delhi to goa (and in between) in 3 weeks

anok

hello!

my brother and i (he's 20, i'm 29) are planning a holiday through india from early-to-late may. i know that, weather-wise, it's probably going to be a bit of a slog, but it's just how it's panned out, i guess. anyhoo, so far our vague plan is something like:

dehli(4nights)>agra(1)>jaipur( 3)>bundi(3)>(not sure yet)>mumbai(2)>goa(3)

our budget will be low-to-medium and i imagine we'll probably take trains most of the way, though we'll need to fly back to dehli to depart.

it'll be our first time in india and neither of us have been to asia before.

my query is a general one around whether anyone can suggest somewhere to check out between bundi & mumbai or even in the vague area between mumbai and goa... i'm somewhat wary of spending too much time in big cities, so somewhere a little off the beaten path, but not too inconvenient transport wise would be ideal. initially a friend tried to convince me to check out hampi, but it seems like it'd be a bit a compromise given we only have 21 days to work with and it'd take us off our north->south trajectory. we're totally open to suggestions of better alternatives to the above plans.

i suppose we're after just a general all-round experience together - we don't get to spend much time together anymore - on the surface we're fairly conservative guys, but both crave mischief/adventure at times. goa was his idea, by the way. i intended to avoid it, so i guess it'd be nice to have some idea of quiet spots around there, but i'll save that for another day/thread.

thanks in advance for any feedback/ideas. i feel really fortunate to have stumbled across this website in the last day or two - seems like an incredible resource/community!

mridula

Many would say four days in Delhi are a it too much. And welcome to Indiamike. See if you can drop a few days from Delhi and add Hampi.

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mridula

http://www.gonomad.com/traveltalesfromindia/

anok

thanks for your reply! i've been looking into heading more central after rajasthan and both mandu & pachmari sound quite sweet. i suppose my only concern again revolves around tthe ability to fit them into the itinerary - i'm guessing it'll be at least a couple of days of travel to reach either, especially as we'd probably head there from bundi?

Mickey S

4 nights in Delhi is far too much - in fact, I'd go as far as to say that it is 4 nights too many.

With so little time to see what India has to offer, I'd suggest getting out of Delhi as quickly as possible, for it is little more than a sprawling, polluted, dirty city.

Agra is a real tourist trap, but you might want to consider spending two nights there. There's a lot that is worth seeing, including Fatehpur Sikri, and you would need a full day (from dawn to dusk) to do it justice.

Bundi is lovely. Definitely worth visiting.

From there you could head to Udaipur before continuing south.

steven_ber

There is a train every day except thursday that departs kota at 23.05 and gets to Itarsi Jn at 09.20 the following morning, there are many trains from Itarsi to Pipariya (closest station to Pachmari), a train should take about an hour to get from Itarsi to Pipariya.

To get to Mandu, you'll need to get a bus from Indore, either direct, or change at Dhar.

Train 2416 departs Kota daily at 04.50 and gets to Indore at 11.40
Train 2466 departs Kota daily at 15:05 and gets to Indore at 22.25
Train 2974 departs Kota (Monday & Saturday only) at 00.45 and gets to Indore at 06.55

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