Jules - We completely agree with your desire to 'stop and smell the roses' - we only wish we'd had more time, but with only 21 days and knowing this would be our only shot at this part of India, we did rush a bit, though even in hingsight we can think of nothing we would have added. We loved Jaisalmer - our 2nd favorite town (right behind Bundi, which was the most delightful and friendly we found), and agree that wandering the streets of the town and fort, esp with the incredible sandstone carvings on the havelis, is great. Had not realized you had been to Khaj - we would never return, either - frankly we enjoyed Ranakpur much more, though it is tiny compared to Khaj. So, enjoy your planning and your trip - and good luck on the driving - we were very fortunate with our driver, though at times wished for a larger car (about the size of a tank would have been about right!).

Thanks for your follow up Halemu. I know what you mean by wanting something the size & substance of a tank to travel around in!! Who did you organize your driver through? Thanks again. J

Jules - Sorry for the delay - have been gone a few days. We used Bestway Tours out of Vancouver for travel arrangements - did an excellent job at reasonable cost, but do not recommend them for just a car and driver, as they use a middlemad and communication may be a problem. Suggest you look into Castle and King as well as others and compare - have heard good things about them.

I am enjoying this post very much, I too am travelling in Jan/Feb 2010 to all the places that you are going to Jules . Thanks for posting all this good info everyone.

Regarding a car and driver, as I mentioned in my trip report, we used Ramesh Meena for about 3 weeks in Rajasthan and U.P. -- he used to work with Rajasthan 4 Wheel drive, but is working on building his own company now. I know he has a new Bolero (land rover-type vechicle) and a Toyota Inova van, which is the same type of vehicle we used on our trip -- large and very comfortable. We found Ramesh to be a very skilled and safe driver as well as polite, friendly and professional -- no "come see my cousin's shop." He's very knowledgeable as well. You can reach him at [email protected]. The contact numbers I have for him are +91 9829807074 or +91 9252465949 or +91 9602271639. Bonnieheather from this board just did a trip with him, so I am hoping she had a good experience and will post her comments. Others on this board have had a good experience with Kumar Taxi, though we did not -- and we also had a bad experience with State Express out of Delhi.

I am at that "it is so hard to compare apples to apples" phase of our planning!! I have been talking with 2 different companies about organizing a car & driver & some hotels. They have each come back with quotes for the same itinerary but boy are those quotes different!! I guess now what I will do is try to ask certain questions & get some revisions done to see if I can really figure out what the difference in the quotes is!!! One has given me a "package" price which I includes some things that we don't want but if they basically cost very little we don't care about leaving them in there. So I am going to ask the "package" people if they will break some costs down for me & ask the other folks for some changes that we would like. Is there anything else I can ask that will help me out a bit?All part of the planning fun really!!!

Some things to check: type of car and who pays for gas, tolls, etc; whether a guide and driver or just a driver are included; who pays admission fees to monuments, etc.; are any meals included.

Thanks Marija they are some of the things I have already been asking & am seeing differences there for sure.J