jackdonoghue45

We just booked a Feb 18, 2013 departure of Overseas Adventure's Heart of India trip with a post-trip extension to Kathmandu. It is a small group tour with 16 travelers maximum. I have started a blog to do our planning. collecting links to government and commercial sources, as well as travelers comments on various locations and attractions and documenting the planning process. I will also use this blog to report on the trip. The blog is http://jackthetravelingman-india.blogspot.com. I would welcome comments from those that have done this or a similar itinerary. Although it is tour, we have found that researching the trip much as we would independent travel helps us to get much more out of it, and to make better use of free time,

The trip is
Delhi - 3 nights
Jaipur - 3 nights
Rathambore 2 nights
an OAT camp at a local village 1 night
Agra 2 nights
Khajuraho 1 night,
Varnasi 2 nights
Kathmandu 4 nights
Delhi 1 night

What are musts dos for this itinerary.

Thanks in advance,
Jack

Craig

The must-dos as far as tourist sites go are all included in your OAT itinerary. It is nice to see that there is some downtime that you could potentially use for shopping or exploring on your own. Since we don't know what your interests are, it is difficult to make recommendations beyond that. Personally, I would never want to do a large tour such as what OAT offers. It is so easy to book a tour just for yourselves, if you are looking for "better use of free time". So much of visiting India is not what is on the standard tourist agenda but what you see when traveling from place to place, interacting with the people, etc. I think OAT is better than most at helping you experience some off-the-beaten track things, but still you are with up to 15 others so you can't just ask your bus driver to stop because there is a photo opportunity that has captured your imagination...

kp

We're taking the Heart of India trip later this year. We added the pre-trip to Bhutan not doing a post-trip.

jackdonoghue45

The Bhutan pre-trip sounds outstanding, but a major highlight of it, the Tiger's Nest Monastery sounds too strenuous for us, and the extension is quite expensive.

Elainee

I took a horse up the mountain to the steps to the Tiger's Nest. It was well worthwhile even tho I did not do the final "million" steps down, up, down, up to get to the actual Tiger's Nest. I was parallel to it and close enough for me.

rhkkmk

you will be hitting the major sites in the north for sure!

get out on your own.. hire a pedi-cab or similar to see the towns, like varanasi.. do both morning and evening boat rides for sure...

observe all the strict food rules in india....

kathmandu is dusty, but the historic old town area are fantastic...

rhkkmk

i just reviewed your trip. it looks fantastic, but of course it should for over $12,000....

don't know where you are from in the NE, but you might like to join us for the boston GTG in october as many of the attendees have been to india more than once including myself. click on my name for my trip repof you are interested...

for a fab, and reasonable meal in jaipur, make a res at Niros...english menu and everything is delicious.

jackdonoghue45

I have FINALLY completed the first draft of my blog/trip report on this wonderful trip. It was beyond my expectations and expensive, but worth every rupee of it. The blog is http://jackthetravelingman-india.blogspot.com. It is the first draft, but it is essentially complete, with just proof reading, correction of typos and filling in some gaps that I find,left to do. There are many photos and videos, and I think that I have done a reasonable job of capturing the feeling of the trip. We had an extremely compatible group of 16 for the main trip and 5 for the extension to Kathmandu. If anyone has any questions, I would be glad to answer them. I should be done with the clean up in a couple of weeks.

Elainee

So interesting! Love the detail and the photos. Seems that you had good group and guide. Next step is to make photo book. I used MyPublisher but Shutterfly, Apple, and Blurb are also good. I think everyone in your group would like a copy.