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My wife and I just returned from a 25 day trip to India. We had been to India three years ago and traveled through Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Jodphur, Jaisalmer, Pushkar, and Varanasi with a small photogroup and really enjoyed it. We did most of the initial planning and asked Ajay Sharma of Yatrik to put the whole itinerary together.
We began our trip in Mumbai and continued to Ahmedabad, Dungarpur, Udaipur, Jaipur, Pushkar, Varanasi and left via Delhi.

First of all, I want to thank all the contributors to the Fodors Forum in helping to plan our second trip to India. As a sidenote, It was interesting to learn that significantly more people (not only tour agents and hotels but also fellow travelers) who we met were much more aware of TA than Fodors in India.

So the following is a brief summary of our trip. MW and I are amateur photographers which was one of the main reasons we decided to revisit India especially Pushkar and Varanasi.

As mentioned above, we used Ajay Sharma from Yatrik and asked him for his thoughts/ideas concerning various portions of our trips, to confirm and provide input concerning our hotel choices, provide a driver/guide to meet us at each airport/town and to give us a tour for only one day at each location. We wanted to remain free the remainder of the days at each location. The only portions of the trip that Ajay didn't arrange was the Varanasi segment of our trip and the choice of Camp Bliss at the Pushkar Fair. Ajay did a tremendous job of keeping track of us and making sure everything went perfectly as arranged. Having the use of a free cellphone that Ajay provided was also a valuable asset. Ajay has an assistant named Bala who also was very helpful. However, more on Ajay later.

We flew out of Dulles airport on the evening of Oct. 30th, had a brief stop in Zurich and then took a connecting flight via Swiss Air to India landing in Mumbai the following night.

Mumbai was worth the three day visit IMO. It gave us some time to reorient ourselves time-wise, and to see some interesting sights. We stayed at the Ascot Hotel in Colaba for three days which was nice and which I would recommend. However, the breakfast was a little meager to say the least!! Regardless, the hotel was clean and the people were very nice which was true for all the people we happened to meet in India. We visited the Taj hotel, Gateway of India, the Dhobi Ghat (where much of the commercial laundry is done), the Crawford Market, Victoria train station, two fishing villages and a "slum" neighborhood. We also visited a fishing dock called Sassoon Dock which was absolutely wonderful in terms of the old, colorful fishing boats and individuals working the docks except for not being able to take pictures!! President Obama came a day after we left and the whole area around the Taj hotel was "closed down" which did not go over too well with those celebrating the beginning of Diwali in Colaba. We ate at a restaurant called the Delhi Darbar which was a few blocks up from our hotel. It was both reasonable and had decent food. MW and I are not "foodies" in general and are not quite into Indian food so the Delhi Darbar offered enough variations that allowed us to eat there every night without a problem.

We then flew Jet Air from Mumbai to Ahmedabad. Good flight and nice airports in both cities to pass through. In Ahmedabad, we stayed at the House of MG (thanks Dogster for the recommendation) for three days. We had a nice room (Room #3), good food and again, friendly staff. We also had an excellent guide provided to us by Ajay named Nirav Panchai. Nirav was very informative, congenial and gave us an excellent tour of a few beautiful stepwells outside of Ahmedabad, the Modhera Sun temple and Patan village. Ahmedabad was a very busy city and very difficult to negotiate on your own. Of all the cities we had visited in India, it seemed like this city was the worse as far as traffic is concerned. So if one is not interested in the above sights, I probably would be hesitant to recommend Ahmedabad as a stop along the way!!

We then were driven to our next city which was Dungarpur and stayed for three days. While Ahmedabad was somewhat of a disappointment (except for the hotel), Dungarpur was a pleasant surprise. We stayed at the Udai Bilas Palace which was wonderful. The food was decent, the room (suite) was great, and the ten minute walk into town was convenient. The town was nice to walk through and we got some nice photos there. The people were friendly but, as expected, not accustomed to tourist especially those carrying cameras with big lenses. But the combination of the Udai Bilas Palace and the nice town and people made this part of our trip one of the nicest and relaxing stops we had during this trip.

We were then driven to Udaipur after our stay in Dungarpur. This was approximately a 2-3 hour drive. We stayed at the Jagat Niwas Palace, room 109, which had a window seat overlooking the lake. The room was very nice and the food was the best we had on our trip. Let me repeat, the food was the best we had on our entire trip!!! Anyhow, since Diwali was in full swing, we found walking the streets in Udaipur very difficult. So Ajay arranged a tour for Kumbalgarh and Ranakpur for one of our three days in Udaipur. Interestingly, our tour guide was a Mangu Kan who turned out to be a photographer himself and made the tour extremely rewarding. From previous threads on Fodors, we were aware of people mentioning that while traveling to the above sights, they passed some wonderful villages and wished they had more time to stop along the way. Well, with Mingu, he knew already (via Ajay) that is what we wanted and we must have stopped at 5-6 villages along the way to the Fort. Each village was interesting but by the time we got to the fort, it began to rain. When we told Mingu that we should forego the Fort visit, he thought he would get in trouble by not getting us to visit the fort, but with camera equipment in tow, we convinced him to move on and hope the rain would stop before we visited the Ranakpur temple. Well, the rain did stop, the sun came out and we visited a few more interesting villages on our way to Ranakpur. However, when we got to Ranakpur, all h_ll broke loose and we got drenched as we walked from the parking lot to the temple. The temple was dark, it was packed with people hoping to "wait" out the rain and did not leave us with much of an impression mostly due to the conditions we were faced with. And again, with Diwali still in full swing, it was already overcrowded. We hired Mangu for part of the next day to visit some more villages that tourist don't get a chance to see and again Mangu did a great job. On the final morning in Udaipur, MF and I went early to the Spice and Vegetable market and were able to get some nice photos of the people in the market before the fumes overwhelmed us. But IMO, the early morning visit to the market is worth doing.

After Udaipur, we were driven to Pushkar for the Camel Fair. We decided to stay at Camp Bliss. As mentioned above, this was our choice!!! We stayed at another tent camp three years before and while crowded, it was very well run. However, we decided after reading the Camp Bliss website that we would try and get a place to stay which was a little less hectic. From their website, it was suppose to be a 10 tent camp. When we got there, it was now a 20 tent camp. I'm am not sure when they increased the number of tents but we were not made aware of this beforehand. I am not sure it would have changed our plans but it was obvious from the beginning that they were understaffed and not prepared for the "doubling" of their camp size. And while Indian Moments "may" do the rest of their business well, Camp Bliss was surely not "blissful"!!! We only had one hour of hot water one night of the four nights we stayed there that allowed both my WF and I one "quick" shower. We complained everyday but to no avail. One night, a young staff person came by, tried both the cold and hot water faucets, got cold water from both and said he would be right back. Never came back!!! It seems no one cared except for an individual named Vijay who was outstanding but his efforts couldn't overcome the deficiencies in the camp. After paying $300/night, having hot water for one hour out of a potential 16 hours, having to keep on asking to have our room cleaned, having our tent completely soaked down with rain, our toilet blowing water out of the back, etc. we decided that something was really amissed here. During our last few nights, we slept in a damp, cold tent with the rugs both in the main room and bathroom completely "soaked" down with water. There were people who walked out of camp and moved elsewhere, there were people who while checking in and seeing the condition of the tents immediately checked out and other people who complained about not having the room cleaned, hot water availability, late food servings, etc. All in all, I would not recommend Camp Bliss to anyone unless Indian Moments recognizes where their "failings" were and do something to correct them before next year. We talked to some friends we knew from other camps who had NONE of the above problems even with the rain!!! I was very surprised at the inability of the managers of the Camp Bliss to understand and try to correct the above problems in our four days there despite repeated conversations with staff there. By the way, the Pushkar Camel Fair was as great as it was last time!!!

Then we drove to Jaipur to catch a flight to Varanasi via Delhi early the next morning. We stayed the one night at JASVILAS owned and run by Mahendra Singh. A wonderful individual and we wished we had more time to spend there. The facility, people and food were all top notch. Would not hesitate to stay their again and would strongly recommend it.

The next morning we got to the Jaipur airport in enough time to catch a 6:30AM flight to Delhi with a connecting flight to Varanasi. This was our first experience with Kingfisher. Well, we sat on the runway for 2 1/2 hours in Jaipur and then were told to get off since the fog in Delhi did not lift yet. They made us all go through security again and get back on a different plane that finally left Jaipur about 10AM. We therefore missed our connecting flight (9:30AM) out of Delhi. We tried to get another flight if available for later that day. Well, dealing with the Kingfisher supervisors was something else. It took over an hour standing in front of one of them and asking nicely for some help to rearrange our flight. When she (supervisor) finally sat down, she happened to look at my face for a brief second and I said "you do a great job". She was constantly being hassled and I think needed someone to make a nice comment to her. Anyhow, I got a huge smile and finally some help!! The only other flight to Varanasi that day was via Spice Jet and we would have to fly standby later that afternoon. With Ajay's help and advice, we decided to take the next day Kingfisher morning flight to Varanasi and to stay overnight in Delhi. Ajay was able to get us a room at the Grand Hotel which was close to the airport and for a good price due to Ajays discount. This was a very nice "rest" stop. The room and food was great. And hot water when needed!!

Anyhow, when we got to the airport the next morning at 8AM for our 9:30 flight, we thought we had enough time. As it turned out, the lineup for checking was extremely long and when we finally reached the counter to get our tickets, the agent said there was only one seat available for the flight in a totally "uncaring" manner. This was the only time on the trip I was ready to "let loose"!! Just then, one of the other supervisors from the previous day came by and recognized us. She asked what was the problem, I told her and she got us the extra seat. That took up to 1/2 hour just to rectify the situation and then the walk to the gates at the new Terminal 3 was much longer than expected. Needless to say, we just made that flight. As a warning, when flying in and out of Delhi, while the new terminal is very nice, be prepared to allow more than 1and 1/2 hours to make any domestic flights from terminal #3. Also, both domestic and international flights are now handled at Terminal #3. On departure for our flight home, we got to terminal 3 three and 1/2 hours before leaving the country and that was just about right. Also, there is no departure tax as in the past since it is now included in your ticket price. Therefore, in my experience, Kingfisher seemed totally overwhelmed/slightly disorganized in all our interactions with them. Jet Air was good in all respects for the one flight ->Mumbai to Ahmedabad.

Our final stop was in Varanasi. Again, this was the part of the trip that I arranged and not Ajay. We stayed at the Palace on the River (Rashmi Guest House) as we did three years ago for 3 nights. We were picked up from the airport on time and driven to the dropoff spot for the guest house by a "fearless" young driver. There was NO car, moped, cow or whatever he would not pass!! After getting there, I had a nice conversation with Ramesh, the manager, and, in a nice way, told him about the driver and he said that he would take care of it. Anyhow, I arranged for us to stay in Room #302 and it was much better than our previous room #202 three years prior. Met (or should I say "re-met) two nice English couples who were with us at Camp Bliss (and who had similar complaints with the Camp and the Guest House driver!!!) and a wonderful Australian couple. We ate at the Dolphin restaurant every meal and had a good overall stay. Varanasi was packed celebrating the climax of the Dev Deepawali festivities for the days we were there. Took both the early morning and late evening boat rides, walked some of the labyrinths in the old town and attended the evening celebrations at the main Ghat. All in all, for those individuals interested in doing photography, it is hard to beat the location and the Dolphin restaurant. This has been discussed on Fodors previously. Finally, we were driven to the Varanasi airport for our flight back to Delhi. Again our "fearless" young driver was again "fearless". Ramesh, if he did talk to him, did not change anything. So BEWARE!! Also on departure, there is a new departure tax of 150 rupees/individual at the new Varanasi airport.

We stayed our last day and night at the BNineteen B&B in Delhi. The location was good, the people were again wonderful, especially Aditi, and the room comfortable. Met Ajay before our departure and reviewed the trip with him and thanked him for making our trip to India "almost" trouble free.

There are a lot of threads concerning travel agents in India and the pros and cons of each, but in IMO experience it would be hard to do much better than working with Ajay from Yatrik. He was always available, concerned about our welfare, arranged the best guides and drivers (except the Varanasi segment and Camp Bliss tent camp as mentioned above) and gave valuable advice whenever things didn't go quite as expected i.e. missed flight to Varanasi.
So we arrived home on Thanksgiving and were glad to arrive home safe and sound. Would we do India again? Probably not since there are still other places to see and things to do and only so much time. But I sincerely want to thank all those individuals on Fodors who continually provide valuable insights and information to make all of our trips to whatever country so much easier in all respects.