Just got back from a tour of India, AMA

[samarrange]

There's an AMA section of the site, but I thought this was a better place.

We (DP and I, mid-60s) have just had the most fabulous holiday of our lives in India. I'm writing this at the gate at Mumbai airport.

We had 13 nights: 5 in the Delhi/Agra/Jaipur "golden triangle", 4 in Kerala, 3 in Goa, and one (but with nearly two days to visit) in Mumbai. It was a completely custom tour put together by an Indian travel agency. We like to see lots of different things and they obliged. We could have gone slower, done half-day instead of full-day tours, etc.

We stayed in 5-star hotels (porters, swimming pool, concierge, room service, etc — some international brands like Radisson and Grand Mercure, others Indian but every bit as good), except for 2 nights in a lodge-type place in the hills of Kerala which was just as nice, and a night on a houseboat which was not quite 5* but still amazing.

We asked the agency to book us accommodation on a B&B basis as we wanted to be able to go out sometimes to find our own dinners, and also because half/full board would have meant buffets, and we don't eat enough to do them justice. But all of the monumemt entrances, guides, and drivers were included in the price, as were the internal flights that we took (we have some CO2 penance to do).

The price, excluding air tickets to and from India which we booked ourselves, was £1,900 per person for two people. We only had to pay for lunch, dinner, drinks, and tips. Had we chosen 4* hotels (typically smaller, sometimes more like B&B, but we looked at the reviews for a couple of places and they seemed fine) it would have been £1,550 per person. We were actually a bit skeptical when we got the offer because we had expected it to be quite a lot more.

India exceeded our expectations in every way, and the logistics of our trip were simply stunningly well done. I won't mention the name of the company here but I can make it available via DM. Otherwise, if you've always been curious about the idea of going but a little bit reticent (like we were, until a family member went — and spent almost twice what we did, because they used a London-based travel agent), then feel free to ask me anything. 🙏

It sounds like you had an amazing trip OP.

we may have the opportunity to move to India for a year with DHs work, so I've loved hearing all of your details.

Very interesting OP. India is on our list as well as Vietnam/Cambodia, and I do wonder about using local travel agents instead of uk ones but I worry about being covered if anything goes wrong- I can see the one you've recommended is very well established though.

Yes, you can avoid spicy food altogether. In the 5* hotels there are (quite good) croissants, cheese, fruit, an egg station, and sometimes even proper (pork) bacon — Hindus mostly don't eat pork, but it's not illegal (unlike beef, which is unavailable outside of Kerala and Goa). Get a puri (thin fried bread) anyway with your scrambled eggs.

At lunchtime your driver will generally take you to a restaurant that caters for tourists, sometimes almost exclusively foreigners but often with Indians too (there are a lot of domestic tourists).They get a free meal in the back room for taking you there, of course, but in any case you're not paying a lot. If you are travelling with full board then you will get the buffet, which you can also choose if you don't have anything included. Rs900 (£9) seemed to be a typical price. We just asked to go a la carte. One soup, one bread, and one biryani would do us for lunch, total about Rs800 for the two of us. We mostly ate Indian but there is usually a "continental" section of the menu, with pasta, maybe pizza, grilled chicken, etc.

If you are in a big city there will be a western-style mall (like Westfield or Bluewater). On the top floor there will be a good court with McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, etc. But here too the food will have been adapted to local tastes, so quite often it will have some spiciness to it. The other outlets in the food court might have better spice-free choices. One of the best meals we had was a £4 veggie pizza 100 metres from our hotel in Delhi, with a beautiful base (all of the bread is so good) and just tomatoes, onions, peppers, and mushrooms on top. The guy didn't sell soft drinks, but since we were eating in he went next door to a little grocery store and bought a 750ml of Coke for us for 40p.

In Kerala and Goa you can find plenty of grilled fish, and you can always say "not spicy" when ordering.

(Thinking back, I didn't see any jacket potatoes, though.)

I have had worldwide travel insurance, including repatriation, for many years through a credit card. Before this trip I dug out the conditions and made sure our adult DC had the number to call in case our car went off the road and we both ended up in hospital or something. But after about two days we realised that were anything to go wrong, the local agency would have had absolutely everything covered.

The biggest logistical issue was on day 1, where we went to the wrong hotel because there were two from the same chain within 300m of each other and we were not in the one that our agency usually uses, because it was fully booked for a wedding (we saw several huge wedding parties). This cost us about 20 minutes. Nothing else went other than perfectly.

As far as I can tell, the only thing you get on top if you go through a UK company is the ATOL guarantee. Whether it's worth paying 60% or more on top for that is up to you — in any case the company that's most likely to go out of business, and thus make you need ATOL guarantee, is probably the UK one. 🤪

Did you do a boat tour in Alleppey? If you did, was it worth it?

How hot was it in Kerala? Also, I've heard that Kerala is safer than other parts. Did you feel that was the case?

Yes, and it was absolutely worth it. The accommodation is a bit below 5* but we slept really well. You're moored up from 7pm, but there is a big battery that runs the air conditioner in the bedroom. A couple of things to know:

• You are on the boat overnight with a cook and a driver. Meals are included. The food will be Indian, apart from breakfast. We loved that, but if you want egg and chips then you would probably have to negotiate that when you book (I don't know if it's even possible, but the point is that you eat whatever the cook has brought on board, and by default, at least, that's going to be somewhat spicy.) Attached is a picture of our lunch and dinner.
• The only drink on board is bottled water, because they have no way to take money off you for anything else. So you have to take your own drinks, whether that's Fanta or champagne. We bought a couple of big bottles of beer at the check-in terminal and the cook kept them in the fridge for us.

It was around 35° in Kerala, Goa, and Mumbai, versus 23–25° or so in Delhi/Agra/Jaipur. The humidity was quite high as well. Not unbearable, but you will want to be wearing thin cotton tops and trousers (I would not recommend shorts less than 3/4 length for women, or shorts above the knee for either sex, not so much for any pushback that you will get as for just feeling respectful and appropriate).

We didn't feel unsafe anywhere, but as I replied to a PP, we went around as a couple. Kerala might have slightly less unfavourable statistics for assaults on women, as the state government is dominated by the Communist party (seriously, there were hammer and sickle flags everywhere) and the human development index is higher there than anywhere else, but those sort of things don't generally translate into individual experiences on the ground.

On our first day in Delhi we asked the guide if it was safe to walk around the shops and eateries near our hotel and he said "Sure, but people might look at you wondering what you're doing here". And that was what transpired — little kids are particularly fascinated by white people. But nobody hassled us unless they were legitimately selling something, and even then if you give them the grey rock treatment they go and look for a more likely target pretty quickly.

One anecdote: On our last day in Mumbai we were waiting for an Uber pickup outside a McDonald's and two cheeky 8yo boys came up and made the "feed me" sign (fingers going to mouth), as if they were starving. They were holding unopened packets of Lay's (i.e., western brand) crisps and it quickly became clear that their "starvation" took the form of wanting 100 rupees (£1) to buy a McFlurry. I couldn't help laughing, which of course was not grey rock, but then a street vendor nearby told them to bugger off as they were being bad for his business.

Can I ask what you did about laundry OP, with it being a multi-base type holiday?

I'm going next year and wondered if it's necessary to take clothes to last the whole trip or if there's any way to get them laundered?

All of the hotels offered laundry service, at a price. Not a very expensive price, as these things go, but still we'd rather spend our money on other things — plus you would need a place where you're staying 2 nights and to drop the laundry off on the day when you check in. Our stays were 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1 nights — we never even half unpacked our cases. We ended up by handwashing some underwear and a couple of t-shirts, and dried them by jamming coathangers into the air conditioning outlets in the room.

Really all you need to take to wear is a a few cotton tops, mostly long-sleeved, and trousers. Or a light dress, but be careful in case it is a bit see-through in strong sunlight. We didn't need more for the evenings even in Delhi and certainly not on the coast. We set off with 12kg each (the internal flights were limited to 15kg with the tickets that we had bought) and returned with 17kg each as we did some clothes shopping in Mumbai on our final afternoon.

Very many thanks, @samarrange, that's really helpful

To the person enquiring about food, you can buy Italian food everywhere, it's very much in vogue. Chicken burgers are widely sold but you won't find beef in many places. Northern Indian food (which makes up most of the food) is not as spicy and all restaurants will make food milder, my complaint is it was too mild for my taste, they seemed to think white British people were wimps with spice, even the restaurant who promised it would be spicy served it mild!

Thanks for an interesting thread

Thanks so much for sharing- you've inspired me!

£1900 per person for 13 nights seems extremely pricey for India. That's £292 per night for both of you!

I think you need to knock off flights first...minimum £500 each

Oh, it's surely possible to do it quite a bit cheaper if you book all your own hotels, get all your own airport taxis, hire your on driver for the 4-hour trip from Cochin upcountry to Thekkady, and look up all of the tours on GetYourGuide. But it's also possible to spend a lot more too. And we were very happy to send about 3 e-mails rather than try to work out all the logistics ourselves.

Amazingly, the internal flights (3 trips, 5 sectors because in two cases we had to change in Bengaluru) added a total of just £220 per person to the cost, including a 15kg checked bag.

Ah this brings back memories of my trip to India, though I was on a budget trip. What an assault on the senses, but I absolutely loved it and can't wait to go back.

I meant the international flight or was this in addition?
I've just paid £500 return with Virgin for later this year to Mumbai. Couldn't believe how reasonable that was.

Edit: sorry just read you booked flights separately so £2400 each minimum? I only commented as other poster said it worked out at £292 a day but I thought if flights were Inc this knocked the daily cost down a lot, my mistake.

The international flights were extra. £1950 was for hotels, breakfasts, transfers, sightseeing, guides, and amazing coordination. It can certainly be done cheaper but we liked being treated like royalty and not spending dozens of hours on planning (e.g., if you're doing the golden triangle under your own steam you have to take into account that the Taj Mahal is closed on Fridays, which we might not have thought of). For a week on the beach in Goa I'd probably just go via Booking dot com.

We went on safari at Ranthanbore last month and as well as the usual monkeys, birds, deer and crocodiles we also were lucky enough to see two tigers, a leopard and a bear all pretty close to us for a reasonable length of time too, took plenty of photos. The week after a tiger was actually seen in the car park!

My dad has been to India and has advised me ( personally not other people )not to go, because he said I'd find seeing little children on the streets picking through the litter and I'd want to bring them all home with . Is this still the case.

We did not see anything like that. Of course we were on an organised tour of major places, safe in our air-conditioned car, but even in the poor rural areas that we drove through, we did not see huge numbers of people who were not getting enough to eat. So either the situation has improved since your Dad went, or we went to parts where it wasn't a problem. I suspect a bit of both.

Put another way: 20 years ago we went to a beach resort place in Kenya and when we went outside the poverty really did shock me. I felt actively uncomfortable walking around among it. India was not like that. 🙏

Some parts of Rajasthan were definitely like that. It was quite heartbreaking to see people and dogs and even the wandering sacred cows picking through plastic and rubbish. Also the migrant campers living by the sides of the roads. Shocking conditions. When you get nearer Jaipur, Agra and Delhi, it is far more prosperous and cleaner. The people are clearly better fed too as they have more meat on their bones.