grayland

Hopefully, both lyndie and Steve are still checking this thread.
I am trying to come up with a good recommendation for an agency to book a car and driver out of Delhi. Don't want to use a hotel agency if I can help it.
We arrive Delhi on 17 March (7:30 am) from Munich.
We depart Delhi on 22 March.
My thought was to spend 1 night in New Delhi and then get a car and driver to go to Agra on the 18th and then work our way back to Delhi by the 21st.
Not much time...but it seems as tho it would work. We would stay at the Agra Hilton and not sure about the Delhi area.

Any help with a good car hire agency would be appreciated.
I will check out IndiaMike as well.

Lyndie

Hi grayland-I'm sorry I don't know anywhere in Delhi to hire a car/driver. We used www.jasvilas.com in Jaipur for our car/driver for 3 days to Udaipur via Deogarh & Ranakpur.

Whether you book via a hotel or travel agent, you'll still end up paying the extra commission they tack on, over and above the car owner's price.

I've found booking cars via hotels works quite well. We've used hotel cars for day trips on 3 occasions & had no problems. They were all quite reasonable at around 700-800 r's a day for 80 kms, in Dec 2004. You'd need to pay probably double now though for the extra kilometres & rising fuel costs.

India mike has lots of info from people who've used cars/drivers. Steven & I are train lovers, I think!

BTW what you want to do is very easy to do by train. Let me know if you change your mind! You could get a very fast train from Delhi to Agra, get the Hilton to pick you up at Agra Cantt Station, hire a car/driver from the Hilton & see Fatehpur Sikri & the Agra Fort & get the Hilton to drop you back to Agra Cantt for your train to Delhi.

We're having one night at the Imperial in Delhi this trip & we'll probably use a hotel car to get around in Delhi. It's the one city where we don't use public transport much, especially in the heat of April! Enjoy India, it's addictive!

hobbes

You can contact these guys for a car and driver in Delhi as well as a car transfer to Agra.
PresTrav india
Phone: 91-11-51533631/32;
E-mail: [email protected]
I would also say do a day's sightseeing in Delhi with a guide. Re Agra - 1 or max 2 nights there should be good. I enjoyed having a car/driver dedicated to us - it is flexible in terms of timing and great for shopping as u can keep dumping purchases in the boot!

hammail

We travelled from Delhi to Jaipur to Jodhpur to Goa. We organized the entire two weeks the first day we arrived in India. Booked flights hotels etc. Granted, using the Imperial concierge helped, but we had no problems staying out first choice hotels and booking timely flights. Goa is beautiful. The wednesday market is like an enchanted 60's flashback. Definitely our most memorable time in Goa.

steven_ber

Namaste India Tours have a great reputation on indiamike.com, many people have used them and recommend them, they are Delhi based.

Make sure you get the name right though, there are other companies with very similar names.

steven_ber

http://www.namasteindiatours.com/

Lyndie

Steven, I emailed NIT in 2004 for hotel prices and info and they came back with some very silly advice, and made a point of telling me they'd spent "a lot of time on our what we wanted to do". Well, excuse me!

They also told us budget rooms at Neemrana Fort Palace, "won't be available I can nearly guarantee". I emailed Neemrana direct and the rooms were very much available. Not the kind of info we expected from a well publicised travel agent.

I posted the details on India Mike and as expected, got howled down by NIT supporters.

The only people I could ever recommend for car hire, trip planning assistance & accommodation are the folks at www.jasvilas.com, in Jaipur. They are just so helpful. Nothing is a trouble to them, if you are one of their guests. All the best!

steven_ber

Lyndie

Your posts are normally clear and detailed, so Its surprising to hear of problems with NIT, (but I bet I was one of the NIT 'supporters' having a go).

I have a love/hate relationship with travel agents, I really dislike travel agents who go out of their way to advertise their company, even if this means giving misleading info.

But I also appreciate how hard a job it must be (especially in the mid-upper price range).

For years I've been planning people's itineraries, but I am not a professional or a travel agent.

Some of the information I'm given is shocking, many times I've had to exchange 3 or 4 e-mails just to find out the basics (date of arrival/departure, budget, preferred mode/class of travel, age of all travelling).

I could do a list of 20 - 30 things a person should tell a travel agent to ensure they get a more personalized service, these things would make the whole process easier and more enjoyable for both the agent and the customer.

You wouldn't believe the crap I've had from people I've spent many hours trying to help, I can only assume they think I'm somehow getting paid for my work.

My experiences have been enough to ensure that I'll never become a travel agent.

Lyndie

Pity! You'd make an excellent TA. I suspect failed real estate agents become travel agents.

lcuy

And sucessful realtors,,,become travellers??

Lets e careful before we start name calling whole groups of people based on the actions of a few.

steven_ber

Now you mention them, travellers are nearly as bad as tourists.

Lyndie

And let's not lecture people either!

shaktipalooza

This has been an entertaining thread. steven ber you certainly are a glutton for punishment, arranging all these trains pro bono.

Has it been stressed enough that the original itinerary is way too much?

delhi(3D)-jaipur(2D)-agra(2D)-varanasi(2D)-mumbai(2D)-goa(3D)-cochin(2D)-mumbai

Indian mega cities don't really offer much unless you know people who live ther and can really show you around. I'd definitely scratch Mumbai.

Most people will travel only North or South India in a single vacation unless they'll be traveling for a long time. With the itinerary presented, you'd be looking at around 7 overnight train rides. Fun way to travel but with just 17 days in the country it would be grueling. Air flight is better but still going to take some work.

Varanasi/Mumbai has to connect via Delhi, could mean an overnight layover.

If you're making the trip to Jaipur there are a lot of other places in Rajasthan not to be missed. Save the South for another vacation.

Varanasi is worth more than two days. The old city has no cars, very relaxing to walk about and explore the place. Time just slows down.

Anyway, good luck with your trip. Be sure to post about your experiences!

pics from India: http://mrs-h.smugmug.com/India

tatersalad

As an independent traveler currently in India for the first time, I can say that it is quite workable. We made as many arraingements as we could from home on the net and did a lot of research.

We arrived in Delhi and were met at the airport by a driver for our hotel Hans Plaza and spent five nights there.

In Delhi we toured around by the "seat of our pants" and learned the system as time went along. The door man and the other hotel staff were very helpfull.

We flew to Bagdogra on Indian Airways which we had pre-booked from home and stayed one night in Siliguri at Hotel Cindrella which was also prearrainged.

Then we traveled via the "Toy Train" to Darjeeling; Hotel Cindrella got us the tickets for the train.

Upon arrival in Darjeeling we hired a taxi at the train station to take us to Hotel Dekaling; which of course we had pre-booked as well.

Once in Darjeeling we used the hotel staff to arrainge some local tours and we also just explored on our own.

In Darjeeling we made a change in our origional plan and decided to go to Gantok, Sikkim for a couple of days so we had our hotel make the travel and lodging arraingements for that. We did carry an extra passport photo so that we could get our Sikkim Permit at Rangbo.

We then made our own arraingements to travel back to Silliguri and as luck would have it Hotel Cindrella is on the road from Gantok so we were droped off at the front door. And, of course we had reservations. This is where this message is being posted.

This afternoon we will fly to Delhi, where we have a driver arrainged to meet us at the airport and will be at our service for the next four days to go to Agra, Fatipur Sikri and then Delhi for our outbound flight.

I must admit that we have gone through considerable confussion at times, but things do have a way of working out and in the end we have always gotten the results we expected.

As for the touts and beggars, one does need to be firm and ingore them. We have had little trouble so far.

Also, some of the taxi drivers around Delhi will insist on stopping for shopping or "only look don't buy", but we have been firm with them also. I tip them well if they don't push it.

We are having a really great independent travel in India.

Most people are very helpfull.

One other thing is that we did pace ourselves so that we can always be well rested.

Sorry that I have no spell check.

Happy travels!

rhkkmk

thanks for this report....on a future trip would you wing it like you have on this trip....i wanted to do it but was too scared to proceed on my own...i also do not want to waste any time with details while on tour..thanks for the report

tatersalad

Yes, we have no regrets as to the way we have done this trip.