The Start of an Idea
It is mid May 2013 when I make the suggestion that we could perhaps visit India next year – we have thought about doing this in the past but dismissed the idea for one reason or another. Anyway this time it has warranted some serious consideration.
So the first port of call is to find out who does tours to India and what they consist of – and oh yes “how much do they cost?” As we were passing one of the local travel agents we popped in and picked up our first couple of brochures and within five minutes of looking at them we were both hooked – India it was to be next year.
Now, as is normal with us when planning such things, this trip was never going to be straight forward as there were, from the outset, some “extras” that we wanted to do but at this stage these did not really pose a problem as we will be able to sort things out – or so we tried to convince ourselves.
Right so next port of call is to visit Mr Google as he knows everything about everything. It now transpires that “everyone and his dog” do tours to India – great, this is going to make it easy; WRONG – it just complicates the matter as every time we read about somewhere or see a picture of another temple/palace/fort or other sight then it has to go onto the “must do” list – and at this rate we will be in India for about six months, and only do half of the things on our list.
Over the next few days a very weary heavily laden postman keeps pushing India tour brochures through our letterbox with an almighty thud! It soon becomes clear upon reading these brochures that we have three options available to us:
- A fully organised and escorted tour either by road/air/rail or by train.
- A private tour - which is basically the same as doing the escorted tour but you have your own car/driver.
- A custom tailored tour where you have full control over everything - dates/itinerary/hotels etc.
So now the first step is to decide on what itinerary we want to do. This started off as being quite easy as we wanted to do the “Golden Triangle” - until we started to read the brochures or read something on the Internet or spoke to a travel expert and then something else would be added to the itinerary. Within a week we had formulated the basis of our itinerary and it is clear that we will have to go with option three.
We now have three options for option three:
- Go with a UK travel company that specialises in this type of tour and having spoken to a couple of these companies I am impressed (and that takes some doing) with their depth of knowledge and expertise.
- Go with an Indian tour operator - and this is the next thing to be investigated.
- Complete DIY - an option that due to the complexity of what we are doing and not being familiar with the country is probably not a viable option.
One of the consequences of sending for some of the brochures is that I had a phone call from their India “specialist” and whilst this is not something that I would normally appreciate I have found that these people are a mine of useful information. At first I thought that we were starting our planning far too early but it seems that if you want a fully customised tour then some aspects of it need to start getting booked at least twelve months in advance which really only gives a few months to do our research before we have to start talking with one of the tour specialists to create an itinerary and select hotels.