It’s a wrap

Some reflected thoughts / helpful hints on our travels in India

Planning/booking

No problems here. Hotels generally booked through Booking.com on cancellable rates. Airport pick-ups/drop-offs and transfers paid in advance but cancellable up until a few days beforehand.

Ranthambore safaris can book-up very early and whilst allocation of zones is supposed to be random, there did appear to be some benefit to booking early as we got two good zones. Avoid Wednesdays as there is a Ganesh temple close to zones 1-5 and these (the best zones around the fort are shut that day. We booked via the hotel.

Other tours via Get your Guide or Viator reserved in advance but payment is generally only taken a few days before the trip, so can always be cancelled if plans change. Some arrangements for cars/guides also just made with the concierge at the relevant hotel in advance and then confirmed/altered on site as need be. Just watch out for closing days (typically Monday if relevant) and Fridays (when a number of the Islamic sites, notably the Taj Mahal) aren’t open.

Flights

Economy class with Air India from Birmingham, outbound to Amritsar and returning to Delhi. Good flight times and cheaper than Heathrow/Gatwick. Recently taken over by Tata from state control - they are refurbishing the planes, ours were tired and with defective entertainment systems but otherwise fine.

Internal flights with IndiGo (Chandigarh to Mumbai) and Vistara (recently merged with Air India, Mumbai to Udaipur). Fine.

Everything on time and no baggage lost.

Hotels

Amritsar - The Earth By Wyndham. Fine, but seemed largely empty and so no atmosphere.

Chandigarh - Hyatt Centric. Fine, just a corporate chain hotel for a one night stay, but central, some nice local touches and a good on-site restaurant.

Shimla - Wildflower Hall. About 15km out of Shimla, but easy enough to get in and and out and we preferred being out of town, in the countryside, surrounded by trees. Beautiful hotel, fantastic views from the breakfast terrace, nice bar and good facilities including an indoor pool and an outdoor sun terrace and hot tub. A lot of guests on travel agent organised tours appeared to have opted for one night in the Cecil followed by two nights at Wildflower Hall (both Oberoi properties). We couldn’t see the point and had 3 nights at Wildflower Hall.

Mumbai - Taj Mahal Palace. Fabulous. A really historic place, great view out to the Gateway to India and across the sea. Lovely pool area too for a city centre hotel. Stay in the original Palace wing if you can, not the Tower. Do take the free heritage tour, which is fascinating. Didn’t eat in any of the restaurants as there are so many other options in Mumbai, but did have a drink in the bar, which is the oldest licensed bar in Mumbai.

Udaipur - Taj Lake Palace. Keeping up the luxury theme, we had really wanted to stay at the James Bond hotel and it was great! Arrival by boat and an extraordinary place all round. You can’t visit unless you are a guest, so it felt like a real retreat from the hustle and bustle of Udaipur. Dinner at Bhairo, on the roof overlooking the City Palace is a must.

Chittorgarh - Padmini Haveli. An upmarket homestay for a one-night stay en route from Udaipur to Ranthambore. Run by a lovely couple who are also licensed guides to the fort and will show you around. Vegetarian lunch, dinner and breakfast provided. No alchohol. Pretty rooms, not deluxe but very comfortable. Bucket shower.

Ranthambore - Oberoi Vanyavilas. Probably our best room of the holiday - a tented bungalow, with two outside seating areas, comfortable seating inside and a huge bathroom / dressing room with two washbasins etc. Beautiful landscaped gardens. Another nice bar. Full board package here, except alcoholic drinks. Not as much in the middle of nowhere as it looks in the photographs as it’s on the fringes of the town of Sawai Madohpur and there is a reasonably busy road on one side. But still delightful. Just 25 rooms (being expanded to 28).

Jaipur - Dileep Kothi. An 8-room boutique hotel. Comfortable but a bit noisy at night - barking dogs and the call to prayer early morning. About 5km away from the City Palace, and whilst lovely in many other ways would probably try to find something closer in if re-visiting.

Agra - Oberoi Amarvilas. Beautiful hotel - all rooms have a view of the Taj Mahal and the hotel runs a free golf-cart shuttle service to take you there/pick you up. Lovely pool area.

Delhi - Imperial. Super hotel. Well located near to Connaught Place, between Old Delhi and New Delhi (Janpath metro at the entrance). Very historic, loads of interesting pictures and other things to look at whilst wandering around. Good bars and restaurants. Nice pool area.

Other points

No issues in terms of organisation, things happening as expected. Everything went like clockwork.

No concerns over safety/security. Nothing lost or stolen.

Begging - some, but no worse than other places we’ve been. The gap between rich and poor is dramatic, and the occasional example of extreme poverty is upsetting. But there’s a burgeoning middle class - we encountered few British tourists, and not many other white faces. Most people staying in the hotels were Indian, or at least of Indian heritage. So despite the fact that we were staying in such lovely places it fortunately didn’t feel at all as though we were in some white ghetto and completely outside any experience of India.

Traders/guides - again, some pestering but no worse than other places we’ve been.

Money - you can’t take rupees into India. We didn’t take any cash to change - just relied on ATMs (easy enough to find and good security) plus cards.

Clothing - as you would expect really. Not many shorts in sight, even for men. Women tended to be more conservatively dressed (shoulders and knees covered) but the occasional strappy top not a problem except in temples/mosques. Shoes off for temples, and socks too for the Sikh ones.

Pollution - litter is a real problem in many places and in some instances is pretty disgusting. Other places are kept beautifully clean. Air quality is variable - Amritsar, Agra and Delhi were the worst of the places we travelled to, but we were quite lucky. For example, we met people who stayed in the same hotel as us in Agra in mid-November and they hadn’t been able to see the Taj Mahal 600m away; the air quality in Delhi has also been about 4x worse than when we were there. There appears to be a base level of pollution from industrial sources and vehicles, made worse by crop-burning, Divali and the lack of rain/wind at this time of the year.

Crowds - we only encountered crowds in a very few places - inside the mausoleum of the Taj Mahal, around the India Gate in Delhi on a a Sunday afternoon, around the Red Fort in Delhi, and in some of the narrow streets of the bazaars. By and large, we were able to wander at will. Everything in India seemed to us to be massive - huge areas of flat land in the bulk of the area in which we travelled, very agricultural and fertile, and the sights themselves are on a grand scale. It seems that tourism still hasn’t fully recovered since Covid, and that more people tend to come in January/February than in November/December.

Timing/weather - we had lovely weather throughout. Blue skies, little wind, very few clouds. Mumbai the hottest place we visited at c33 degrees, Shimla the coldest at c16 degrees. Most of the time it was around 23-27 degrees. Shimla cold overnight and Agra/Delhi beginning to feel the same by mid-November. No rain and no humidity.

Delhi belly - we didn’t suffer. We were careful with what we choose when we went out or when staying in the less luxurious hotels. In the Taj hotels, the Oberoi hotels and the Imperial we just carried on as normal - ice, salad, seafood, whatever! We didn’t do street food, otherwise no real precautions beyond lots of handwashing.