Reservation question for India
 

Since we are going to India on Sept 14-Oct 10, which is still off season, do we need to make our hotel, train and flight reservations in advance or should we wait till we get to India (with the exception of our first nights in Delhi)? In the past when traveling to Europe and especially when we had the flexibility of having our own car, we would reserve rooms as we go, but I'm not sure if that is advisable in India. My DH would like to wait till we get there, although I would like to be assured of staying in certain hotels. Opinions?

India is not very much like Europe, dgunbug. This is your first time there, right? I think it might help if you gave us some idea of your itinerary - and what kind of 'certain' hotels you were thinking of.

India can be done on the fly. I do it all the time - but that's only because all my best laid plans keep falling in a heap. It's just really, really confusing and can be extremely time-consuming to do it that way. When things go wrong - and they will, getting yourself out of trouble can be stressful to the max.

You'll need to travel with a mobile phone, an attitude and a laptop to do it. And courage.

But, as its time for your lunatic husband to learn a few lessons - I think it's best if you make it up as you go.

Just make sure HE is responsible for making the ongoing arrangements. That'll keep him out of your hair for most of the day while you go sightseeing.

I'm not nearly as experienced an India traveler as dogster is, but I concur with his assessment of your husband. As I remember, you husband wanted to self-drive in India. And now he wants to make reservations as you go along. He's going to have a serious case of culture shock.

We want a full and detailed report. It can serve as a cautionary tale for others.

dgunbug...India has a population of over 1 billion people, many of whom travel by train on a daily basis, fly, take vacations, rent hotels just like tourists, and so on. There is no "off season" in India like you might find in other countries. It's a highly populated country that uses all the same resources that tourists use.

Indian travel is very different from Europe. If you go to India without an itinerary, without travel and hotel reservations, you might not get far from Delhi. Further, as tourists it is SAFER to have pre-booked, confirmed hotels so that you are staying in clean accommodations in a safe area.

Also, let your husband know that traveling by road after dark is to be avoided!

I did India on the fly my first trip, but that was nine years ago, right after 9-11, and hardly anyone else was traveling. My current trip (I'm posting from India), I found it difficult to get reservations - admittedly for December and early January, but many, many people, mostly Indians, are traveling. I did find that things freed up a bit closer to my dates - I couldn't find a single hotel room in Trichy when I tried in August, but I found a quite nice one booking a month ago - the hotels may not release rooms to the booking sites too far ahead.

no way... book now if you can....have you looked at the prices, they are shocking??

i have booked quite a few hotels for my november trip already... many do not have prices yet... the hotels play games with dates and availability...

i would highly suggest that you have an indian helper... i am going to use castle and king again... they are reasonable and they helped me a great deal the last time...

transportation issues are another thing....the train stations and airports are a mad house...

it ain't europe that is for sure.... book ahead ... dump the husband if you have to...

The trick with train stations is to look for the AC or air-cooled waiting room. Some are better than others, but they'll all get you off the sometimes filthy platforms and out of the crowds (always crowds, not to mention people sleeping on the ground). Hire a porter if you have much luggage (better to travel light) and/or want help finding your carriage (trains are VERY long).

Great advice from everyone.
I am sure you want to enjoy India...the culture, history, monuments, cultural "shock", food and the great variety and diversity that is India.

To do all of the above you will need all of your time while you are there. Plan your itinerary, make all of your travel reservations...flights, car with driver, and hotel reservations ahead so you can ENJOY the intensity of India when you are there. Believe me you will still have your hands full.

You want to leave free time to spend on enjoying highlights of travel and not on figuring out where you are going to stay for the night. As everyone has already pointed out, India has a lot of people travelling, and resources are stretched to the limit. BTW, India is 1/3 the size of USA, with 4 times the population....so that makes it about 12 times as crowded as anything you are used to.

Word to the wise....reserve the hotels and flights/ train etc ahead of time. Especially if you want to enjoy some of the heritage hotels.

In 2 weeks I will also be in India and , like Bob, I also booked everything with Castle and King. I chose the whole itinerary and hotels and booked everything with them in April last year.

I was in the South of India twice already and you can't compare India with Europe!! Make all your arrangments before you leave.

Point well taken...now I have to convince the "lunatic husband"!

Those numbers sure put things in perspective magical. Didn't realize how the size of India (geographic and population) compared to the US.

I just looked it up:

US Population (2008): 303,825,000
India : 1,147,996,000


US Land Area (sq km): 9,629,091
India : 3,287,590


US Population Density/sq km: 31.6
India : 349.2


I thought these numbers explained the reason India can feel so chaotic. Then I started looking for countries with the highest population densities, and India isn't even in the top 10 or 20!

We booked all our own reservations last year without the help of a travel agent. You can do it, too, if you are not afraid. But do it well before your departure. One doesn't wander around India looking for cozy home stays as one would do in a charming European village.

Good luck -- and I hope you stay married!

There's a lot of agricultural area in India that's mostly villages - I just drove through a chunk of it in Karnataka, lol. The population concentration is in the cities, which is where most tourists go.

Dgunbug,

Agree with all above who say yourself possible headaches, and book in advance.

Advantage to having a travel agent do it, is that the good ones will be a great backup. You or your driver can call a 24 hour help number and/or local assistance, if there are any glitches--you have someone who can go to bat for you over things such as if you are given a room that is different from the one you have requested, poor location in hotel, or, etc.

If you book it yourself-well, you are just two people passing through The hotels or homestays will be less hesitant to have something go wrong if you are represented by a known travel agency. After all, that is their bread and butter.

If you book via travel company, upon check in, you will be asked for the voucher. These will be sent to you in advance, or given to you on arrival, by the agency. This is how the hotel get paid.

YOu can STILL chose your hotel, but let the agent book it for you. Incidentally, when researching the prices online, i have found that the ones via the planner agency i used got better prices than those shown on-line.

Re; your brave, adventurous, but somewhat naive hubby...one of our drivers told a funny story about one of his European passengers who INSISTED on trying to drive in Chennai. Supecting the outcome, the driver relented. They switched places, on a relatively quiet street. After no more than 45 seconds on the road, the tourist was terrified, screaming "YOU take the wheel!"

Our driver, Ramesh Meena, took a European man to Pushkar a couple of years ago for the camel fair. The European bought a camel, spent two weeks learning how to "drive" the camel, then "drove" the camel to Jaisalmer, then back to Delhi, where he sold it and went back to Europe. Quite an adventure!

As far as travel agencies, I found a rather limited list of hotels and prices and they fairly ho-hum. Everyone has their own comfort level. I also had several agencies tell me I wouldn't be "comfortable" unless I stayed in a five-star hotel. We were always comfortable, but not always in luxury.

Thank you all for your most amusing comments.

Indianapearl - I didn't quite understand what you meant when you said,

"I found a rather limited list of hotels and prices and they fairly ho-hum. Everyone has their own comfort level. I also had several agencies tell me I wouldn't be "comfortable" unless I stayed in a five-star hotel. We were always comfortable, but not always in luxury."

We do not want to pay for the five-star hotel prices, but prefer to keep our budget under $100 per night. We are not that hung up on hotels, as we rarely spend any time in them, but do want a clean, comfortable room in a good location. Were the agencies you worked with able to find such accommodations for you, or were they mainly steering you toward the five star accommodations? We are happy to do our own research and price hotels on our own, but would certainly use an agent if the price was equal or less, or if they could steer us to a better accommodation for an equivalent price.

Our preliminary itinerary is as follows:

Day 1 - Arrive Delhi at night and sleep
Day 2 - Tour Delhi
Day 3 - Delhi
Day 4 - Delhi
Day 5 - Delhi to Jaipur (train leaves 6:05, arriving 10:50)
Day 6 - Jaipur - tour - overnight train to Udiapur
Day 7 - Udiapur
Day 8 - Udiapur
Day 9 - Udiapur
Day 10- Car hire to Jodhpur
Day 11- Jodhpur
Day 12- Jodhpur
Day 13- Car to Jaisalmer
Day 14- Jaisalmer
Day 15- Jodphur - Delhi - Varanasi (plane, train???)
Day 16- Varanasi
Day 17- Varanasi
Day 18- Varanasi to Khajuraho (plane or car)?
Day 19- Khajuraho
Day 20- Khajuraho to Orcha - car
Day 21- Orcha
Day 22- Train to Agra - sunset
Day 23- Agra
Day 24
Day 25
Day 26
Day 27 - departing from Delhi just after midnight

We are not sure what to do with the extra three days. We would like to get to Amristar, but not sure if we should take the time and effort to get there. Should we extend our time in any particular place or shorten our time there? Is there somewhere else we should consider going? Is there a better route, method of transport, etc? Any thoughts?

Your comments are all greatly appreciated.

I would give less time to Delhi, which I found disappointing (see http://wilhelmswords.com/asia2001/index.html ) and Khajaraho certainly doesn't need three nights. I would seriously consider taking the train to Jaisalmer.

I really liked Amritsar, even without doing the border crossing with Pakistan. I got there by train from Varanasi, but it was a long ride. There are night trains to/from Delhi. If you go to Amritsar you might consider somewhere like Shimla or Dharamsala.

I've never used a TA for hotels in India, unless you count outfits like agoda and travelguru. Nor do I stay in expensive places! See also http://www.fodors.com/community/asia...inger-keys.cfm

The first thing to do is read everybody else's trip reports.

You are planning a virtual carbon-copy of what everyone does - nothing wrong with that - so use their experiences. Why re-invent the wheel? This exact itinerary has been discussed and reported on at length, so go read. You know how to find 'em, just look up top left 'go to country', click India. There's your trip - the good, the bad and the ugly. Try to ignore <i>'gee, it's my first time in India and it's all wonderful'</i> gush. Package tour reports are fairly useless, too.

travelaw's trip report is a very good start for the kind of trip you want.

Of course, all you're doing is going to all the obvious places. Why? Because that's all you know. Which means you'll stay on the Rajasthan tourist track the entire way - where the prices are high and the touts ferocious. You'll end up thinking that India is just one big shop surrounded by hustlers.

In between the obvious and the obvious lies the magic.

No, I'm not going to tell you where it is.

You will want your hotel on the night of Day 4 to be within 3 to 5 miles of the train station in order to make it in time. Delhi has horrific rush hour traffic.

It's too far to drive from Delhi to Varanasi.

Also, if you have time after Agra, you can go to Lucknow. It is the capitol of Uttar Pradesh and has a lot of British and Moghul architecture. Finally India has started to wake up and is implementing plans to protect historic buildings. You could probably spend just one day there and visit Bara Imambara. It's a building that was commissioned by the then moghul ruler (called a Niwab). He didn't need the building, but had it constructed so the poor had work for which he paid them.

It also has a labyrinth of hallways (you HAVE to have a guide because you can and will get lost). It also has an underground tunnel from Lucknow to Agra, which the British destroyed - supposedly. You can get a nice view of the city from the roof of the building.

Guides are available on the premises. You just pick one that speaks English.

From Lucknow (called Lucknow Airport or Amausi Airport. Airport code is LKO) you can fly back to Delhi in 55 minutes as Lucknow has a nice airport with frequent daily flights to Delhi and other cities. It's too long to take a car/van.

If the car ride will be more than 2 hours (by Indian driving standards) then take a train. Indian roads are exhausting, although it might be an education for you husband to go by road and you take the train. You can compare notes when you meet at your next destination!

On another note: Bring socks in your purse so that anytime you have to remove your shoes, you can slip on the socks (that's totally acceptable in temples, etc. to wear socks).

Also the Taj Mahal is closed Fridays.