Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - India and females

I have been going to India since 1992 and currently travel to India about 2 times a month on business, and have also traveled there numerous times for pleasure. I often tack on a solo personal weekend trip to my business trips. I just spent a week in Mumbai and Delhi last week, including 3 days in Delhi on my own over the weekend. Here are my thoughts:

1. Please do not be overly concerned with your safety. In general India is extremely safe, and women do not need to have any special concerns IMO. Of course as in any major city in the world you need to be mindful of your purse, wallet, camera etc., but incidents of theft from tourists is very rare in my experience. Although there are less than salubrious parts of all cities, there would be little need for you to go there. You will probably be approached from time to time by people wanting to sell you things or direct you to a nearby shop, but a simple "no" will suffice to stop them. It is very cheap to hire a car and driver for the day to tour major sights and this saves you the hassle of bargaining for taxis at each stop, not that this is dangerous, but it can get tiring. You can also be collected and dropped off at your hotel, and the car can take you to restaurants in the evening and wait to take you back, which again saves you looking for a taxi late in the evening when streets may be more deserted. (If you go to a hotel to have dinner, then a hired car would not be necessary, you could take taxis between the two, although a day car is quite cheap, see below.) If you have concerns about trains, many trains offer "women only" cars, ask about this when making a booking or buying a ticket. (I have my own issues with this as I think it encourages the thought that women need protection rather than it is men's behavior that needs to be punished and corrected, but that is the subject of another thread.) Due to recent events in India, you will find police presence in tourist sites, airports and train stations to be quite heavy and in places like the Parliament area in New Delhi there are many police out and about on the streets as well.

2. You do NOT need to take a tour, and IMO you do not need a travel agent to make any arrangements. At the risk of sounding like Peter N-H (a notorious China poster from the old days), many people will encourage you to think you need to use and agent to make hotel, train or car bookings in order to earn commissions. There is a myth that India is "difficult", but it is simply not the case. It has become astonishingly easy to travel there in the last few years. The level of English, both written and spoken, far surpasses that of any other Asian country. Also, given the complete prevalence of e-mail in India, not to mention fax and phone, you can make hotel bookings and arrange for local and long-distance transport before you leave home. Paying a travel agent to do this is a waste of time and money IMO. I have only used an agent once in 1992 when going to Jaipur with Singaporean friends who insisted, through fear, that we use an agent to make an advance booking and payment for our hotel. Of course when we arrived at the hotel, they had no record of the payment, so we had to pay again, and then claim a reimbursement from the agent. (I was just glad the hotel had a record of the booking). I have never used an agent since.

3. As you are going in high season, you will want to make hotel bookings as soon as possible. You can do this yourself by e-mail or fax. I prefer a fax confirmation directly from the hotel. I would never pre-pay through an agent. Do you have a budget? We can make reccos for your itinerary. Some places to look for hotel reccos are Fodors (click on Hotels above, or get their book), the Lonely Planet Guide, or Alistair Sawday's wonderful book called "Special Places to Stay India". The Imperial in Delhi is a big favorite on this board, and I include myself in that group. Go to http://www.theimperialindia.com. If it is in your budget, I would definitely recco it. The Amarvillas in Agra is another great hotel, however that is also quite expensive, the Sheraton would be a less expensive alternative, or take a look at the guidebooks. Go to http://www.oberoihotels.com for the Amarvilas and to Starwood.com for the Sheraton.

4. For transport, if you want to fly internally (which does not seem necessary with your itinerary), take a look at Jet Airways, Air Sahara, Deccan Air and Kingfisher. If necessary, you can also go on Indian Airlines, but I would put that last. I would make flight bookings as soon as possible as flights tend to fill up. For trains, IMO you do NOT need to make any advance reservations. You can wait until you arrive in India do to that. With your itinerary, there are numerous trains, and even in high season in my experience they won't be that full and esp if you go first class (which is very cheap by non-Indian standards). The exception would be for a night train for which you may want to make an advance reservation, but you could have a hotel do this when you make a booking for the hotel in the departure city. Buying once you arrive in India will give you more flexibility to change your schedule if you want. You can have your hotel buy the tickets a day or so before the trip, or you can buy them at the station the day of the journey. (Buying at the station is kind of a palaver for foreigners in my experience as you have to go to a special line and the whole thing can be confusing, so I find it just easier to have your hotel do it. If you are staying at like a B&B or home stay that does not offer this service, then you could find any travel agent in the city you are in who could sell you a ticket on the spot for a very modest fee.)

For local transport for daily sightseeing and shopping, you can hire a car and driver either from your hotel (expensive) or by looking up recommended drivers in guidebooks and contacting them by phone or e-mail or by going outside the gates of your hotel and bargaining with the numerous drivers who will be waiting for you. I have used Kumar Taxi Service in Delhi several times and would recommend them, they charge Rupees 600 (about US$13) for a day (up to 8 hours, then Rs 50 for each hour thereafter) and I have found them very reliable. I found them in the most recent edition of the Lonely Planet guide Hotels charge rates of about 600 Rupees an HOUR or more, so their rate is very good. This rate should be this or a bit less in the other places on your itinerary. You do not need to pre-pay, just make a booking by e-mail and they will show up at the hotel at the appointed time. The Kumars provide long-distance service and may be able to recco local drivers in the other places on your itinerary:

Kumar Taxi Service
Fax 91-11-2341-8859
e-Mail: [email protected]

For long-distance car transport, just watch how much you pay. I think you are better off taking a train down to Agra and perhaps hiring a car from there for the rest of the trip (see my comments on your itinerary below) as this may save you some money. Also, to drive from Delhi with traffic may take you a good deal longer than the train, a lot would depend on the time of day you leave and luck that day. Note that in Rajasthan, prices for long-distance drivers booked through the Rajasthan Tourist Corp are supposed to be fixed at Rs 4.50 a kilometer with a 250 kilometer minimum charge per day, so you should not be paying more than US$28 a day or so for long-distance drives. Use that as a guide, if you book directly with a driver, I would say you should bargain to pay about a third less. This price. would include overnight accommodations for the driver and food, so don't pay more for that.

5. I generally like to hire a guide for the day to see a place I have not seen before, esp for a huge place like the Red Fort/Friday Mosque and Chandi Chowk in Delhi, or for a walking tour of the old town and the palace fort in Jodhpur. I have to say I have not had a whole lot of luck with teh quality of tour guides. I have had some great ones, like in Varanasi and the City Palace in Jaipur, and some average ones in Delhi. I am not aware of any service like the fantastic Scale Reale tour guides in Rome; when someone opens one in India I will be the first to sign up. However, they are helpful in buying admission tickets, steering you around massive sights and in keeping OTHER guides away from you. I have always gone through my hotel to get a day guide, so I don't have any other suggestions for you, perhaps others do. I am planning another trip to Jodhpur soon and if I find a good guide I will repost, I am working through some sources at the American Women's Association here. (I live in Hong Kong.) Rates for guides are not expensive, a bit more than the driver. I consider it money well spent. You do not need a guide to the Taj Mahal. It helps in any event to have done some reading on the history and background of the sights you are going to see.

6. For your itinerary, I completely agree with the others above that you have far too much planned in too short a time. You need to drop one place. Jodhpur or Ranthambore are the most logical, they are totally different so it is up to you as to which you want to do. Wildlife or an interesting old city. I assume you want to see the Taj Mahal so Agra would stay in. You could skip Delhi and do the rest, but I personally find Delhi very interesting, and it has the best museums and restaurants and probably the best shopping of the places on your list. The drive between Agra and Ranthambore, if that is in your mind, is horrible, unless the road ahs improved; it is a dirt track in many places and full of potholes. It will take 4-6 hours, not a fun journey IMO. If there is any way to avoid it, I would. However, it is hard to avoid if you aren't including Jaipur in your itinerary. Think about what you want to drop, and then come back and perhaps there would be some way of working out the drive/train schedule better.

What time do your international flights arrive and depart from Delhi. That might help with planning as well.