriages, which used a lower platform.) Marangarh Fort in Jodphur, has an interesting exhibit of howdahs (the framed seats) as well as decorative pieces made for elephants carrying royalty.

I also should suggest you check if there is a gift shop on the premises of the Fort, with proceeds that go toward its preservation. We had a tip to go to the "official" shop in Mehrangarh Fort at Jodphur and found the prices were equivalent (if not even better) to what you might negotiate in the markets. I really am not a shopper, but do like to bring home evocative presents for friends and family, and there were some wonderful things that did not take up a lot of space in luggage, and of a nice quality. It made me wish I'd stopped at a similar shop at the Amber Fort.

We enjoyed all the guides we had. With some, it was clear they had memorized spiels at some of the sites, but we more enjoyed talking with them about their daily lives. When we noticed a lovely newly-wed couple at the Jantar Mantar astronomical "garden" in Jaipur, our guide commented that the groom was very fortunate. His bride had very very long hair, and that suggested that her family had brought her up appropriately and committed to traditions. He explained that his own was an arranged marriage, and how their horoscopes had been carefully researched before he and his wife were even introduced. He explained how the astronomical measurements applied to astrology, and I have to say, it made our visit more memorable being able to relate the site to present day.