Any Good Travel Agent

Hi All,

I am planning a trip for south India ...(some or all ) Mysore, Kodaikanal, Ooty, Tirupati, Hampi, Hasan etc...

Can anybody please suggest me a good travel agent in INDIA who can take care of car and hotel and everything at a reasonable price.

Also, Do you think I should ADD or remove something from the above mentioned itinerary.

I am new to south India and any help in this regard will be deeply appreciated.

Looking forward for your responses.

Thanks in advance
Nitesh

Hi Nitesh,

I know who NOT to recommend - Namaste. You'll see their name pop up on this forum - but I've had two not very good experiences with them. The first time, we were scheduled to go to a bird sanctuary but arrived after it had closed (and I would have thought they would be the experts on the hours it was open). The second time, even more serious - they booked us in a hotel 5 hours away from our flight at 8 AM - and this was in Sikkim where our itinerary said we were to visit this lake, but the sub-contractor they hired wasn't told that - so we didn't get to visit the lake.

Hmph!

Stephanie

Do a breed liek that exist. Use the resources and plan it yourself. Atleast different people will benefit out if it including local accomodation providers, local taxis and you come to get mopre local info also. I do not think that most travel agents do the research also

Hi, I would suggest to reserch your self before finalize you travel itinerary and book hotel directly so you can get good rates also from hotels as they pay commission to tour agents and hire taxi and driver directly as most of big travel agent don't have thier on fleet, they just hire and provide car you from local driver or agent, they charge you more and pay less to driver and local agent.

Good Luck!!!

There are many tour companies with 'Namaste' in their company name.

Hi Steve,

Re Namaste Travel - I wasn't aware that there was more than one - but it's the largest and best known Namaste Travel - I actually took the recommendation from this website - and it isn't bad, it just isn't all that good!

One thing that I've had a problem with is booking 5 star hotels for not a ridiculous price - that's why I've been using a local travel agent to India - try to book the Taj in Bombay/Mumbai on their website, and you'll end up paying $400 US - yikes! For people interested in this, one of the best web sites to book on is Five Star Alliance - they seem to be able to get the same prices as travel agents in India.

I also tried Carson Wagonlit in Delhi with no luck - you know, I'm kind of wondering now whether I really understand how the travel business works in India...has India Mike ever had a thread on this?

Stephanie

Hi, As I said in my previous mail, most of travel agent don't have their own transport and they provide it to their client from local driver or agent but they have good rates from the various hotel and they like to book you in hotel, which they get good commission or rate so I suggest to book hotel directly as most of hotel have their own website and book your transport from local rent a cab company.

We are using Four Wheel Drive India for provding rent a cab services as their fleet is well maintained and their driver well trained in defensive driving as director of company is trained instructor for driving training and we also trained our company driver by them. We are booking hotel directly for our foreign visitors on good discounted rate from the various hotels in North India.

Good Luck and Have a Nice Time!!!

Where are you starting out from?
peace, gregor

Thanks all for your replies, I am starting from Banglore

Nitesh

From our report:

At first we thought we would go backpacking again, but after consultation on the web we decided to do it a bit more luxurious this time. We did a bit of a websearch, sent out some emails and got in contact with Mrs. Faith Pandian from Window to the World. (www.tourism-southindia.com No 4, Annai Avenue, Vasanth Nagar Extn, Kollidakarai, Srirangam Trichy - 620 006, Tamil Nadu (INDIA) Tel No. :+(91)-(431)-2433372/2437183/2435219 email : info@tourism-southindia.com). Faith reacted very promptly to our emails and did not need any payment up-front. She arranged a brand new ambassador car with AC and driver for us. We paid 875 euros for 25 days unlimited mileage (and unlimited service) which is a bit more than you would probably pay if you arrange it in India.

Our driver Gandhi was absolutely brilliant. Being a father himself he took extremely good care of us and especially of the children. Gandhi is very friendly and speaks good English. He was always on time, the car was clean inside and outside whenever he called in for duty in the morning or when we showed during the day. This is quiet a feat if you imagine our children putting their dirty shoes automatically against the back of the front seats. Gandhi was also a very useful source of information on sights, hotels and restaurants, without being pushy about anything. In the end he even managed to sing along to some of the Dutch songs we sang during the longer car rides. We highly recommend him (and Faiths travel agency).

Happy travels,

Hans